The flag by the altar

by Steve Thorngate

I'm getting married in six months in my fiancee's hometown. We don't live there or belong to a local congregation, so we had to find a suitable church—a search based less on aesthetics or convenience than on how accommodating a place is to our plans for the ceremony. The pastor of the church we settled on is happy to turn virtually the entire service over to our clergy friends from other places and traditions. We're welcome to write our own liturgy, bring our own musicians and distribute the communion bread ourselves.

In fact, the only thing the pastor said "no" to was our request to move the American flag from its prominent place right next to the altar.

It didn't take long to decide not to push him on this point. We're sensitive to the fact that we will be guests in someone else's worship space, that the church and pastor are being graciously hospitable to us. It's also helpful to keep in mind that the church-and-state ship sailed back when we chose to get married in a church in the first place.

Still, the flag will be hard to ignore—because if it were our church, we'd be leading the charge to have it permanently removed. But it isn't our church, and it's appropriate for the place to represent its own community's values rather than those of the folks borrowing it for a day. I'm also aware that this is harder to let go of for the not-so-great reason that our guests might infer that we are in favor of the flag's presence—after all, it'd be easy enough for us to move it. (Not so with the Bible-verse wood carving over the altar, quoted from the gender-exclusive King James, which gave us barely a moment's pause.)

As for flags in churches more generally, CCblogger Chris Brundage is less bothered by the practice than I am—where I bristle at nationalistic symbols usurping the real object of our allegiance, he allows that "love of country is a part of love of neighbor." We both agree, however, with CCblogger Michael Ruffin's critique of the idea of the U.S. as a Christian nation. Barbara Brown Taylor's December 2001 piece for the Century is worth revisiting as well.

What do you think?

(See also this list of 40 ways to celebrate Interdependence Day, an alternative July 4 observance courtesy of the folks at the Englewood Review of Books.)