Jacoby has pointed out that the presence of some religious elements in the governmental scene of the United States is a matter of customs and not of laws, and that many of those elements are more recent than people tend to believe. She has cited as an example the pledge of allegiance, only written in 1892 and which did not include the expression 'Under God' until 1954. These words were added with the sole purpose of distinguishing the American government from the Soviet one, which was considered atheist.