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Flags in the Worship Space: A Theological Perspective The presence of our nation's flag in the worship space stirs deep passions for many people. Our nation's flag reminds us of the freedom that we enjoy and the price that many have paid to protect that freedom. For many Americans, the flag evokes memories of a time when many people shared what were thought of as "basic values." For other Americans, the flag is a more complex symbol--a reminder of both things that we as a people are proud of and things of which we are ashamed. For those for whom the flag is a positive symbol, its presence along side the cross seems good and natural. For those for whom the flag conveys a mixture of positive and negative associations it is troubling to see our nation's flag, standing in the worship space along side the symbols of our faith. Our Christian commitment requires us to move beyond our feelings, both positive and negative, about our nation and its flag and to ask only what our faith requires us to do. We must move the focus from ourselves and how we see things to God and how God would have us see things. We look to God's Word as it is revealed to us in scripture, and seek to apply that Word to our situation. In scripture we find a number of ideas that speak to the question of a national flag in our worship space. The God whom we meet in the Bible is a jealous God, a God who demands that he alone is to be worshiped, a God who demands all of our allegiance. The scriptures present us with the picture of a God that will not share our loyalty with any other being or cause, no matter how noble. We discover that God's intentions are that his people be one in him, and that the divisions between people be bridged with Christ's peace. In scripture we discover that Christians must be able to take a stand with or against human institutions depending on whether they serve or oppose God's cause. We learn that our identity is found in Christ and not in the labels and experiences of this world. We are accustomed to seeing our life in terms of competing priorities. We have a limited amount of time to live. Our jobs demand a certain amount of our attention. Our families need us and we enjoy being with them. When the opportunity to work extra hours comes along we make a decision on how we will use our time based on our priorities. Each priority has a claim on us and we try to balance them all. Some of the priorities that claim our time, our attention, and even our loyalty are God, our church, our family, our country, our friends, our leisure time, and our job. We try to please them all and give some of ourselves to each. Most of us, if asked, would place God as our top priority, ranking family, country, etc., in various orders beneath God. Even though we don't always live as if God were our top priority, as Christians we would no doubt agree that we were intended to live that way. But, in the gospels Jesus does not talk about life in terms of a ranking of priorities. Jesus does not see his followers as balancing competing claims, serving multiple masters. He tells us quite plainly: "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other." Mat 6:24 Jesus tells us that there is only ONE claim on our time, attention and loyalty: GOD. God's intention, expressed in scripture, is that we love and serve ONLY God: "You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and ALL your mind and ALL your strength." That doesn't mean love God with more of your heart; it means quite plainly-love NOTHING ELSE. All of us, everyday, are tempted to give God less than ALL. We justify it by saying that other things, family, country, job, are also important, valuable and good. They are! But God doesn't demand first place God demands the ONLY place in our hearts. Once, when Jesus called someone to follow him they said, "... wait until I bury my father."-- A noble priority. But Jesus replied quite bluntly: "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Luke 9:60 We might see our family as having a competing claim on our loyalty, but Jesus said: "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26. Of course Jesus didn't really mean that we should hate anyone. This is Jesus' way of strongly saying that there are no competing priorities. There is only God. The flag, by its presence makes a claim on our loyalty that stands opposed to God's exclusive claim. The question of loyalty to country was addressed directly by Jesus when he was asked the question: "Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?" Jesus asked for a coin. A coin that bore the emperor's image was given him. Looking at it he said: "Whose image is on this coin?" They answered him: "The emperor's." He responded: "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." By saying that, Jesus was telling us that to live in the world we may have to pay taxes, support governments, join armies, and serve on juries. It is even honorable to do those things, but we always need to remember in whose image we are made. The coins may belong to Caesar. We belong exclusively to God. Our life is not divided between loyalty to country and to God. We belong to God. Symbols, such as crosses and flags, are reminders of larger realities. The cross reminds us that God loved us so much that he gave his Son to die that we might have salvation, forgiveness and life in his name. Our flag reminds us of our country, of its beauty and natural resources, of the freedoms that we treasure and the blood that has been shed protecting those freedoms. The flag is a noble and precious symbol. But what does the flag standing in the sanctuary with the cross remind us of? It tells us that we have competing priorities, two things that make claims on our loyalty, that the cross and the flag, God and our country claim a portion of our hearts and souls and minds and strength. We have a sacred duty to see that our symbols don't suggest that we have two loves, two loyalties, two masters. We have a duty to see that, as Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God and him ONLY shall you serve." We must insist that our symbols show that in the church only God has a claim on our loyalty, only God is served; only God is loved. To put this quite simply, when you see our national flag what do you think of? Don't you think of "the pledge of allegiance?" The flag is a symbol that by its presence asks for our allegiance, our loyalty. That poses a serious conflict, because as Christians we believe that we owe allegiance only to God. In a world that makes so many claims on us it is difficult to live as if we only owe loyalty to God. When the cross and flag are juxtaposed in our worship space, when our symbols suggest that something other than God is worthy of our allegiance and love then we move dangerously close to promoting idolatry. Luther, in the Large Catechism says, "... god is that from which we are to expect everything good to which we are to take refuge in all times of need." A god is whatever we trust and believe in. "Therefore I say that your god in reality is that around which you entwine your heart and on which you place your confidence." Many people do "entwine their heart" around the nation and the flag and place their confidence in them. For these people the flag and the country has become an idol, something that claims a place with God in our hearts. To do anything that would suggest that the flag calls for our allegiance would be to break the first commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me." We would not be serving God to encourage this kind of devotion to country by suggesting that the flag somehow belongs next to the symbol of our loyalty, faith and love for God.
Jesus, when he cleansed the temple, quoted Isaiah. He said: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.... " S. Anita Stauffer, in her Altar Guild Handbook, the manual on Lutheran worship, writes: "National flags, being political symbols that mark the divisions of humankind, do not belong in that space where we celebrate our baptismal oneness as citizens in the Kingdom of God. Symbols used in the church should affirm the unity that all peoples can know through baptism into Christ; national flags are by their nature exclusive." We preach that Christ has broken down the divisions that exist between people. We must show with our symbols what our words proclaim. St. Paul writes: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." - Gal 3:28 Jesus has dissolved our national identity, by making us citizens of his kingdom. We are no longer Americans or Canadians or Swedes, we belong to Christ. We ought to fear clinging to what our Lord has done away with. Our flag, a symbol of our country, reminds us of our national goals, dreams, priorities and self-interest. We are citizens of the kingdom of God; a kingdom that knows no national, racial or ethnic barriers and that proclaims and advocates only the goals of his kingdom.
The church has a unique position in the world. We live in the world, but we are not a part of this world; we belong to another world. From our perspective as citizens of another kingdom we are called to think critically about the world and its institutions--even about the nation in which we live. At times we cooperate and at other times we oppose the goals and aims of our country. The ELCA statement on church and society states: "God works through the family, education, the economy, the state, and other structures necessary for life in the present age. God institutes governing authorities, for example, to serve the good of society. This church respects the God-given integrity and tasks of governing authorities and other worldly structures, while holding them accountable to God. The church must . . . constantly discern when to support and when to confront society's cultural patterns, values, and powers. "As a prophetic presence, this church has the obligation to name and denounce the idols before which people bow, to identify the power of sin in present social structures, and to advocate in hope with the poor and powerless people. When religious or secular structures, ideologies, or authorities claim to be absolute, this church says, "We must obey God rather than any human authority" (Acts 5:29). With Martin Luther, this church understands that "to rebuke" those in authority "through God's Word spoken publicly, boldly and honestly" is not "seditious" but "a praiseworthy, noble, and ... particularly great service to God." The presence of a flag hinders us in offering this "particularly great service to God" The closeness of the flag and the cross give the erroneous impression that our church and even God supports all of our national goals. When this happens we have blunted our Christian wit ness to this nation. Our symbols must allow us to see that our nation and our faith are sometimes opposed. And that when this occurs Christians side with God. When this happens the flag and the cross do not fit well in our sanctuary. The flag is leading us one way and the cross another. Our "apartness" from the world is sometimes expressed in the idea of sanctuary. We have a responsibility to offer a safe haven, a sanctuary, to those that are immorally hounded by their governments. We cannot clearly offer sanctuary to those fleeing this government with a flag standing there. It would make those we would welcome afraid to seek our protection.
Since the Middle Ages, flags have been placed in churches during times when nations wished make it appear that they have God's blessing for a particular venture--usually a war. The people of God need to be very careful about using national symbols in churches because they imply that God supports our nation and our nations' causes. Although this may sometimes be true, at other times it is clearly false. In times when the people of God stand in opposition to a national policy, the witness we would make is mocked by the presence of flag, which appears to indicate our endorsement of national policy. God does not bless our prejudices, our vendettas, or our national self-interest. God blesses what builds God's kingdom. Placing a flag in the church to symbolize God's support for a cause or a country is nothing less than manipulating God, using God for our purposes. This is a violation of the second commandment. To take the Lord's name in vain is precisely to use the Lord's name, for our purposes, to support our causes.
Many of those who feel comfortable with a flag in our worship space served their country in World War II. Some have served in other wars. These people know first hand the price of freedom. We cannot help but honor them for their commitment and their sacrifice. For them, and for most of us, the flag is an important symbol. But to say that the flag is important to us does not imply that it belongs in the place where we worship. The issue of flags in the church is a matter of our faith. It has nothing to do with patriotism or with modern trends in the church. It has nothing to do with not appreciating the sacrifices that brave men and women have made for our freedom. It has only to do with properly honoring God. It has only to do with our faith and the question: do our symbols reflect our faith or do they communicate something that conflicts with our faith? A national flag in the worship space is a symbol that demands allegiance to our country in the very place where the Word proclaims that only God is deserving of our allegiance. A flag represents the divisions that exist between peoples in the place where we proclaim that all people are one in Christ. As citizen-Christians we offer our allegiance to God and honor and obey our government only when its actions are in keeping with our faith. A flag standing in our worship space suggests that our church endorses all that our country does. A flag speaks of our identity as citizen in the place where we come to celebrate our identity as God's children. The flag in our worship space says things that we as people of God cannot and do not wish to say about our allegiance and our identity as God's children. A policy of excluding the flag from our nave will no doubt anger some people. But should we, for the sake of avoiding conflict, please people when it means misrepresenting our faith and compromising God's sovereignty over our lives? Listening and compromise are a part of being Christian. But if we compromise on God's total, exclusive and ultimate claim on our lives what is left of our faith? This is God's house here we worship only God, love only God and serve only God.
Pastor David K. Anderson Thursday, April 22, 1993
For an article from the ELCA division for congregational ministry see: |
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