A rant at Salon decries efforts to give precedence to the Christian flag above the national one:
The push began last week, when North Carolina’s Elizabeth Baptist Church Pastor Rit Varriale posted a video to YouTube calling people across the land “to stand up for traditional values and beliefs” by raising a Christian flag above the American one to send a message that “We’ll serve God before government… a government that tries to coerce us to violate our commitments to God.”...The entry at Wikipedia offers some historical perspective:
In a conversation with Baptist Press, Variable added that “If you stop and think about it, [flag etiquette] is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches us. We are first and foremost Christians who are called to serve the living God.” (Flag etiquette dictates that the American flag always appear above all other flags on the same flagpole.)...
This spring, both Cochran and Bleckley County, Georgia, voted to raise a Christian flag over municipal buildings — despite the fact that as Americans United for Separation of Church and State pointed out, “It sends a crystal clear message that one religion is favored above all others.”
The Christian Flag is a flag designed in the early 20th century to represent all of Christianity and Christendom, and has been most popular among Protestant churches in North America, Africa and Latin America. The flag has a white field, with a red Latin cross inside a blue canton. The shade of red on the cross symbolizes the blood that Jesus shed on Calvary. The blue represents the waters of baptism as well as the faithfulness of Jesus. The white represents Jesus' purity...The entry there goes on to discuss denominational flags and Christian elements in various national flags.
The Christian Flag was first conceived on September 26, 1897, at Brighton Chapel on Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York...During World War II the flag was flown along with the U.S. flag in a number of Lutheran churches, many of them with German backgrounds, who wanted to show their solidarity with the United States during the war with Germany... It can be seen today in or outside many Protestant churches throughout the world, particularly in Latin America and Africa...
Photo credit: Flickr/Joanne Canen, Creative Commons License
my state's capitol is named for god.
ReplyDeleteI-)
"Our flag is better than your flag! Nyah, nyah, nyah!"
ReplyDeleteWhen on earth is this idiocy going to end?
We OUGHT to hold our Christian values higher than our national values. If government is the highest law of all, then we will need to apologize for the Nuremberg Trials. Their government commanded certain actions...we felt that something superior to government should have controlled their actions.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, in America,. trying to be coldly objective, we wind up thinking every religion is equal...and so we are afraid to choose a side. But consider that the Islamic terrorist would argue that his religious interpretation allows him to commit atrocities. So it is not just some generic religion that should be superior to our allegiance to government...but a PARTICULAR religion must be chosen if they are at odds.
I say get on one side...and just go with it. It served us well enough for a long time. I bet it will serve us well forever.
So, just to be clear about what you're suggesting - should ONLY Christian values be held higher than U.S. government laws? You're obviously excluding Islamic laws. How about Jewish laws, Hindu ones, Buddhist, African etc?
DeleteWhen you say "our", who do you mean? Millions of proud American citizens do not worship your god. In fact, the country seems to be at its worst whenever your religion is promoted over others. Maybe the better solution is to get rid of the subversive element trying to bring down the U.S. Go find a Christian country to live in, if it's so important to you. Leave America to those of us who respect this country.
DeleteI'll bet you don't like it when the shoe's on the other foot, huh?
It's true that the religious interpretation of so-called "Islamic" terrorists justifies atrocities in their minds. But at least those terrorists are fringe groups. There have been far worse atrocities justified by MAINSTREAM Christian interpretations, including the genocide of the Native Americans, the enslavement of millions of free Africans, the oppression of the entirety of Latin American, etc. And none of the above were "one-time" events. They were sustained over centuries with the support of a plurality of Christians in the USA.
DeleteIn short, if a PARTICULAR religion must be chosen, it should NOT be Christianity.
Here is a technical explanation for religious folk.
ReplyDeleteEven though people refer to God as a higher power, it really only is a power in the afterlife, God's power (=influence) is entirely mystical. There is a big difference between God's mystical power and the very real influence of a political movement invoking God.
Higher power is not just a synonym for God. There are things in life which are bigger than the individual such as a family, a community, political party, a worker union, a political movement and a nation. Throughout history certain people sacrificed their life's efforts and even their lives to create, support and protect those things, because they knew that a familiy, a party and a nation are bigger than the individual and they can achieve and sustain things a person alone couldn't.
A religious community may be such a higher power in your eyes as well, but just by virtue of numbers it will never be bigger than a nation at least if only citizens count.
i suggest everyone re-watch 'god, the devil and bob' and then re-evaluate their comments andviews.
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Religion aside, can we talk about the vexilological qualities of a red cross on a blue canton? Didn't the designers know about the Rule of tincture?
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to learn a few weeks ago that the US flag Code allows for a religious flag to fly above the US Flag during church services at sea.
ReplyDeleteWe have separation of church and state as a basic tenet of our democracy. If people want to fly the so-called Christian flag at their place of worship, fine. It has no place near our national flag.
ReplyDeleteJust what I was going to point out. Rules governing the national flag are secular laws, not religious ones. And for separation of church and state to function properly, it has to be understood that secular laws MUST take precedent over religious ones. Simply put, if my religion tells me to rob a bank, I can still go to jail for theft. If religious 'laws' are in conflict with national laws, then perhaps the belief in question needs to be re-evaluated.
DeletePlease note that I am neither a die-hard patriot nor a die-hard religious zealot. I'm merely attempting to apply logic to this problem.