Flag in the Church?

Goshen College, probably our country’s most well-known Mennonite college, will no longer play the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events, and many Mennonite churches don’t have the flag in the front. A recent CNN Faith blog post by Mark Schloneger explains why it is that Mennonites think and behave this way. I recently had a post about how political the church ought to be — a way of being political, and so I clip here a few paragraphs from Schloneger’s explanation.

July 4 is coming up. This is one very Christian response. What do you think should be done about flags in churches, July 4th services at churches, and the danger of asking churches to express allegiance to the State?

Although there certainly are diverse viewpoints among individual Mennonites today, we continue to advocate for the strict separation of church and state. Most Mennonite churches do not have flags inside them, and many Mennonites are uncomfortable with the ritual embedded in the singing of the national anthem.

That’s because we recognize only one Christian nation, the church, the holy nation that is bound together by a living faith in Jesus rather than by man-made, blood-soaked borders.

To Mennonites, a living faith in Jesus means faithfully living the way of Jesus. Jesus called his disciples to love their enemies and he loved his enemies all the way to the cross and beyond. Following Jesus and the martyrs before us, we testify with our lives that freedom is not a right that is granted or defended with rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air. True freedom is given by God, and it is indeed not free. It comes with a cost, and it looks like a cross.