The author gives an unequivocal no, despite her love of and pride in the good ol' US of A. I, on the other hand, have mixed feelings about patriotism (see here). However, I think the placement of a flag in a church is much more nuanced. It is very important that we pray for our nation and do everything we can to sanctify it. By creating a complete divide between God and nation, we risk becoming a secular people, who worship in church and leave religion behind in the public sphere, already a disturbing trend at least in rhetoric. Do flags in worship space remind us of the need to carry our faith with us into the public domain, or do they alienate those who do not share the nationality? Both? Neither?
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Patriotism from the Pulpit
This article, while a few days old, is rather seasonally appropriate. Here's the question : should churches have national flags by the altar or anywhere in the main worship space?
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Interesting questions. I've never really thought about this sort of thing before. In the atheist community we generally don't have permanent spaces of our own, so the question of how to decorate spaces just doesn't come up very often.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see the concern that the symbolic association between your God and America might exclude non-americans from your church. I'm much more concerned about the other equally logical implication of that association, that it might exclude non-theists from America. We hear so often that one has to be religious to be a good american. Your own article holds up as an example an organization founded on the idea that "being Catholic could make you a better American." Then vice president Bush took it a step farther when he said "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." It seems to me that all the symbolic associations between the country and the christian god contribute to that kind of prejudice. Do you have any thoughts on that?
I can definitely see how that could be the case. Let me muse on it and expect a longer answer sometime soon!
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