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Bruce Ledewitz, Professor of Law at Duquesne University School of Law, is in The Huffington Post dicussing a panel debate at the Netroots Nation Convention entitled: "A New Progressive Vision for Church and State: How I Learned to Accept "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and Stop Losing Elections." There is a video of the panel discussion available (which I have not watched yet).

Ledewitz explains the proposal thusly:

The old liberal vision of a total separation of religion from politics has been discredited. Despite growing secularization, a secular progressive majority is still impossible, and a new two-part approach is needed--one that first admits that there is no political wall of separation. Voters must be allowed, without criticism, to propose policies based on religious belief. But, when government speaks and acts, messages must be universal. The burden is on religious believers, therefore, to explain public references like 'under God' in universal terms. For example, the word 'God' can refer to the ceaseless creativity of the universe and the objective validity of human rights. Promoting and accepting religious images as universal will help heal culture-war divisions and promote the formation of a broad-based progressive coalition.

He specifically discusses the recent overwhelming vote in the House of Representatives to have the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Motto "In God We Trust" engraved in the Capitol Visitor Center. Ledewitz argues:

As long as government plausibly justifies religious imagery in nonreligious terms, its use would be constitutional. For example, the phrase in 'God We Trust' means the biblical creator to many religious believers. But it can also mean that we acknowledge that there are binding standards of right and wrong, such as the anti-torture principle, to which America is subject.

Although Ledewitz admits that the supporters of this bill "really wish to assert that we trust in God today and that we ought to trust in God," he nonetheless argues:

[I]f the word "God" were as small as they think it is, the national motto would be unconstitutional. But since God has much broader meaning than any merely sectarian use, the presence of this word in the public square can be justified even under the principle of government religious neutrality.

If so, then there is a simple way to make that clear: let's adopt Jefferson's phraseology and make it "one nation under nature and nature's God" and "In nature and nature's God we trust." After all, the Religious Right could hardly justly complain, since they are constantly pushing the Declaration of Independence as evidence that this is a "Christian nation."

Despite that, I somehow doubt such a proposal would go over well with the same people who want to carve "God" into the very stone that makes up our public places. In that event, I think Professor Ledewitz needs to explain just how he can still maintain it is not merely a sectarian use.

Words only mean what people want them to mean.
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