Having just returned from Israel, I found NBC’s “Pledge of Allegiance” debacle extra-fascinating. I also just finished reading an absolutely extraordinary book, Banquet at Delmonico’s, by Barry Werth.

The visit, NBC, and Werth’s book all dovetailed for me, as I have listened to folks all over the country question, with outrage, how a major network could “edit-out God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.

May I offer my opinion?

Werth’s book provides more than a clue, as he traces the spreading of Darwinian philosophy from England to America, in the 19th century.

The philosophical worldview of Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Herbert Spencer & Friends was met with open arms by men like the clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, the industrialist Andrew Carnegie, political kingpin Carl Schurz, and scientist Asa Gray.

The Darwinists actually thought of the Bible as “Jewish legend.” There is your key.

For more than a century, our beloved country has marinated in the juices of Darwinian philosophy. That worldview demands a reduction of the Judeo-Christian foundations on which America was founded.

Decision-makers in several spheres of life, mostly in the East, have developed their views based largely on Spencer’s social Darwinism. That is why our political, judicial, and media institutions do what they do.

There are still plenty of Bible-believing Christians in the U.S., but few of them pull the levers of power. A media giant like NBC, in general, is staffed by liberals. Plenty of them do not believe in God, or at least the God of the Bible.

That’s why a “decision was made” to delete God from the Pledge of Allegiance in a broadcast last week. It isn’t a mystery.

NBC is simply working-out its worldview.

When I was in Israel, I visited Jaffa, the ancient seaport where, the Bible tells us, a man named Jonah boarded a ship and was later swallowed by a large fish.

I do not believe that is Jewish legend. I believe it happened exactly as the Bible describes.

If Francis Crick could believe and teach, with a straight face, that aliens had seeded Earth with life pods that eventually evolved into…us…then I can believe a large fish swallowed Jonah.

One worldview has no need or use for God; the other depends on Him desperately.

Many would say it is too simplistic to ascribe Darwin’s views to this NBC thing. Critics of my view would almost all believe in evolution, by the way, so their criticism must be taken with a grain of salt.

I am simply saying that a nation steeped in the philosophy of naturalism, for a century, will logically end up at a place in which attempts are made to delete God from the national life.

That is where we are in history.