This makes me a sad panda.
via Pandagon
This is a flag designed by one Marcia Thompson Eldreth, it has recently begun drawing attention as high profile as Pat Robertson's "The 700 Club" television show.
While the creation of a Christian American flag seems really, really silly (and it is, on many levels) it is also deadly serious. The implications are manifold and instructive. This is a flashlight into the great dark, dank caverns of the American right-wing-Christian/Dominionist (for short I call them "crazies") psyche, and we should take the opportunity of it's light to see what there is to see.
The first set of questions that immediately pop into mind are the contradictions--they may make us complacent and dismissive. For example: you sorts always claim as a justification for the legislation of your religious choice into compulsory civil laws that this is a christian nation, yet you claim victimhood and even went so far as to create your own flag to set you apart...so which is it? Either this is a Christian nation or you are a persecuted minority, can't have it both ways. (The truth of the matter lies somewhere between neither position, both are demonstrably false: this is a secular nation that is remarkably tolerant toward all religions, at least it is supposed to be). One also wonders what's so wrong with regular Old Glory that it isn't good enough for the crazies. I mean seriously, do we actually have to put a cross and a poorly misunderstood out-of-context biblical quote on fucking EVERYTHING before the crazies' thirst for Jesus will be sated (in a manly, hetero way)? Well, sadly the answer there is a "Yes" so great and wide wide-rushing as to make Noah's deluge seem but a trickle.
But the moor sinister aspects of this spontaneous flag genesis serious matters. Flags as we understand them to represent nation states, even sports team pennants (and not just banners anouncing a memorial day sale) come down to us through a centuries old military tradition. The tradition of the "standard." Most famously the Roman legions marched out with their Eagle standards as symbols of the might of Rome. Captured standards were marks of everlasting disgrace. The martial implications of national flags are hard to miss. These are the banners under which the nation states assemble to talk peace or wage war. By making their own flag the crazies are beginning to see themselves as outsiders making war on the US. This isn't merely a symbol like a professional group, union, NGO, or corporation might use as a trademark at the top of their stationary for press releases. This is a banner under heaven and above the heads of the righteous. In hoc signo vinces and all of that. Also, it's not as though the christian religion has no symbols, like the greek fish or the cross itself. But in the flag the cross is carried by an eagle. The American-ness seems to support the Christianity here. It's a creepy nationalism that isn't alway apparent in previous examples of national/religious fusion. The Cross of St. George became the symbol for England, it wasn't propped up by...I don't know...pigs and tin or whatever England was known for at the time. The same is true in Turkey. Even the Vatican flag with the keys of St. Peter on them are a symbol of Christ granting authority to the Church on earth, not the Church holding up Christ. This flag is not the flag of Christians, but of nationalists. And nationalists are nearly always bad when they get their hands on Jesus.
Well, I've rambled on long enough--and I could go on--but I think you get the point. The flag, and more importantly its acceptance in the crazy community, is a pretty good sized leap toward the inevitable schism in American life over "tradational" values, and the relatively new radical and overtly political interpretation of Christianity that is Paul-centric instead of Jesus-centric (and incorporates all sorts of theological heresies like pre-millenial dispensationalism) that lays claim to that traditional status (aka "The Crazies").
This is a flag designed by one Marcia Thompson Eldreth, it has recently begun drawing attention as high profile as Pat Robertson's "The 700 Club" television show.
While the creation of a Christian American flag seems really, really silly (and it is, on many levels) it is also deadly serious. The implications are manifold and instructive. This is a flashlight into the great dark, dank caverns of the American right-wing-Christian/Dominionist (for short I call them "crazies") psyche, and we should take the opportunity of it's light to see what there is to see.
The first set of questions that immediately pop into mind are the contradictions--they may make us complacent and dismissive. For example: you sorts always claim as a justification for the legislation of your religious choice into compulsory civil laws that this is a christian nation, yet you claim victimhood and even went so far as to create your own flag to set you apart...so which is it? Either this is a Christian nation or you are a persecuted minority, can't have it both ways. (The truth of the matter lies somewhere between neither position, both are demonstrably false: this is a secular nation that is remarkably tolerant toward all religions, at least it is supposed to be). One also wonders what's so wrong with regular Old Glory that it isn't good enough for the crazies. I mean seriously, do we actually have to put a cross and a poorly misunderstood out-of-context biblical quote on fucking EVERYTHING before the crazies' thirst for Jesus will be sated (in a manly, hetero way)? Well, sadly the answer there is a "Yes" so great and wide wide-rushing as to make Noah's deluge seem but a trickle.
But the moor sinister aspects of this spontaneous flag genesis serious matters. Flags as we understand them to represent nation states, even sports team pennants (and not just banners anouncing a memorial day sale) come down to us through a centuries old military tradition. The tradition of the "standard." Most famously the Roman legions marched out with their Eagle standards as symbols of the might of Rome. Captured standards were marks of everlasting disgrace. The martial implications of national flags are hard to miss. These are the banners under which the nation states assemble to talk peace or wage war. By making their own flag the crazies are beginning to see themselves as outsiders making war on the US. This isn't merely a symbol like a professional group, union, NGO, or corporation might use as a trademark at the top of their stationary for press releases. This is a banner under heaven and above the heads of the righteous. In hoc signo vinces and all of that. Also, it's not as though the christian religion has no symbols, like the greek fish or the cross itself. But in the flag the cross is carried by an eagle. The American-ness seems to support the Christianity here. It's a creepy nationalism that isn't alway apparent in previous examples of national/religious fusion. The Cross of St. George became the symbol for England, it wasn't propped up by...I don't know...pigs and tin or whatever England was known for at the time. The same is true in Turkey. Even the Vatican flag with the keys of St. Peter on them are a symbol of Christ granting authority to the Church on earth, not the Church holding up Christ. This flag is not the flag of Christians, but of nationalists. And nationalists are nearly always bad when they get their hands on Jesus.
Well, I've rambled on long enough--and I could go on--but I think you get the point. The flag, and more importantly its acceptance in the crazy community, is a pretty good sized leap toward the inevitable schism in American life over "tradational" values, and the relatively new radical and overtly political interpretation of Christianity that is Paul-centric instead of Jesus-centric (and incorporates all sorts of theological heresies like pre-millenial dispensationalism) that lays claim to that traditional status (aka "The Crazies").
posted by justin | 4:21 PM
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