One Nation Under God

The Rev. George M. Docherty, whose sermon inspired the campaign to add the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, died on Thanksgiving Day.

Rev. Docherty passed away after a lengthy illness at his home in central Pennsylvania at the age of 97, according to The Associated Press.

A native of Scotland, Rev. Docherty never heard the Pledge of Allegiance recited until he moved to the United States in 1950, where he became pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.

From an Associated Press story about Rev. Docherty's efforts to amend the Pledge:

He was unfamiliar with the pledge until he heard it recited by his 7-year-old son, Garth.

"I didn't know that the Pledge of Allegiance was, and he recited it, 'one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,'" he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2004. "I came from Scotland, where we said 'God save our gracious queen,' 'God save our gracious king.' Here was the Pledge of Allegiance, and God wasn't in it at all."

Docherty then wrote a sermon saying that the Pledge of Allegiance should acknowledge God.There was little effect after he first delivered the sermon to a group of clergy visiting Washington in 1952; a 1953 bill went nowhere.

But two years later, after learning that Eisenhower would be in the congregation, Docherty decided to deliver it again, hoping it would inspire the president.

From the pulpit that morning, he said the pledge was missing "the characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life. Indeed, apart from the mention of the phrase 'the United States of America,' it could be the pledge of any Republic. In fact, I could hear little Muscovites repeat a similar pledge to their hammer and sickle flag in Moscow with equal solemnity."

The next day, Rep. Charles G. Oakman, R-Mich., introduced a bill to add the phrase "under God" to the pledge; a companion bill was then introduced in the Senate. Eisenhower signed the new law on Flag Day.

That's Rev. Docherty in the photo with his wife, Sue, in a 2004 file photo.