Flags?
I was driving by a church yesterday and I noticed there was a flagpole in front of the building. What I saw made me cringe. On the flagpole where two flags: American Flag and Christian Flag. Which was on top?... the American Flag.
What does this say?
What does this say?
posted by Joseph | 4:33 PM
7 Comments:
What does this say?
EVERYTHING.
P.S. I have two flag anecdotes I just have to share.
1) Memorial Day service at my father-in-laws Wesleyan Church: someone (not him) had constructed a shrine (there's no better word) on and around the communion table honouring the various branches of the armed forces. The table was flanked by the US flag on one side and the Xn flag on the other (didn't take note of which left or right), and in front of the table were a few boxes draped w/ an olive drap blanked to create a multi-tiered display for four framed photos of a soldier from each of the four branches (and their representative hats, as I recall). The kicker: ON the communion table was the Bible (the giant, communion-table kind, open on a gold stand) on one side and a tri-folded American flag on the other side (American flag, 2: Christian flag: 1), with the gold cross in the middle. But on the top of the cross was hanging an army green plastic helmet! I literally felt queasy at this borderline- (aw heck, let's be honest, it was way over the line) idolatrous display. At the end of the service, I went up and took the helmet off the cross and set it down next at the foot of the cross, but when I looked back 10 minutes later, before leaving, someone (whoever'd built the shrine, I'm guessing) had put it back on the cross.
2) July Fourth also at my in-laws church, but a different church (dad-in-law pastored the first one, but not this one): big patriotic musical for 4th of July, and they'd rented a giant (I mean, really huge) flag to hang at the front of the church, so of course they hung it on the front wall where it covered up the cross. To make matters worse, they'd also rented a statue of Lady Liberty (about 15 ft. tall), and put her, naturally, for lack of a better place, IN THE BAPTISTRY (so, under the covered-up cross, in front of the flag). I love the idea of baptising the Statue of Liberty for our yearly "worship of America" extravaganza...
I know these are both examples from Wesleyan and not Nazarene churches, but I'm sure this kinda thing goes on in CsOTN all the time - in my experience we're almost indistinguishable from the Wesleyans. So it could be said that, in using these examples, I don't mean to criticize them (they're not "my church" so its not my place), but to hold a mirror up to us in the COTN.
How sickening is this stuff! It amazes me the freakin ignorance of the life of the Church. This is just the tip of the iceberg as well. One of my church's difficulties and my own personal difficulty is the fact that my father is a chaplain in the national guard and he spent 1.5 yrs in Iraq. You still lean towards the passive side of life? I do. I can't put fighting and Christ in the same sentence.
Is this a particularly American thing? Do the Brits or Scots mix God and Country as we do here?
Well, not passive I hope, but yes, still (this is the best way I've come up with to phrase it) "strive to uphold a pacifist ideal," although I hope it is an active pacifism. I've come to realize that absolute pacifism is difficult to maintain in a fallen world, and I admit the possibility that I might "break my own rule" so to speak if, say, loved ones' lives were in the balance...but I maintain that violence = sin, even "just wars" and "justifiable" violence (as such notions are rooted a worldly standard of justice), which is why I maintain a pacifistic ideal (like I maintain a Wesleyan ideal of "perfection").
RE: whether or not this is a uniquely American phenom, it both is and isn't a problem in the UK. I would say they don't "mix God and country" like we do, but they have the same tendency we do to dissonantly juxtapose their religious and national symbols. Remember that the UK was absolutely rocked by both world wars. Scotland lost something like 2/3 of their adult male population in WWI, and several sites in Scotland were really devastated in WWII, even in and around Glasgow (they built ships along the Clyde river, so it was a target). Because of this, you get lots of strange mixtures of symbolism in churches: war memorials, plaques w/ the names of fallen soldiers associated with a particular parish, national/military flags and the like. In that sense it is much like America. But I have NEVER seen a church in Scotland "turn it on" like we almost-annually do and devote a service to honouring the military or worshipping the nation. They save their nationalism for the football matches.
So, Joseph, if I understand you correctly, what you mean, is similiar to what's expressed in this t-shirt...am I right? ;-)
Actually I would edit the shirt to say, "Not a Christian symbol". One might be able to argue that America could be a religion.
Where'd you find that shirt?
Good observation, or research.
It was on cafe press under their "religion" category...I linked there from Lark News which has some funny t-shirts (that say stuff like "Abstinence is Forever" and "Homeschooled and WILD!").
But yeah, I think you're right: nationalism can be a religion, as can money/capital...and in that sense, America really is a religious, "god"-fearing nation...just less so a Christian one.
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