Two Flags
by Don Johnson
Over the last 25 years that we have been hosting Fulbright professors from around the world, we have visited many churches in New England, including this one. The visitors ask many questions about American religion, but the one that arises the most is, “Why is the American flag in a church?” Today, I would like to investigate with you this issue and how as believing Christians we should respond to the question of “Two Flags.” The two flags, one representing our Christian community, the flag given by the Guild in honor of my mother, and the other one symbolizing our nation.
One way to resolve the two flags is to argue that they represent the same values and there is no contradiction between them. Today’s scriptures explains how the nation of Israel is seen as God’s chosen nation and made sacred by divine covenant that stipulated God would favor Israel if its people followed His rules. In Psalm 111, there is little question what nation God favors, “He has shown his people the power of his works, giving them the lands of other nations.” But what happens if we Americans see ourselves as a new Israel, as God’s chosen people? Does this transfer of the chosen really work?
From the beginning of our history Americans have claimed to be the new Israel and heir to God’s divine favor. Governor Winthrop in 1630, , standing in Boston, preached to his people that, “we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us...if God be with us who can be against us?” America, then, would be God’s favored people also, by establishing a "New Jerusalem" in a "new Canaan. " Here a purer form of Christianity could prosper and would serve as a moral and religious beacon for the entire world. Woodrow Wilson spoke in a similar vein when he announced that “America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture.” Later in 1983, President Reagan explained "Therefore, this country is compelled by scripture and the Lord Jesus Christ to oppose Russia with all military and political means.” George W. Bush adopted Winthrop’s words when he reminded us after September 11th, "Our nation is chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to the world of justice."As a European writer noted, after September 11th, “This idea of God choosing the people of America is as strong today as it was three centuries ago…a statement that one never hears from European leaders.”
Another explanation of the elevation of one’s nation comes out of world history following the French Revolution. Since then, or perhaps even before, the nation-state as the major unit of political organization has dominated world politics. From the origin of nation-states with England, France and Spain, the number has now grown to 193 nation states, most earning that status with the end of European and American colonialism.
In the nation-state system everyone gives their ultimate loyalty to their state. Each state, although imposing a common civic morality within its borders, outside the borders deals with the other nation-states without any morality except one’s “national interests.” National leaders are free to kill, kidnap, torture, lie, steal and commit other acts that inside the state would be considered evil, and often punishable by law.
Most world historians now agree that in the past 200 years the nation-state has gained almost total power over its citizens. It has also replaced religion as the major shaper of our collective world views and moral structures. The nation-state alone can take our lives and give them back, make war and negotiate peace settlements. As one scholar explains, the modern nation state, “defines [our] purposes, meanings and goals...i All this power to define reality was once situated in the realms of religion. Nation states, beyond shaping our collective consciousness also control the means of violence. In the 20th century alone, the bloodiest century in history, national wars have taken about 140 million lives.
We call loyalty to one’s nation patriotism. We have all have taken several courses on United States history and remember our revolutionary hero Nathan Hale, who at age 21 spoke these words when he was about to be hanged, words that we learned in the East Deering school house, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." We may also remembers Stephen Decatur, our great naval hero who declared his loyalty in 1816, “Our country!... right or wrong.”
The eminent orthodox Christian writer, G. K. Chesterton, wrote America is "a country with the soul of a church." Albert Einstein, concerned about the excesses of nationalism wrote, "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all of the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!" George Bernard Shaw once commented, "You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race."
Rhinehold Niebuhr is certainly one of the most thoughtful American theologians to address the tension between our nation and our God. His Moral Man and Immoral society, argues that individuals may choose to act morally and take the consequences, even death, but nation-states cannot act morally, because their leaders are bound to place national survival above all other values. In his fine book, The Irony of American History, he argues that the Unites States cannot possibly be chosen by God, because it is a nation state like all others. He tried to convince Americans, in the heat of the Cold War, that we are one nation among many and we use power to gain our objectives like all other nations. Those of us who agree with Niebuhr suggest that we must recognize that we are not God’s chosen people, but are, like any nation, fully capable of sinfulness.
Seeing the American flag beside the Christian flag should remind us that we as a nation live in a fallen world, a world of power politics and fierce competition for wealth and status, far removed from God’s promised kingdom. It reminds us that in a nation-state, even our own, power usually determines results and we must understand power if we are to take the serious steps to heal the pain and injustices in our nation and the world. The Christian flag symbolizes “thy kingdom to come,” God’s future kingdom of peace, justice and mercy. Even as we honor our nation we must accept God’s final judgment on each of us, on our nation and on our world.
But that tension between the nation in which we live and God’s promised kingdom doesn’t excuse us from making the effort to turn our fallen world toward the direction of God’s promised kingdom. In his famous Serenity prayer, Niebuhr taught us that we can change some things even though we cannot change everything. We must not be discouraged when our attempts to do good make us feel like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill, only tantalizingly near the top it rolls back down on him. Niebuhr calls for realism in our foreign policy and in our Christian life. He reminds us that nothing of true value can be accomplished in a single lifetime and no great endeavor can be achieved alone. If we are to be part of social change, we must work together as a community. We also need to proceed in humility and realize that our lonely shouting and anger achieves nothing in dealing with any kind of real power, much less the ultimate power of the nation-state.
The other Niebuhr brother, H. Richard, visited Germany in the 1930s as the Nazis were gaining power. Returning home, after many discouraging talks with German Christian leaders, he wrote his famous book, The Church against the world, where he writes, “If Christians continue to betray their mission to the oppressed, God will raise another people in their place.” His words, written at a time when most German Christian leaders were doing little to oppose Nazism, remind us that our faith insists that we be part of a church that in our own time has the courage to stand against the world. ii Peter Gomes, the minister of the Harvard Memorial Church, echoes this thought in our own time, “If you are really willing to choose between your culture and the God who delivered you, and you choose the God who delivered you, then you can do it, but you can't have it both ways."
Our American problem is further confounded, not only by our mistaken assumption that we are God’s chosen, but in the last thirty years, by the elevation of another false god to be worshipped along side our nation - consumer capitalism. As the Harvard theologian Harvey Cox wrote in 1999, “The Market is becoming more like the Yahweh of the Old Testament—not just one superior deity contending with others but the Supreme Deity, the only true God, whose reign must now be universally accepted and who allows for no rivals.” iii
The most difficult choices for modern Christians revolve around the fact that churches function in nation states and too often confuse their loyalties and conflate nationalism and capitalism with the Christian faith. Any church that blindly serves the state or economic system in which it functions, is betraying our sovereign God and “having other gods before Him.”
Many of America’s most successful churches now merge nationalism, market economics and Christianity into a popular mix accompanied by light shows and rock music that offends no one and promises individual happiness, personal wealth and a mindless commitment to American national interest - all in the name of a loving God. If we are to honor God’s sovereignty and Jesus’ command that we side with the downtrodden, good works, charity and innocence rooted in superficial knowledge just won’t do. If we are to translate Jesus teachings into our own time, we must understand both the radicalism of our scriptures and how the politics of power functions. To do that we have to know how our social and political system as well as the global world actually works. We must study and be willing to face facts instead of responding to emotionally charged sound bites. This is the path of sacrifice of time, effort and money, and sometimes much more.
The great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, teaches us the possible price of dissent when we go against the nation-state. In 1939, Bonhoeffer who had earlier studied at Union Theological Seminary, visited his mentor Rhinehold Niebuhr in New York. Neibuhr advised Bonhoeffer not to return to Germany. But Bonhoeffer decided to return to his home country. From Germany he wrote to Neibuhr, “I have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.” In 1944, Bonhoeffer was executed for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler. No wonder Bonhoeffer could speak with such conviction on cheap grace. In his seminal book, The Cost of Discipleship, he defines cheap" grace as “the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline; Communion without confession. Or as the prophet Zephaniah warns us, “Gather together, gather, O shameless nation, before you are driven away like the drifting chaff, before there comes upon you the fierce anger of the Lord, before there comes upon you the day of the Lord's wrath.”
So we have two flags, one standing for the nation we love; one standing for our faith. We surely hope that our nation really is as we pledge, “one nation under God” and that we also understand our most famous prayer, “Thy will be done, thy kingdom come But what if our nation chooses not to follow God’s laws and clearly behaves more like the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians, so much scorned in the Old Testament. If and when that day should come, will we have the courage to pledge our ultimate allegiance to the Christian flag and really act on the higher calling of our Christian faith.
i . Julian Thomas, Quoted in Connie McNeely, Construction of the Nation-State, 1994,p. 7
ii . H. Richard Niebuhr, The Question of the church in the Church against the World, Chicago, 1935.
iii . Harvey Cox “The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation The Atlantic Monthly, Vol.283 No.3, March 1999)
Over the last 25 years that we have been hosting Fulbright professors from around the world, we have visited many churches in New England, including this one. The visitors ask many questions about American religion, but the one that arises the most is, “Why is the American flag in a church?” Today, I would like to investigate with you this issue and how as believing Christians we should respond to the question of “Two Flags.” The two flags, one representing our Christian community, the flag given by the Guild in honor of my mother, and the other one symbolizing our nation.
One way to resolve the two flags is to argue that they represent the same values and there is no contradiction between them. Today’s scriptures explains how the nation of Israel is seen as God’s chosen nation and made sacred by divine covenant that stipulated God would favor Israel if its people followed His rules. In Psalm 111, there is little question what nation God favors, “He has shown his people the power of his works, giving them the lands of other nations.” But what happens if we Americans see ourselves as a new Israel, as God’s chosen people? Does this transfer of the chosen really work?
From the beginning of our history Americans have claimed to be the new Israel and heir to God’s divine favor. Governor Winthrop in 1630, , standing in Boston, preached to his people that, “we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us...if God be with us who can be against us?” America, then, would be God’s favored people also, by establishing a "New Jerusalem" in a "new Canaan. " Here a purer form of Christianity could prosper and would serve as a moral and religious beacon for the entire world. Woodrow Wilson spoke in a similar vein when he announced that “America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture.” Later in 1983, President Reagan explained "Therefore, this country is compelled by scripture and the Lord Jesus Christ to oppose Russia with all military and political means.” George W. Bush adopted Winthrop’s words when he reminded us after September 11th, "Our nation is chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to the world of justice."As a European writer noted, after September 11th, “This idea of God choosing the people of America is as strong today as it was three centuries ago…a statement that one never hears from European leaders.”
Another explanation of the elevation of one’s nation comes out of world history following the French Revolution. Since then, or perhaps even before, the nation-state as the major unit of political organization has dominated world politics. From the origin of nation-states with England, France and Spain, the number has now grown to 193 nation states, most earning that status with the end of European and American colonialism.
In the nation-state system everyone gives their ultimate loyalty to their state. Each state, although imposing a common civic morality within its borders, outside the borders deals with the other nation-states without any morality except one’s “national interests.” National leaders are free to kill, kidnap, torture, lie, steal and commit other acts that inside the state would be considered evil, and often punishable by law.
Most world historians now agree that in the past 200 years the nation-state has gained almost total power over its citizens. It has also replaced religion as the major shaper of our collective world views and moral structures. The nation-state alone can take our lives and give them back, make war and negotiate peace settlements. As one scholar explains, the modern nation state, “defines [our] purposes, meanings and goals...i All this power to define reality was once situated in the realms of religion. Nation states, beyond shaping our collective consciousness also control the means of violence. In the 20th century alone, the bloodiest century in history, national wars have taken about 140 million lives.
We call loyalty to one’s nation patriotism. We have all have taken several courses on United States history and remember our revolutionary hero Nathan Hale, who at age 21 spoke these words when he was about to be hanged, words that we learned in the East Deering school house, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." We may also remembers Stephen Decatur, our great naval hero who declared his loyalty in 1816, “Our country!... right or wrong.”
The eminent orthodox Christian writer, G. K. Chesterton, wrote America is "a country with the soul of a church." Albert Einstein, concerned about the excesses of nationalism wrote, "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all of the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!" George Bernard Shaw once commented, "You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race."
Rhinehold Niebuhr is certainly one of the most thoughtful American theologians to address the tension between our nation and our God. His Moral Man and Immoral society, argues that individuals may choose to act morally and take the consequences, even death, but nation-states cannot act morally, because their leaders are bound to place national survival above all other values. In his fine book, The Irony of American History, he argues that the Unites States cannot possibly be chosen by God, because it is a nation state like all others. He tried to convince Americans, in the heat of the Cold War, that we are one nation among many and we use power to gain our objectives like all other nations. Those of us who agree with Niebuhr suggest that we must recognize that we are not God’s chosen people, but are, like any nation, fully capable of sinfulness.
Seeing the American flag beside the Christian flag should remind us that we as a nation live in a fallen world, a world of power politics and fierce competition for wealth and status, far removed from God’s promised kingdom. It reminds us that in a nation-state, even our own, power usually determines results and we must understand power if we are to take the serious steps to heal the pain and injustices in our nation and the world. The Christian flag symbolizes “thy kingdom to come,” God’s future kingdom of peace, justice and mercy. Even as we honor our nation we must accept God’s final judgment on each of us, on our nation and on our world.
But that tension between the nation in which we live and God’s promised kingdom doesn’t excuse us from making the effort to turn our fallen world toward the direction of God’s promised kingdom. In his famous Serenity prayer, Niebuhr taught us that we can change some things even though we cannot change everything. We must not be discouraged when our attempts to do good make us feel like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill, only tantalizingly near the top it rolls back down on him. Niebuhr calls for realism in our foreign policy and in our Christian life. He reminds us that nothing of true value can be accomplished in a single lifetime and no great endeavor can be achieved alone. If we are to be part of social change, we must work together as a community. We also need to proceed in humility and realize that our lonely shouting and anger achieves nothing in dealing with any kind of real power, much less the ultimate power of the nation-state.
The other Niebuhr brother, H. Richard, visited Germany in the 1930s as the Nazis were gaining power. Returning home, after many discouraging talks with German Christian leaders, he wrote his famous book, The Church against the world, where he writes, “If Christians continue to betray their mission to the oppressed, God will raise another people in their place.” His words, written at a time when most German Christian leaders were doing little to oppose Nazism, remind us that our faith insists that we be part of a church that in our own time has the courage to stand against the world. ii Peter Gomes, the minister of the Harvard Memorial Church, echoes this thought in our own time, “If you are really willing to choose between your culture and the God who delivered you, and you choose the God who delivered you, then you can do it, but you can't have it both ways."
Our American problem is further confounded, not only by our mistaken assumption that we are God’s chosen, but in the last thirty years, by the elevation of another false god to be worshipped along side our nation - consumer capitalism. As the Harvard theologian Harvey Cox wrote in 1999, “The Market is becoming more like the Yahweh of the Old Testament—not just one superior deity contending with others but the Supreme Deity, the only true God, whose reign must now be universally accepted and who allows for no rivals.” iii
The most difficult choices for modern Christians revolve around the fact that churches function in nation states and too often confuse their loyalties and conflate nationalism and capitalism with the Christian faith. Any church that blindly serves the state or economic system in which it functions, is betraying our sovereign God and “having other gods before Him.”
Many of America’s most successful churches now merge nationalism, market economics and Christianity into a popular mix accompanied by light shows and rock music that offends no one and promises individual happiness, personal wealth and a mindless commitment to American national interest - all in the name of a loving God. If we are to honor God’s sovereignty and Jesus’ command that we side with the downtrodden, good works, charity and innocence rooted in superficial knowledge just won’t do. If we are to translate Jesus teachings into our own time, we must understand both the radicalism of our scriptures and how the politics of power functions. To do that we have to know how our social and political system as well as the global world actually works. We must study and be willing to face facts instead of responding to emotionally charged sound bites. This is the path of sacrifice of time, effort and money, and sometimes much more.
The great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, teaches us the possible price of dissent when we go against the nation-state. In 1939, Bonhoeffer who had earlier studied at Union Theological Seminary, visited his mentor Rhinehold Niebuhr in New York. Neibuhr advised Bonhoeffer not to return to Germany. But Bonhoeffer decided to return to his home country. From Germany he wrote to Neibuhr, “I have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.” In 1944, Bonhoeffer was executed for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler. No wonder Bonhoeffer could speak with such conviction on cheap grace. In his seminal book, The Cost of Discipleship, he defines cheap" grace as “the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline; Communion without confession. Or as the prophet Zephaniah warns us, “Gather together, gather, O shameless nation, before you are driven away like the drifting chaff, before there comes upon you the fierce anger of the Lord, before there comes upon you the day of the Lord's wrath.”
So we have two flags, one standing for the nation we love; one standing for our faith. We surely hope that our nation really is as we pledge, “one nation under God” and that we also understand our most famous prayer, “Thy will be done, thy kingdom come But what if our nation chooses not to follow God’s laws and clearly behaves more like the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians, so much scorned in the Old Testament. If and when that day should come, will we have the courage to pledge our ultimate allegiance to the Christian flag and really act on the higher calling of our Christian faith.
i . Julian Thomas, Quoted in Connie McNeely, Construction of the Nation-State, 1994,p. 7
ii . H. Richard Niebuhr, The Question of the church in the Church against the World, Chicago, 1935.
iii . Harvey Cox “The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation The Atlantic Monthly, Vol.283 No.3, March 1999)
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