Posted on 06/20/2015 12:35:53 PM PDT by Republican Wildcat
This week the nation reels over the murder of praying Christians in an historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina. At the same time, one of the issues hurting many is the Confederate Battle Flag flying at full-mast from the South Carolina Capitol grounds even in the aftermath of this racist act of violence on innocent people. This raises the question of what we as Christians ought to think about the Confederate Battle Flag, given the fact that many of us are from the South.
The flag of my home state of Mississippi contains the Confederate Battle Flag as part of it, and I’m deeply conflicted about that. The flag represents home for me. I love Christ, church, and family more than Mississippi, but that’s about it. Even so, that battle flag makes me wince—even though I’m the descendant of Confederate veterans.
Some would say that the Confederate Battle Flag is simply about heritage, not about hate. Singer Brad Paisley sang that his wearing a Confederate flag on his shirt was just meant to say that he was a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. Comedian Stephen Colbert quipped, “Little known fact: Jefferson Davis—HUGE Skynyrd fan.”
Defenders of the flag would point out that the United States flag is itself tied up with ugly questions of history. Washington and Jefferson, after all, supported chattel slavery too. The difference is, though, that the United States overcame its sinful support of this wicked system (though tragically late in the game). The Confederate States of America was not simply about limited government and local autonomy; the Confederate States of America was constitutionally committed to the continuation, with protections of law, to a great evil. The moral enormity of the slavery question is one still viscerally felt today, especially by the descendants of those who were enslaved and persecuted.
The gospel speaks to this. The idea of a human being attempting to “own” another human being is abhorrent in a Christian view of humanity. That should hardly need to be said these days, though it does, given the modern-day slavery enterprises of human trafficking all over the world. In the Scriptures, humanity is given dominion over the creation. We are not given dominion over our fellow image-bearing human beings (Gen. 1:27-30). The southern system of chattel slavery was built off of the things the Scripture condemns as wicked: “man-stealing” (1 Tim. 1:10), the theft of another’s labor (Jas. 5:1-6), the breaking up of families, and on and on.
In order to prop up this system, a system that benefited the Mammonism of wealthy planters, Southern religion had to carefully weave a counter-biblical theology that could justify it (the biblically ridiculous “curse of Ham” concept, for instance). In so doing, this form of southern folk religion was outside of the global and historic teachings of the Christian church. The abolitionists were right—and they were right not because they were on the right side of history but because they were on the right side of God.
Even beyond that, though, the Flag has taken on yet another contextual meaning in the years since. The Confederate Battle Flag was the emblem of Jim Crow defiance to the civil rights movement, of the Dixiecrat opposition to integration, and of the domestic terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens’ Councils of our all too recent, all too awful history.
White Christians ought to think about what that flag says to our African-American brothers and sisters in Christ, especially in the aftermath of yet another act of white supremacist terrorism against them. The gospel frees us from scrapping for our “heritage” at the expense of others. As those in Christ, this descendant of Confederate veterans has more in common with a Nigerian Christian than I do with a non-Christian white Mississippian who knows the right use of “y’all” and how to make sweet tea.
None of us is free from a sketchy background, and none of our backgrounds is wholly evil. The blood of Jesus has ransomed us all “from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers” (1 Pet. 1:18), whether your forefathers were Yankees, rebels, Vikings, or whatever. We can give gratitude for where we’ve come from, without perpetuating symbols of pretend superiority over others.
The Apostle Paul says that we should not prize our freedom to the point of destroying those for whom Christ died. We should instead “pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Rom. 14:19). The Confederate Battle Flag may mean many things, but with those things it represents a defiance against abolition and against civil rights. The symbol was used to enslave the little brothers and sisters of Jesus, to bomb little girls in church buildings, to terrorize preachers of the gospel and their families with burning crosses on front lawns by night.
That sort of symbolism is out of step with the justice of Jesus Christ. The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire. White Christians, let’s listen to our African-American brothers and sisters. Let’s care not just about our own history, but also about our shared history with them. In Christ, we were slaves in Egypt—and as part of the Body of Christ we were all slaves too in Mississippi. Let’s watch our hearts, pray for wisdom, work for justice, love our neighbors. Let’s take down that flag.
(Russell Moore is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the moral and public policy agency of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.)
I have a front licence plate that has an American Flag and a Confederate Battle Flag together. I’ m thinking of removing it from my truck and hanging it up in my garage.
I’m concerned that I am making myself and family a target of some wacho.
This is a sad day for our Country.
Thomas Jefferson owned 700 slaves over his life time. He freed 5 of them while alive and 5 others were freed in his will. I believe 6 of the 10 were blood relatives of Sally Hemings. After his death, the Jefferson slaves were sold to pay the massive debts that haunted Jefferson in is later years.
Post your facts.
Post your facts.
Thank you for your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
I don’t have any history books on the klan but the research I’ve done online doesn’t show klan members using the CBT until the fourth iteration which came into being during the mid-depression years.
The first noted use of the Stars and Stripes was in 1915 when William Joseph Simmons reconstituted the klan. He also appears to be responsible for introducing a lot of the rituals and symbolism into the klan.
Before that the klan’s Interests and motivations had nothing to do with American patriotism or nationalism - it was exclusively southern and exclusively democrat.
Now the reason why I recount all of this (besides having a love of history) isn’t to dump on the south or southerners. It is to point out an unfortunate reality: like it or not the CBF is associated with systemic racism because influential groups have succeeded in associating the CBF with the klan and racism (but the stars and stripes had a clean getaway). I understand southerners being outraged by the association to a scumbag like Roof but for any of them to deny that reality is simply delusional.
The post that you replied to was me partaking in a give~&~take on the question, “Who flies the rebel flag because they hate Blacks?” - my answer was Dylann Roof. Dylann Roof slurred any southerner who has an affiliation with the CBF. But he did much more than that. Due to the broad-brushing that the left typically does that slur has been extended not only to all southerners (regardless of their sentiments about the CBF), but all gun owners and all conservatives.
Dylann committed an atrocious crime against those parishioners but he did none of us any favors either.
Ending slavery for one thing...your argument is somewhat bizarre given that context.
And the Confederacy attacked the United States first.
And it appears the Confederate Flag was not raised until 1962 in SC - hardly had been there as a symbol of heritage and given the events of that particular time, probably wasn’t put there for that reason.
Some of the arguments
In his will Jefferson specifically frees Burwell Colbert, Joseph Fossett, John Hemmings, Madison Hemmings, and Easton Hemmings. Robert Hemings and James Hemings were legally freed by Jefferson during his lifetime. Harriet Hemmings, Beverly Hemings and James Hemings were allowed to leave the Monticello estate, but were not legally freed. After his death, Sally Hemmings was “placed on her own time” (meaning she no longer was required to work)and eventually was allowed to leave Monticello to live with one of her sons for the remainder of her life. I was wrong, 8 of the 10 slaves Jefferson freed were related to Sally Hemmings.
Perhaps my Scottish and Irish ancestors too should be mentioned. They were mistreated in similar manner.
Here’s a tip: none are without sin. You simply state the nature of humans. Nothing else.
My ancestors fought for the north. They killed their fellow Americans under the direction of the politicians in power. People in the south were killed because they wanted out. Many of them were kids, some as young as 14.
This is really pathetic. Nine people are dead in a vicious attack committed by a vile racist and all people are talking about is will the South Carolina legislature vote a to remove a stupid flag. As if the flag was the whole motivation for the massacre.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
The Alinskynites appear intent on igniting a race war.
Wake up America.
Ken Hamblin used to Thank God his ancestors were slaves, otherwise he would be African, not American.
The real question has nothing to do with a flag. The real question is just what is it that the progressives CAN’T make the rest of us do? Let’s start with the easy stuff. Pay income taxes? Check. Accept perversion as “normal”? Check. Accept bigger and bigger, more intrusive gummint? Check. Accept universal snooping? Check. Accept ridiculous behavior against our persons in order to travel? Check. Am I missing some?
How about accepting civilian disarmament? Just what is it they could propose that we would respond with, “Alright, now you have just gone and done it!”
Oh I’m not saying it wasn’t used in other theaters - I’m sure it was, it’s just that it was MOSTLY used in the eastern one. Its popularity now is almost entirely based on its association with the Confederacy’s premier military formation (the ANV) and the fact that it is just about the best widely used design, much better than the “stars and bars” for example.
“The problem doesn’t lie with the flag.”
Absolutely.
IMHO
Now let me ask you this: when do you think the Black "co-religionists" of Mr. (Dr.?) Moore will re-think their decades long alliance and love affair with the political Left--with abortion, homosexuality, atheism, evolution, and higher criticism?
My prediction is never. And the institutional Black church has chosen to ignore all moral issues in favor of all social justice all the time and is totally invested in the complete nihilist revolution of the Gramscians. This is unfortunate, but it is true.
There is something I don't understand and which I wish someone would explain to me: all the Blacks I encounter personally appear to be Biblical fundamentalists, yet they vote Democrat and produce only leftist Democrat politicians and resolutely refuse to get involved on the issue of traditional morality.
Yes, but trying to make heads or tails of national policy on a wing-nut doesn’t really make sense.
Some people try to make rational policy off situations like this, caused by one of the least rational among us.
Thanks Roamer_1.
I agree with a good portion of your comments.
I only diverge a bit when you talked about the PTB, needing to destroy it’s worth.
The reason I say this, is they aren’t trying to destroy it for it’s worth (at least IMO), as much as they are trying to use it as another crow-bar to break out more racism.
That flag isn’t racist any longer. One could argue it never was. At our inception, states were to have strong self-rule. Although they were tied together in our union, the power of the federal government was nothing like it is today.
The states felt they had a right to determine their own best destiny.
A lot of folks will say, yes, but they did it over slavery. Was that really true? Wasn’t it ultimately over state’s rights, with the core issue slavery?
One could argue the South went to war defending self-rule.
As such, I’m simply not convinced the flag was every an exclusive symbol of racists. One could just as easily see it as a symbol of freedom from federal oppression.
Just some thoughts...
Take care.
Exactly, and to bastardize a quote from a movie...
The only way to win is not to play that game.
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