Gawker, as usual, brings us the religion news: The Rev. George M. Docherty, a Scotsman who advocated for adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance so that Americans sound like royal subjects who say “God save the Queen” — I’m not making that up! — has died at age 97. It was Docherty’s idea, but the project of a number of conservative congressmen who saw the addition of those two words as a vaccine against communism. Michael Newdow, the earnest atheist who took the phrase all the way to the Supreme Court, is often ridiculed for fretting over a bit of symbolism. But that ridicule is a sign of how effective that symbolism has been at normalizing any number of theological concepts into our ostensibly secular nation. Not just the existence of God, but our submission to God; and not just individual submission, but national submission. “One nation, under God” implies that unity is only possible with that submission. The conservatives who longed for that acknowledgment may not have anticipated its consequences — a big tent “God,” vague enough for us all to ignore him or praise him as we please. Rev. Docherty, God-diluter, R.I.P.