Russell Moore: It’s time to take down the Confederate flag

[James K]

No one on this thread has argued that it is a good thing to fly. Phil Kidd is an idiot.

The flag did not cause racism. Opportunist racists of various stripes have seized upon the flag. I state again here, I do not have that flag, I never will, and I am glad the south lost. General Lee should have been hanged for treason.

Is the confederate flag a gospel issue? Of course NOT. Good grief people. So bizarre seeing how people pick and choose what they boycott.

Russell Moore gave several good reasons why it is a gospel issue in his article. If you don’t think it is a gospel issue, you need to do more than just state that it isn’t. You need to interact with his arguments and show that it isn’t a gospel issue.

Actually Joel, I don’t have to interact with anything. I am perfectly free to state my belief. A flag is an inanimate object. Stars and symbols are not in and of themselves sinful.

Fine.

1. Why is there such a thing as a “African American” church? Is Moore okay with an Irish American church? From the outset, Moore sees no problem with that? Are black churches a gospel problem too? What does that say to our Asian brothers and sisters and how they cannot be included? From the beginning, this is Moore simply being PC.

2. Do a quick google search of the Ku Klux Klan and the american flag. You will find picture after picture of them holding the stars and stripes. If you want to be consistent, then you HAVE to also remove that flag. Plenty of people in the world see that flag as a sign of oppression as well. Btw, I don’t fly any flag. Our allegiance to Christ trumps any nation.

3. The gospel calls us to repent of sin. If a person embraces supremacy, then they are in sin whether they have the flag or not. Removing the flag does not remove the hate in the heart.

4. Opportunistic haters will do whatever they can to spread hate. If they coopt an image or symbol, then they will do that. That is the nature of sin.

James,

If Moore or anyone on this thread has argued that the Confederate flag causes racism, I certainly missed it. Can you point out those arguments and assertions. If not, why do you keep making the point that flags don’t cause racism.

And you are begging the question when you say the symbol, the Confederate flag, has been co-opted by racists/hate groups. It may be that racism is inextricably bound in the meaning of the symbol itself.

Also, I invite you to answer the question I asked in my first post in this thread. You don’t have to, of course.

I see the Confederate Battle Flag as similar to the Swastika. A bit of a difference in scale, but not much difference in principle.

Yes, we need to remember the cause and culture of the Confederacy, that it may never happen again.

As to your first point:

Believers of African ancestry were not allowed to worship in “white” churches. Hence the African Methodist-Episcopal denomination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Methodist_Episcopal_Church) as the “Colored” adjunct of the mainline white Methodist \Methodist Episcopal denomination founded 1816. It was a matter of custom if not law (at least in the South).

[James K]

Fine.

1. Why is there such a thing as a “African American” church? Is Moore okay with an Irish American church? From the outset, Moore sees no problem with that? Are black churches a gospel problem too? What does that say to our Asian brothers and sisters and how they cannot be included? From the beginning, this is Moore simply being PC.

2. Do a quick google search of the Ku Klux Klan and the american flag. You will find picture after picture of them holding the stars and stripes. If you want to be consistent, then you HAVE to also remove that flag. Plenty of people in the world see that flag as a sign of oppression as well. Btw, I don’t fly any flag. Our allegiance to Christ trumps any nation.

3. The gospel calls us to repent of sin. If a person embraces supremacy, then they are in sin whether they have the flag or not. Removing the flag does not remove the hate in the heart.

4. Opportunistic haters will do whatever they can to spread hate. If they coopt an image or symbol, then they will do that. That is the nature of sin.

….beyond racism for ethnic and race specific churches is that we often don’t do a terribly good job of relating to other cultures. My church here in Rochester admits as much, and it’s my prayer (and that of the pastors and other leaders I believe) that we’ll clue in. Often the problem is that we’re assuming that our culture is Biblical, and we heartily resist even Biblical expressions of worship—a specific example is the habit of “feet nailed to the floor” while singing, which just doesn’t go over well with most people not of the “fishbelly white” variety. For that matter, it’s not doing us too many favors among the fishbelly white, either.

I find it just a little interesting and more than a little humorous that some of the same people arguing how the association of an object with an idea impacts the Gospel and can relegate the object to the trash heap, while pooh-poohing the same exact argument when it comes to the appropriation and association of certain worship styles/music.

Nah. No inconsistencies there.

[KD Merrill]

I find it just a little interesting and more than a little humorous that some of the same people arguing how the association of an object with an idea impacts the Gospel and can relegate the object to the trash heap, while pooh-poohing the same exact argument when it comes to the appropriation and association of certain worship styles/music.

Nah. No inconsistencies there.

…that’s what slaves were in the south, a commodity, something that could be bought or sold for a price.

Picture a scene: In the late 18th century, somewhere on the western coast of Africa, your 13 year old daughter leaves your hut one afternoon, to visit a friend. As the sun sets, you are concerned that she has been gone for too long. You begin to search for her, soon in a panic, as no one else in your village knows where she is.

After a couple of days, reality sinks in. In anguish, you know you will never see her again. It is said that a ship was seen anchored off the coast, and it has now departed. You can connect the dots. She has been captured by slave traders.

A few days into the journey, another girl shackled next to your daughter dies. She had been injured while being captured, and she had been vomiting blood. To the crew of the ship, it’s no matter. A cost of doing business; some of the “cargo” usually winds up being dumped overboard on every westward trip.

Upon arrival at the port, your daughter is emaciated & dehydrated. She has lost a few pounds while chained for three weeks in the hold. At the auction, little is left up to the imagination of the prospective buyers as your daughter is paraded before them.

The highest bidder steps forward & claims his newest possession. When he gets back to the plantation, one of his sons eyes the family’s newest “object.” As property, it has very limited rights, certainly none that will prevent the son from exercising his “rights” later that evening…

Think I’m being too graphic? Not at all: read a frank history of the Atlantic slave trade.

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To many, that system of brutality is recognized as having been a great evil—an affront to God. To many, the Confederate Battle Flag represents the system that was fighting to preserve slavery. It’s a non sequitur to compare the flag (a representation of a human government) with a biblical mandate to worship God, even if how that mandate is met is oftentimes a subject of great debate.

If the flag serves as an object of needless discord & divisiveness among Christian brothers and sisters (and it does), and if it is harmful at times to our witness before the world (and it is), then why cling to it? (That’s how it is a “gospel issue.”)

[KD Merrill]

I find it just a little interesting and more than a little humorous that some of the same people arguing how the association of an object with an idea impacts the Gospel and can relegate the object to the trash heap, while pooh-poohing the same exact argument when it comes to the appropriation and association of certain worship styles/music.

Nah. No inconsistencies there.

Let’s flip this on its head; guilt by association is indeed a logical fallacy, a variant of the genetic fallacy to be precise. So if I am to attack camp songs, rap, heavy metal, or classic hymns based on their associations—and I can do this with all of these—I am in the wrong. The same thing goes for the “Southern Cross”. It’s a logical fallacy.

On the flip side, it is perfectly legitimate to ask what the purpose of a given musical genre or symbol might be. If I’m bringing in modern music, I might appeal to Psalms 149 and 150, where percussive instruments and dancing seem to indicate that “feet nailed to the floor” is not what God had in mind for temple music. I would understand, however, that “fly girls” or “girls in cages” so often seen in rap and heavy metal performances are (by virtue of uncovering a fair amount of nakedness) probably not representative of that. You use the genre intelligently and in Biblical context.

In terms of the Confederate flag, or any other symbol, you ask what it means and what people do when exposed to that symbol. For example, many Americans tend to recite the Pledge of Allegiance around the U.S. flag, which I personally regard as pretty much idolatry to the state. Hence I don’t recite the Pledge, and if asked, urge that the U.S. flag be removed from churches. Around the rebel flag, you will tend to get a lot of honoring of great-granddaddy and General Lee on one side, and a reminder of shackles on the other.

Inherently divisive, and hence let’s keep it out of our churches and off public property, no? And I hope you see the difference between the “guilt by association” arguments we so often indulge, and a thoughtful consideration of what our tools and symbols really do.

Larry, many of us live outside the South. Furthermore, many of us had kin who would be eligible for membership in the Grand Army of the Republic (the Union Army veterans group).

And then there are some of us for whom my father spoke. During his Army Air Force ground crew training at Fort Sam Houston, he had conversations like this;

“Hey, Toby, y’all are from Washington State, right?” said PFC Jones

“Sure am, Billy Bob,” said my Dad.

“So, which side of The War did your folks fight on?”

“Well, my folks were Westerners. They were too busy fighting Indians to worry about what was going on back East.”

Which wasn’t quite as true as it seemed as his over fifty year old great grand dad had joined an Illinois volunteer infantry regiment. However, his health broke down before he could cross the Ohio River.

Why stop with the Rebel battle flag? Slavery was once legal throughout the U.S., and many minority groups claim the U.S. flag is a symbol of oppression to them. Sometimes, I think people need to just grow up and put on their big boy pants - just get over themselves a little bit. Almost everything is offensive to someone.

I understand the frustration with this topic. It seems to me that Americans have imbued so many symbols, and symbolic gestures, with the power to change lives. We build monuments and memorials to commemorate presidents, inventors, influential leaders, battles, and tragedies. The Flight 93 memorial is estimated to cost a total of $60 million, $10 million of that appropriated by Congress. Uhm… I get it that the bravery and tragedy of that day are deeply burned into our collective psyche, and should not be forgotten - but $60 million so we can do … what? So we can feel … what?

I’m not saying that memorials are wrong or that symbols have no power whatsoever, and I do believe that we as Christians should be very particular about what we memorialize or appear to support. However, our generation gives too much meaning to things IMO, and not enough to character and actions. Feelings of superiority and acts of violence because of ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, or political affiliation will not go away because someone burned a flag, took The Dukes of Hazard off the air, or walked around town wearing nothing but a protest sign. I think these are simply ways for the aimless and lazy to feel important.

The church has been told which symbols and memorials we are to respect and practice in order to celebrate and share our faith. The Confederate flag is obviously not something the church should be contending for.