When I took the Flags Out of the Sanctuary
When I was young and thinking about my future ministry, I kept wondering if I would ever be challenged to deny my faith or die. I wondered if I would be brave enough, faithful enough to keep the faith even at the cost of my life. I grew up reading all the stories of preachers being put in prison, burned at the stake, and banished from their homes. I was worried if I’d be strong enough to hold my ground when tested.
I needn’t have worried. My tests of faithfulness were never that dangerous. In fact, I’m surprised at what ended up being challenges to my integrity, faithfulness, and fitness for ministry. For example, one of the prophetic actions I took early in my ministry was taking the American and Christian flags out of the sanctuary. Like most Baptist churches, ours had the pulpit in the center of the platform and the flags flanked the pulpit on either side on the back wall of the platform.
I removed them. I didn’t think they were appropriate in a place of Christian worship. Our message is about the kingdom of God and that message is larger than any one nation – including the United States of America. Also, our congregation was multinational. When I asked the congregation to pray for their nation, these friends were praying for India, Mexico, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Brazil and even China. I wasn’t opposed to the American flag flying with flags of the world, or flags of the places where we engaged in ministry. Flying the American flag by itself, however, seemed to imply the United States was favored by God above all others. That’s simply not true.
As for the Christian flag, the white flag with the blue field in the corner holding a red cross in the center – well, THERE IS NO CHRISTIAN FLAG! The so-called Christian flag was designed by some guy in New York for Sunday School. The flag was later adopted by Vacation Bible Schools all over the world. Children have placed their hands over the hearts and pledged allegiance to the Christian flag and the kingdom for which it stands. All of it is bogus. Here’s the problem. Jesus didn’t leave us a flag. He left us the cross. His call to us isn’t “rally around the flag.” It’s “pick up your cross and follow me”.
When I removed the flags, you would have thought I had denied the Trinity. I was called unChristian and unpatriotic. I told those who had questioned my actions that I did indeed love my country. I grew up in a military town and I have a great love for my country and those who serve. I also told them that displaying the flags had nothing to do with the gospel we proclaimed. What’s more, the presence of the flag hindered certain members from worship. I explained I didn’t want anything to get in the way of our proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some seem surprised when I noted that being a citizen of the kingdom of God and the United States wasn’t the same thing.
I wasn’t opposed to celebrating the Fourth of July. I only insisted that the Fourth of July, Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day and all the rest were civic holidays and they had no place in the church. I take the separation of church and state very seriously. Our failure to keep the two in their proper places has cost the church, especially the evangelical church, in innumerable ways. Beginning in the late 1960’s in reaction to cultural developments that conservatives thought undermined the moral foundations of our nation, groups like the Moral Majority were formed to support candidates who would vote for “Christian values”.
The results shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Before long, no one could tell the difference between the Republican party and the evangelical church. We (the evangelical church is my tribe) lost faith in the gospel. We no longer believed Jesus alone could change someone’s life. We began to focus on passing laws rather than preaching the gospel. We traded our mantle of prophecy for the porridge of political access. If you listened to some preachers, you would think Jesus was a Republican. Our churches were seen as just one more group of political action committees. This caused a lot of people to turn off the message of the Christian church and as Jesus reminds us, anything that gets in the way of following Him has to go.
Clarity is essential in communication. Preachers, no matter how good they are, can only preach one message at a time. People are easily confused. Our message has to be clear and direct. Jesus is the hope of the world, not the United States. The church, of all people, should know this.
This essay was first posted in Scot McKnight’s newsletter.
