The Cross and the Confederate Flag

Moore to the Point ^ | June 19, 2015 | Russell Moore

[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.)

[lentulusgracchus]

I really detest the historical revisionism of the left.

Me, too, brother. Obama called a working weekend on this one, didn't he?

The thought occurs to me, that this writer has liberal friends in the NGO's or even the Regime who came to him and pointed out what a good contribution he could make by publishing this manifesto.

[lentulusgracchus]

The author either misses a very big point or is intentionally part of the problem.

Bob, I'll take Door #2.

[Mercat]

Very well said. Amen.

[rusty schucklefurd]

re: “The idea of a human being attempting to “own” another human being is abhorrent in a Christian view of humanity.”

“Not true, and ahistorical. Also, counter-Scriptural. When the Roman centurion asked Jesus to heal the centurion’s servant, Jesus did not rebuke the man for owning the slave. Slavery was common as grass in the Roman Empire, and slaves’ bones (as from Herculaneum) bore the same heavy-labor marks as those of the slaves exhumed and examined from 18th-century New York City cemeteries.”

I think Moore’s point was that the idea of “owning” another human being, like owning a car or a bike, has become abhorrent from a Christian perspective. When Paul said, “there is neither male, nor female, Greek nor Jew, slave or free, we are all one in Jesus Christ” - this theological view led to the eventual extinction of slavery in the Christian world. It took a while, but the abolition of slavery was based on that Christian world view.

It is quite true that slavery was common in the 1st century, and has been around almost as long as humanity itself. Yet, it is a bit disingenuous to say that Jesus was endorsing slavery as an institution simply because He didn’t rebuke the centurion because he owned a slave.

Jesus did not speak against crucifixion or the dictatorial Roman government either, yet I would not take that as an endorsement of those things. It wasn’t His mission to promote revolution against the Romans or their cruel methods. His mission was to die for guilty sinners, to provide salvation for us and to change us from the inside by His Spirit living within us.

[lentulusgracchus]

The Confederate battle flag was not widely displayed in the South until school desegregation became an issue in the 1950's .....

I guaran-damn-tee you it was widely displayed in the 1860's.

[Ohioan]

What I am getting at, is that the Confederate flag is more likely to be honored by people who would never, ever, think it acceptable to murder their neighbors--of any race or ethnicity--at a prayer meeting or a church service. The traditional Southerners, I have known and worked with, understand the difference between an abomination (an indefensible atrocity) and a statement of belief.

As an added note, as to just how confused this killer was, did you note that he tried to identify with Rhodesia? Rhodesia was a nation that prided itself on its race relations. Rhodeia was so far from the thinking of this murderer, that the son of a friend of mine in the Rhodesian Parliament, commanded a unit in their anti-terrorist forces, which consisted of him and 20 or so Bantu enlisted men--he being the lone White. (He is now active in Christain work in England.)

Another note, are you aware that Stonewall Jackson taught a Sunday School class for Negro children in Virginia, before the War?

Whoever wrote the piece, it is an apology for what should never be apologized for--honoring your forebears! There is nothing in the New Testament that repeals the importance of the Fifth Commandment.

[no-to-illegals]

yep, they hate and come together ... may one smile with a ‘frown’

[lentulusgracchus]

Yeah, you got that one right.

The broader point, which the _Resident is at pains to deny for the sake of his politics, is that that kind of antipathy is rarer in the white community than it was 40 years ago or 60 years ago.

That's why the _Resident has to send out Sharpton and Holder to stir up the hate.

[Don Corleone]

The “War of Northern Aggression” is not yet over.

[no-to-illegals]

never has a ‘launch’ been projected or ‘protected’ ... was always one on the ‘green Earth’ and never ‘sang a song of dust bowl’ when ‘green grass’ was gone.

[no-to-illegals]

‘Green Grass’ Fields ... Truly they do seem gone!

[no-to-illegals]

Please God, May there not be another stone cast ....

[lentulusgracchus]

Do you really want to insult the Christian witness of relatives of the victims--something truly moving--by suggesting by implication, that this crazed miscreant actually represented any of the cultured people of South Carolina?

The _Resident sure as hell does.

That's why he's trying to federalize the offense, so he can take the case and send his Solicitor General down there to try the whole State of South Carolina for murder, treason, and first-degree cracka, and convict them all.

[no-to-illegals]

yes, your desires are the ‘state and federal’ desires .... Kill ... Kill ... Kill the ‘innocent’ and be ‘hillary’.

[rockrr]

The Internet is alive with references to "race war" the wake of Roof's act. From what I've seen they're all coming from the black communities. The media conveniently ignores the fact that blacks have shot ten times as many blacks in the last three or four weeks. Now that doesn't (in any way) excuse what Roof did, nor does it tie his act to (variously) to southerners, Christians, or conservatives. It does go to illustrate that, even with the isolated act of a deranged person, the ones screaming for conflict and confrontation ain't us.

I don't want a race war. None of my friends or family - from north or south - wish that on our nation. But we won't shrink from it either.

I guess we're having that "dialog on race" that Witholder said we were too cowardly to have.

[Carry me back]

So what.

[LeoWindhorse]

I hope the moronic killer is not SCV . If he is he should be booted out ,with prejudice , right away . I await SCV leadership to release a statement on all of this , as SCV imagery is involved .

[Ohioan]

You have a point. Hitler was able to seize power in Germany, when the Nazi’s found a confused, mentally defective, Communist to fire the Parliament. Not suggesting that this spaced out obsessive in Charleston was someone’s plant; but the Left will always try to use any disaster to promote their quest for ever more power & control.

[MacNaughton]

34 I am a great lover of American history and a Civil War buff. I am humbled by the patriotism and courage of the soldiers on both sides of the conflict during America’s “Second War of Independence”. Yet, I do believe that Bro. Moore has made a valid argument to a certain extent. ...

I agree with your preamble. But, you have to keep an eye on brother Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Even though the SBC passed non-binding resolutions at its annual meeting this week proclaiming that marriage is 1 man and 1 woman, brother Moore is squishy on that matter and seems to be in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens. There is a movement for racial reconciliation within Moore's inner circle and, to a point, that is good.

As an American whose parents came from Maine and Alabama, I am tired of celebrating the "Lost Cause". The CW was an immense tragedy leaving 700,000 soldiers dead over 4 years of fighting. We have just observed the 150th anniversary of the end of the CW. Learn the lessons. For me, I think Union Gen. W.T. Serman said it best ...

"You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it … Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail." Comments to Prof. David F. Boyd at the Louisiana State Seminary (24 December 1860); quoted in The Civil War: A Narrative (1986) by Shelby Foote, p. 58; also in The Civil War : A Book of Quotations (2004) by Robert Blaisdell

Let us leave the divisiveness behind us, and that includes the confederate battle flag. We have a bigger, and more deadly enemy in front of us, POTUS #44 BHO and the Democrat Party. A better symbol of resistance and freedom is the Gadsden flag.

[Carry me back]

The war of northern stealing tge money and taking. over the treasury it what it should be called. The good old republicans, and today they still only care about control of the money with the way they vote in congress.