Last Thursday afternoon I attended the citizenship ceremony here in Toowoomba as more than one hundred migrants took on Australian citizenship.

When it comes to the allegiance we pledge to our country things have certainly changed.  My grandchildren are growing up in a culture that is just so different from that in which I grew up.  During my primary school days we had a weekly ritual in which all the students gathered around the flagpole in neat rows by class.  We put our right hand over our heart and solemnly intoned, “I love God and my country; I’ll honour the flag and serve the queen.”  I suspect that there may have been more to it but that’s the line I still remember.

Today it would cause an uproar of ‘Richter 8’ proportions if any teacher in a public school made their students admit to loving God.  That’s neither politically correct nor wise in a multi-religious society.  That made me all the more grateful last Thursday when it came to the pledges these new Australians made.  These migrants were given the choice of either a pledge that included God or one without any mention of Him.  By far the majority of folk chose to pledge their loyalty to their country “under God”.

That was gratifying for two reasons.  First because it shows that despite the politically correct attempts to create a culture in which God has been moved out of the public square, there are still many people (a majority!) who don’t go along with that.  Okay!  I know that those who chose to use the pledge that affirmed the existence of God were a mixed bunch of people.  Some – as they mentioned God – would be thinking of the God who reveals Himself in the Bible.  Others would simply be thinking of some vague superior being who controls the universe.  However, despite that, the strong support for a God-affirming pledge showed something of the God-consciousness that is still there in our society.  A second reason why I found this gratifying was because it showed that these people were willing to stand up and be counted in this small but significant way.

Things have changed.  I recall being involved in such a citizenship ceremony here in Toowoomba back in the 80s.  I attended on that occasion as representative of the Ministers’ Association and was asked to lead in an opening prayer.  Last Thursday there was no clergy representative and there was no opening prayer.  But there was this stubborn insistence that God be acknowledged in some way.  He was...!

Maybe there’s another aspect to this pledge that affirms the existence of God.  We, who know this God in Jesus Christ His Son, know that there is a more important citizenship than that of our wonderful country, Australia.  Our citizenship is in heaven from where we await the Saviour who will take us to our eternal homeland.  It’s great to be an Aussie (Oi, oi, oi...!) but it’s even more wonderful to have our citizenship in heaven.

JWW