Long, long ago, in a childhood far, far away, the church in which I was raised had annual patriotic services on the Sunday closest to the Fourth of July.
Typically, we would sing songs such as “America,” “America the Beautiful” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The pastor’s sermon would discuss, in some sense, God and country. An ice cream luncheon, perhaps, would follow in a fellowship hall decorated in red, white and blue.
I never heard people talk about the dominance of the United States, how God sanctioned everything the country did or that America was surely dominated by Christians.
Near as I could tell, the congregation simply felt blessed to live in a free country and one so seemingly blessed by God.
In recent years, there have been cries that patriotic services and the flag of the United States have no place in the church.
In a denominational news story I read last week, one clergyman said displaying the flag can have symbolic political meaning such as baptizing a war or using the church’s moral standing to condone war.
“The presence of the flag in worship, to some degree, undermines our sense of absolute loyalty to God,” he said.
Similarly, a local pastor talked last week of how a pastor friend of his son ruffled some feathers in a congregation in another town by removing the U.S. flag from his church.
Most churches I have been in or been a part of display an American flag to the left of the altar area and a Christian flag to the right.
Both flags are usually unobtrusive.
So how do you make the leap to the flag having a political meaning? And, if leaving it in place promotes all the country does wrong, would removing it negate any good the country does?
In the end, is the flag at fault or the message that’s proclaimed?
I wouldn’t want, for instance, to hear a pastor suggest for whom I should vote, declare loyalty to the country right or wrong or suggest how a government should be run or a business led.
Neither would I want a patriotic service in which the flag is placed front and center and leaves God out of the conversation.
To me, one of the stanzas in “America” sets the right tone, credits God for what we have and tells us where our loyalty should lie:
“Our fathers’ God, to thee,
author of liberty,
to thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright
with freedom’s holy light,
protect us by thy might
great God, our king.”