Tall and commanding behind the pulpit, the Rev. Dr. George M. Docherty turned the Sunday morning worship service at Huntingdon Presbyterian Church into an exercise of historical immersion. Carefully selected music, the usual service reorganized and a historically significant sermon \u2014 the congregation was taken back to near 50 years ago, to the era of the Cold War and the threat of nuclear weapons and communism.
\nDocherty, 91, of Alexandria, originally from Scotland, Great Britain, has been thrust into the limelight recently, the result of the controversy over the pledge of allegiance and whether or not the pledge\u2019s declaration that the U.S. is one nation, \u201cunder God\u201d is constitutional. Depending on which camp you belong to, Docherty is your man \u2014 the one who either deserves credit, or is to blame, for the words \u201cunder God.\u201d
\nMembers of Huntingdon Presbyterian Church, guests and other members of the community, heard the same words this passed Sunday morning that President Dwight Eisenhower heard Sunday, Feb. 7, 1954, during the Lincoln birthday service at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.
\nThe president was so inspired by Docherty\u2019s sermon that he lead Congress on a campaign to make America \u201cone nation under God.\u201d School children now say those words every morning, ball players before every game and civic leaders before every meeting.
\nDocherty\u2019s sermon, as everyone found out Sunday, is really about how to define and describe the \u201cAmerican way of life.\u201d He said, \u201cIt is going to the ballgame and eating popcorn; it is shopping in Sears & Roebuck; it is losing heart and hat on a rollercoaster\u201d …. \u201cit is being bored with television commercials.\u201d It is all these things, but as Docherty noted, \u201cit is deeper than that.\u201d
\nDocherty reminded the congregation that the United States is a country whose roots were sowed by Puritans, so called because \u201cthey wished to live the pure and noble life purged of all idolatry and enslavement of the mind, even by the Church.\u201d Docherty said, \u201cThey did not realize that in fleeing from tyranny and setting up a new life in a new world, they were to be the Fathers of a Mighty Nation.\u201d
\nThe preacher also talked about Abraham Lincoln, and how the 16th president, 90-some years before Eisenhower, already contrived the county was \u201cunder God.\u201d Thomas Jefferson did before Lincoln. Docherty said, \u201cWherefore, Lincoln claims that it is \u2018under God\u2019 that this nation shall know a new birth of freedom. And by implication, it is under God that \u2018government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.\u2019\u201d
\nDocherty said the realization that the pledge was lacking the concept so obvious and important to the founding fathers and great statesmen of the past, came \u201cin a flash\u201d when he learned the pledge from his young sons.
\n\u201cThey were very proud of the pledge and rightly so,\u201d said Docherty. \u201cI don\u2019t suppose you fathers would have paid as much attention to that as I did. I had one advantage over you. I could listen to those noble words as if for the first time.\u201d
\nDocherty said after \u201cbrooding over each word,\u201d he came to a \u201cstrange conclusion\u201d that there was something missing \u2014 \u201cthe characteristic and definitive factor in the \u2018American Way of Life.\u2019\u201d He said he found the pledge could be that of any republic. \u201cIn fact, I could hear little Muscovites repeat a similar pledge to their hammer and sickle flag in Moscow with equal solemnity, for Russia is also a republic that claims to have overthrown the tyranny of the kingship.\u201d
\nThe pledge needed something that could define the borders between \u201cCommunist Russia\u201d and the \u201cdemocratic institutions of this country.\u201d
\nTurning to the words of Thomas Jefferson, Docherty told the congregation, \u201cIf we deny the existence of the \u2018God who gave us life,\u2019 how can we live by \u2018the liberty he gave us at the same time?\u2019\u201d
\nHe said, \u201cThis is a God-fearing nation. On our coins, bearing the imprint of Lincoln and Jefferson, are the words \u2018In God We Trust.\u2019 Congress is opened with prayer. It is upon the Holy Bible the president takes his oath of office. Naturalized citizens, when they take their oath of allegiance, conclude, solemnly, with the words, \u2018so help me God.\u2019\u201d
\nIn 1954, Docherty, in his sermon, said he felt the issue of the day was, \u201cA freedom that respects the rights of the minorities, but is defined by a fundamental belief in God.\u201d
\nIt is a way of life, he said, \u201cthat sees man, not as the ultimate outcome of a mysterious concaternation of evolutionary process, but a sentient being created by God and seeking to know His will, and \u201cWhose soul is restless till he rest in God.\u201d
\nHe said, \u201cWe are one nation, indivisible under God and humbly as God has given us the light we seek liberty and justice for all. This quest is not only within these United States but to the four corners of the globe, wherever man will lift his head towards the vision of his true and divine manhood.\u201d
\nDavid N. Taylor, who had returned home to Huntingdon for the weekend, was moved by Docherty\u2019s sermon. \u201cDr. Docherty really is a national treasure,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cHe is a great Christian statesman.\u201d
\nPastor Richard E. Gardiner Jr., who willingly gave the pulpit to the man who put \u201cunder God\u201d in the pledge, said Docherty fits right in with other Christian statesmen who have attended Huntingdon Presbyterian. \u201cOur church has a rich history and he is part of that history, he said.\u201d
\nGardiner, who welcomed the congregation and introduced Docherty, said all present were going to be the recipients of a rare treat. \u201cThis is not by some interpreter, but by the same person who changed our pledge of allegiance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tall and commanding behind the pulpit, the Rev. Dr. George M. Docherty turned the Sunday morning worship service at Huntingdon Presbyterian Church into an exercise of historical immersion. Carefully selected music, the usual service reorganized and a historically significant sermon \u2014 the congregation was taken back to near 50 years ago, to the era of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}