“Such theology does not undertake to be the science of God for it knows that the Transcendent Universal is known or acknowledged only in acts of universal loyalty and in transcending confidence, precedent to all inquiry and action. Loyalty and confi- dence of that sort, it knows, are not demonstrated more in so-called religious acts of mind or body than in so-called secular activities. Hence it calls attention to the way in which every individual, group, and institution is directly related to the Transcendent—whether positively in trust and loyalty or negatively in distrust and disloyalty.
The part that these convictions have played in the political field in the development of what we call democracy has again become the subject of considerable discussion. What does it mean to a state that it is "under God"; without absolute sovereignty; directly responsible to the Transcendent; one institution among many with similar responsibilities to the same One; having citizens who are first of all citizens of another, prior, and universal Commonwealth? The alternative to pluralistic democracy in which every man is a king or every minority or majority group the court of last resort is not a dictatorship of an individual or a class or of the common will, but a democracy in which loyalty to the universal Commonwealth and its Constitution is maintained though no single human power or institution-including the church or the people-can represent that Great Republic or do anything except point to it and try to be loyal to it.”