Back in 2003, I came across an essay by Bob Hyatt, Profoundly Disturbed on the Fourth of July: God, the Flag and the End of America. Every year since then, I’ve looked it up and posted it on my blog (except for last year, when I ended up working a 20 hour day on the 4th). Here’s the beginning of his essay.
Our call to worship that 4th of July weekend was This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land. After the Color Guard presented the flag, we stood, said the Pledge of Allegiance and then sang The Star-Spangled Banner. Our worship set included The Battle Hymn of the Republic, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, America the Beautiful and God Bless America. We even finished the service by asking the congregation to sing along with Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA (“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free…”).
And through the whole thing I couldn’t help but think how moving it was with flags draped from the ceiling, how well-done the music sounded with the drums beating a military cadence throughout… and how incredibly wrong that we were doing any of it.
Read the rest of it here on opensourcetheology.net.
That’s a good article. I’m always uncomfortable when churches or any Christian gathering go all out patriotic.
I think what has helped me most in life to divorce from defining my identity as an American was living abroad (like he said–though I knew so few Americans living abroad that I sort of became rather nostaligic about the place and its people) and then the actual re-entry–where I did not feel very American at all.
Seeking to find our identity as American is easy…we do nothing to earn such a right. Finding our identity in Christ requires the death of ourselves and that’s what makes is so hard, I think.
Amy, good point. I think all of the people I know who’ve liked this article when I’ve shown it to them in the past are people that have lived outside the USA at some point.
Thought of this post today as we were driving home (we finally made it home!). Driving through Nacogdoches we saw a church advertising their patriotic theme today, with guest speaker Tom Delay. I’m sure he was speaking on the finer points of the Golden Rule, or something similar.
Honestly, very disturbing.
Sure is. It makes me thankful for the church I’m in now.