Friday, June 29, 2007

To Whom Do You Pledge Your Allegiance?

It is not heretical to display the Christian flag along with the American flag in a church auditorium—as long as the church members’ primary allegiance is to the Christian flag and their secondary allegiance is to the American flag.

In my childhood, I attended Training Union (now called Discipleship Training) every Sunday night before church. We pledged allegiance to the Christian flag, to the Bible, and to the American flag. It was made very clear to whom ultimate allegiance belonged: first to the Bible and to the Christian flag, and then to America. And as long as that is the proper order and priority, there is no problem with flying the flags together.

In this country, we have never had an official relationship whereby the government has placed the flag in the churches. Here, if the U.S. flag is in a church, it is because the church members have chosen to place it there. That’s very different than in European countries, where the flag was often placed in churches by the government because the government owned the church. Only one major country in Western Europe is purely secular—France. In England, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries, an official relationship exists between the church and the state.

Read more of this opinion on The Christian Post.

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