This is a 1941 photo of a typical American school classroom. The salute was discontinued by an Act of Congress in 1942. Public domain, Steven L. Shields Collection

My homeland just went through a hard-fought presidential election that pitted half the country against the other half. The prevailing side has been touting the slogan "Make America Great Again" for about 10 years. The slogan presupposes that the United States was once a great nation but is no longer. However, promoters are hard-pressed to pinpoint when the country specifically lost its greatness. Or, at which point in history was America at its greatest?

In America before World War II, schoolchildren, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and others would not place their hand over their hearts when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead, they proffered a palm-down, stiff-armed salute. This "salute" prevailed well into the 1930s, even though the German Nazi Party was also using it. It took some time to change the salute.

The wording of the Pledge of Allegiance has changed several times since its introduction in the 1890s. The last time was in 1954 when an Act of Congress, undoubtedly influenced by the "Red Scare" of the Cold War, inserted the words "under God" into the recitation. So in the last stanza, "…one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," became "…one nation under God, indivisible…" I've yet to hear the pledge recited correctly, though, as Americans pause after "one nation" as if there is a comma.

Or, how about the motto of the United States, "E pluribus unum"? Such a lofty ideal crafted by the founding brothers and sisters of American democracy. "Out of many, one" was something that I grew up with as what a great nation was all about, although we had segregation and rampant racism during my childhood. However, another Act of Congress replaced the motto in 1956 with "In God We Trust." The Constitution clearly states the separation of church and state, but Congress got away with this one, too. Now, it's on all the U.S. currency.

America has entered an era when many believe that God protected their preferred candidate from two assassination attempts. They promote policies that are racially, culturally and sexually exclusive. They yearn for mass deportations (though I find it interesting that both Trump and Vance are married to immigrants). I'm not just a little bit worried that many people are substituting their political bias for God. Perhaps they have forgotten that Jesus was not a white man and he did not speak English. There were no Democrats or Republicans in his lifetime. He carried a cross, not a gun. And nowhere in the Bible does it say, "God loves only America," but God loved the world (except perhaps in Trump's newly published patriotic Bible, to which he added many non-biblical documents).

Many in America are confused about religious freedom. They want to tell others what they can or cannot do based on their beliefs. Well, folks, you're free to believe what you want, but you aren't free to impose your beliefs on others by law, coercion or otherwise. That is persecution through religion, plain and simple. Many Christians love to chant, "It says so in the Bible,' or, "My authority is the Bible." But they only know what their pastor told them in church.

Some Americans believe it is the church's responsibility to "Make America Great Again" but fail to realize their spokesman-in-chief is hardly a church-goer and lacks the standard moral compass of humankind. In its first few hundred years, the Christian church was a counter-cultural, anti-government social organization. The church needs to reclaim those roots. The church must implement what Jesus taught his first-century disciples to do if they wanted to be saved. He told them to "take up your cross," "sell all you have and give it to the poor," "comfort those who suffer," "feed the hungry" and "clothe the naked." Christians are to renounce violence, welcome strangers, forgive sinners and embrace the radical love lacking today.

The Christianity of Jesus was a lifestyle, not an institutional religion. He never told his followers to reject their Jewish roots. Since the adoption of Christianity as a state religion by Emperor Constantine, the church has not only been "in bed" with the imperium but, for many centuries, controlled governments and society. Even today, in the United Kingdom, the king must be anointed and crowned by the church authorities. I am not criticizing here; I am just pointing out that the "established" religion is so much the norm that we don't think of it any other way.

During most of the church's history, a person could be violent, greedy, uncaring, racist, etc., and still believe that their "personal Lord and Savior" is Jesus Christ. Believers need to make radical changes in their thinking, lifestyle and faith. Our world is suffering greatly at this very minute. People are starving, being killed in war, dying of disease. We Christians must put into action the Christ-life and become the hands and feet of Jesus to our neighbors near and far.

Rev. Steven L. Shields, FRAS (slshields@gmail.com) has lived in Korea for many years, beginning in the 1970s. A lifelong member of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea, he has served as a director and president. He was a copy editor of The Korea Times in 1977. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect The Korea Times' editorial stance.