A knock at the door of my sleepy mind

I had planned to continue with yesterdays theme of Humor in Theology , but something has brought me out of a sound and relaxing nap ,with the insistence of a Swat team knock on the door.

To make this " awakening " even more convincing there were not one , but two knocks being executed.

At one end of my sleep I was being reminded of just how much our former Pastor hated Divorce, how often he preached against those who would give up on a marriage and seek the divorce courts . And at the other end of my sleep I was startled to see the American Flag proudly waving in front of the Church we used to go too.

Both of these notions then overwhelmed me with their hypocrisy and contradiction.

Let me explain: first I started to realize that in a sense this Pastor had divorced us from the Body of Christ as made manifest in the Church he pastored. Now this may seem a bit of a stretch , but we do use such terms as our church home , and our church family when describing our church relationships. The bible uses the Marriage metaphor as well , and its reasonable to assume that those ideas of Fidelity, Sacrifice, Faithfulness, Patience and Forgiveness that are so essential in a Marriage might be easily applied to a church. A marriage built on the foundation of my way or the highway may have difficulty surviving , so the same might be said of a Church family. I am certainly no rocket scientist , I am not a Savant of any kind , and not a Mensa candidate ..but it does seem that if a Pastor applied the same tenacity he encourages to keep a marriage alive , he might consider using the same to keep his Church Family together.

Then there is the Flag issue; for several years I have been concerned about the prominence and focus of the flag in our ( former ) church. The American flag is flown in the sanctuary , and in front of the Church. In the Sanctuary in order to comply with regulations mandated by the United States Government the flag must be more prominent than the Christian Flag. The same for outside the Church. Anyone driving by our church can see the American flag positioned above the Christian flag. That bothers me.

I did some research on the Net and found that only in the USA and in the " State " sponsored Churches of communist China is that the case. I also noted that in Nazi Germany the German National flag was also given more prominence in the German Churches.

In this church we also celebrated both Memorial day and the Fourth of July with " patriotic " worship services which included the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag and concluding with an Altar call to the music of America the Beautiful. During the Praise session a video is shown , honoring the four branches of the Armed services which include footage of gunships, naval bombardment, diving warplanes and troops storming the beaches. As the footage unfolds the choir sang a hymn of praise to the Army , Navy, Marine Corp and Coast Guard. This in our Sanctuary.

I actually approached our Church leadership on this issue and was told that first that it was only two services out of the year and that it was consistent with Scripture. They quoted Romans :

Romans 13
1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted,

This verse is in the Bible , but I'm not sure what we were allowing to happen was what Paul was talking about. After all I am reasonably certain the early Christians in Rome , were not flying the Roman colors or saluting Rome in their worship services.

Now here is where it gets interesting , after one of these services our Associate Pastor preached against the Muslim faith indicating he could see no reason why we would allow a Mosque to be built in the area we live in.

I mentioned to him that I was also reasonably certain that not all the American soldiers we paid tribute to in the Church service who had died for their country were Southern Baptists. That it was reasonable to assume that Catholics, Jews, SDA, Muslims , Hindus , even Atheists died in Battle for this country.

It just seems to me that the Church should be apart from Patriotic displays , that the sanctuary should be where we worship God and not the State.

But having said that it would also seem that if a Church felt it necessary to honor the sacrifice of those who died so that we could have Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion , that church might also consider those rights to be afforded to its own Membership. If freedom of Speech is so highly regarded then excercising that speech in a Sunday School class might be something to consider.

Here I have probably entered the " Logic Zone" .

In other words it seems that if a Church wants to Praise God and Worship God by exalting the Military , and the Military's successful campaign's to maintain certain freedoms granted to the American People , and to enjoy the Tax benefits afforded ALL the citizens of this Country , that church might consider extending those same benefits to its Church family ...

Unless ....the Church chooses to separate itself from the State. enjoy no such privilege and instead follow Gods instruction and commands.

At some point you have to choose who you serve ... It is no accident that the Church has always flourished with persecution and was stagnated when it became a "State " religion.

Kenn