One People, One God, One Flag.

In Philadelphia, on Wednesday, September 7, 2016, Republican Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump defined his candidacy in a phrase which deserves to be enshrined in the history of the United States of America.

He urged his supporters to join with their friends and neighbors in uniting our nation as “one people, under one God, saluting one flag.”

That phrase is a mantra putting flesh on the bones of our motto ‘e pluribus unum.’ Trump does not denigrate our diversity. We are white, black, European, Asian, African, Hindu, Buddist, Muslim. That’s the pluribus. Trump doesn't deny it. He simply asks us to maximize, to emphasize, to focus on the unum.

We are one people because we are all Americans. We speak English. We share a history, a political system, a legal system, an economic system.

And we share one God.

I am surprised that the Clintonites, the mainstream media, the minions of political correctness have not jumped all over Trump’s ‘one God’ statement.

Obama famously declared, while speaking on foreign soil, that America is no longer a Christian nation.

Trump clearly puts himself in opposition to Obama’s disavowal. If we are a nation “under one God” what God is it? Whose God is it? Is our God the Great Spirit worshiped by native Americans? Is it the God known as Allah to Nidal Husan and the 9-11 murderers? Is it the impersonal Budda that exists only conceptually in the minds of Tibetan monks?

No indeed. The God enshrined on our currency, the God called upon to witness the truth of testimony in our courts, the God celebrated by Kate Smith when she sang “God Bless America.” is none other than the God of Abraham, the God of Moses, the God of Jesus Christ, the God of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are one nation under one God because we are a Christian nation. We celebrate Christmas and Easter. We count our days and our years from the birth of Christ. We live by a system of common law founded by Christian judges in England before we became a nation.

When the Founders of our nation wrote in the Northwest Ordinance that “religion, morality and knowledge are necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind” they were talking about the Bible; the summary of Judeo-Christian tradition and belief.

They were talking about the book that enshrines a philosophy of human existence on planet earth as a species of animal life endowed with the spiritual dimensions of intellect and free will that distinguish us from every other form of life.

All through human history there have been people who have risen up to remind us of our destiny as the keepers of the planet; prophets who have called on us to repent; leaders who have urged us to seize the moral high ground; thinkers who have opened our eyes to reality and heroes who have inspired our hearts to embrace the true dimensions of our humanity.

Not all of those people were smart or beautiful, or popular or welcomed. Some were tarred and feathered, some were tortured and martyred, many were ridiculed and scorned. Still others were simply ignored.

Whether Donald J. Trump belongs in that company, I cannot say. His words may very well have been the work product of some anonymous speechwriter who will never be identified.

But the fact is that Donald J. Trump is the one who said those words. He may be ill equipped to explain them, to expand upon their message, to defend their importance to all Americans and to our progeny.

I can only hope that he will try. I can only hope that, flawed as he may be by however he has lived and whatever he may have said or done in the past, he will endorse the full meaning of America as one people, believing in one God and saluting one flag. 

If he brings that kind of a profile to the upcoming Presidential debates, he will not only win the election; he will have started our nation on a course that will restore the American dream of liberty under law, and literally make America Great Again.