#8: A High-Flying Idol

“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum..."

‘next to of course god america i’, by e.e. cummings

Here’s the way it sounds in my head:

I WON’T SEE YOU AT THE POLE (BECAUSE THERE ISN’T ONE)

There was something weird about my Christian college. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it. My intake year of 1995 had a 2 to 1 female to male student ratio, so let’s just say I was busy those first few months trying to loosen a few promise rings on a few fingers. But there was more to the strange feeling I had than years of pent up evangelical sexual tension. No, this place felt alien, somehow.

A key clue was the complete absence of an American flag on any of the campus grounds or academic buildings. Not one! Now, in the Christian nationalist communities that raised me, I couldn’t walk thirty paces without getting an eyeful of red, white and blue. If it wasn’t hanging from the flag holder outside my front door, or those of my friends (and it was), it was popping off somebody’s T-shirt. Even my church had a ponderously large American flag situated prominently to the left of the pulpit. And at my school, it soared high above our heads from the wall at the front of our classroom.

Every day, we would stand with our hands on our hearts and pledge our allegiance to that flag. We’d follow that up with a similar pledge to the Christian flag dangling not far away. Then, we’d take out our Bibles and pledge allegiance to them. Scattered amongst those pledges, we would sing a few patriotic songs – ‘America, the Beautiful’, maybe, or ‘My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’. By the time we wrapped up these daily rituals, the lunch bell would be just about ready to ring.

FLAGGED FOR DISHONOR

And I loved that American flag, the Star-Spangled Banner, Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, the Grand Old Flag, the Flagmeister, Good Ol’ Flappy, Marty McFlag (sure, I’m making a few of these up), Flagatron, El Flagarino, the Flying Flagaroo, the symbol of hope and freedom for everyone. Well, everyone that matters, anyway.

Yet despite that love, the flag and I shared a checkered past. Things took that fateful turn in the 6th grade, when I joined the law enforcement arm of elementary education, the Safety Patrol. That fluorescent orange sash bestowed power and prestige, a sacred mandate to maintain order and stability in before- and after-school line-ups, and to narc on troublemakers in the cafeteria. Raising and lowering the flag was another responsibility. That job routinely fell to me. And in a few minutes, you’ll wonder why.

The flag pole stood in pride of place 20 yards from the school’s front entrance. One sunny morning, I hoisted the flag upside down and walked away, oblivious. I received a stern lecture when it was reported to the school by passersby. Something about distress signals, I think.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. A few weeks later, I neglected to pull down the flag at the end of the day (I could never fold it into that damn triangle anyway). The next morning, Old Glory sagged limply on its pole, sad and forlorn after a night left all alone. Or maybe it was just the rain storm we’d had. Whatever the case, I was soon sitting through another lecture – this one on the honor and dignity owed to the national flag. I dutifully vowed never to besmirch the good name of the Stars and Stripes again.

So attending a college campus that completely excluded America’s national emblem was like sojourning in an unholy land for a person steeped in the glorification of that Grand Old Flag.

A ‘THIRD STREAM’

It wasn’t long before I learned the reason for the flag’s absence. My college had emerged from the Anabaptist tradition. Now there’s some fine print for you. Of course, there’s a chance you’ve never heard of the Anabaptists¹. No, they’re not some cool kind of Baptist, if such a thing even exists. They trace their history, not to the mainstream of the Protestant Reformation, nor to Catholicism, but to a ‘third stream’ known as the Radical Reformation. Think of it this way: Catholics wanted to kill Protestants and Protestants wanted to kill Catholics, but both Catholics and Protestants wanted to kill Anabaptists. And did.

Even if the term Anabaptist is new to you, you’re probably familiar with the Amish, or the Mennonite traditions, which grew out of Anabaptism. Note the tendency in those groups (especially the Amish) to distance themselves from many aspects of society, especially its nationalism. In 16th-century Catholic and Protestant Europe, swirling with aggressive nationalist sentiments, that tendency to resist painted targets on Anabaptist backs.

That explains why contemporary Anabaptism tends to reject and resist the flag. In their view, holding the flag in honor, or saluting the flag, or pledging one’s allegiance to the flag amounts to nothing less than idolatry. Only God deserves such honor and only Jesus deserves such allegiance.

IDOLIZED

And patriotic Christians cry foul! How could they view our beautiful flag as an idol?

Probably because of the striking resemblances. We have a solemn ceremony for raising a flag, others for decommissioning a flag whose time has passed. These include burying it in a box, or cremating it, like it’s a formerly living organism. There are rituals for honor guards when parading the flag. There’s a powerful social expectation to stand and salute the flag when the national anthem is played. Ask anyone who resists participation how strong these expectations are. Even stronger are the taboos against taking a knee, or (God forbid) burning the flag in protest².

These protocols and rituals parallel various religious rites of the ancient Near East³: the ceremony by which an idol was set inside a temple; prescribed performances of obeisance before idols; socially expected participation and behaviors in city-wide or national rituals involving idols; rituals for ‘retiring’ and replacing idols. And before we protest that, “It’s not the same,” or that what we do with the American flag doesn’t qualify as idolatry, let’s remember that none of the ancient Near Eastern cultures undertaking these rites would have called them ‘idolatry’ either.

THE REAL IDOL?

Some will say, “The flag isn’t an idol. It’s a symbol of the country we love!” Maybe so, but if that’s the case, it’s actually even worse. It means the country itself is the idol. And that’s exactly the issue people like me take with Christian nationalism: the worldly power of the nation, the success of the nation, and indeed, the reins of that worldly power in their own hands, have together become the highest good.

The Anabaptist tradition rejects that kind of power. We do not want it. We do not seek it. We stand against it. Yes, I do say, ‘we’. I remember, in my final year of college, attending a lecture presented by our provost, Donald Kraybill⁴. The topic was the key distinctives of Anabaptism. I sat there, in that small lecture hall, gazing down at a handout of those distinctives, in disbelief. I spoke aloud to myself. My exact words? “Holy shit, I’m an Anabaptist!”

It makes sense of why I’ve turned by back on Christian nationalism and its quest for power. For that matter, it’s a reason why I no longer salute the flag, pledge allegiance to the flag or the country it represents, or sing its national anthem.

It’s also jumping ahead of the story. There were several years, many influences, countless conversations, and endless hours of thinking and rethinking between my first months on a flagless campus and that lecture at the close of my college days.

I guess it’s time to start talking about them.

Until next time…

May you discover (again) the God who exists under no banner,
Who belongs to no nation,
Who favors no flag,
The only one worthy of allegiance.

1. An excellent book I’ve discovered in the last year or so has been Becoming Anabaptist by J. Denny Weaver, which presents the history and basic theological leanings of Anabaptism, without steering away from the movement’s controversial moments
2. Several online resources can be enlightening here. Take this Girl Scouts’ document on appropriate flag etiquette; or the Department of Defense’s instructions on properly disposing of a flag; or this private disposal service’s advice on the same matter.
3. Very helpful resources on ANE religious practices include John Walton’s Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, and The Gods of the Nations, by Daniel I. Block
4. Donald has written extensively on Anabaptist groups and is one of the foremost experts on the Amish

Adam Lee Benner

A teacher and writer born and raised in New Jersey’s Philadelphia suburbs, Adam writes about his former life in American Christian nationalism and the Evangelical right – and (hopefully) better ways to be Christian. He lived for several years with his wife and best friend, Renée, as missionaries in Asia before relocating to her hometown of Melbourne, Australia with their two sons.