Question: Should Christians Pledge Allegiance to a Flag?

August 29, 2016November 26, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Recent events have rekindled an old question:

Should Christians — whose ultimate and only unqualified allegiance is to Christ — pledge their allegiance to a national flag, or similarly (but maybe a little different) participate in a national anthem? This in light of the fact that a nation’s interests and activities may — and quite expectantly will — in ways conflict with one’s Christian convictions? But also this in balance with Biblical imperatives to submit to our government and give honor and respect to whom it is do (e.g., Rom 13)? (But even this — at least the imperative to submit — is not unqualified [see, for example, Acts 5:29]).

And, to nuance this properly, if Christians were to abstain from such activities, would they do so as an absolute principle (e.g., never pledging due to its inherent inappropriateness, like many anabaptists hold) or only in particular cases and for particular reasons? And if the latter, in what incidences should we abstain (e.g., one could think of a nation’s legalization of the killing of the unborn as a potential legitimization)? What criteria should we use to determine these sorts of incidences?

It would seem that most Christians would draw the line somewhere. (For example, I can’t imagine that many of us would be comfortable giving our allegiance to Nazi Germany.) As such, I’m not sure we can blankety reject the idea out of hand. We can debate the when and where; but I’m not sure we should debate if or whether.

In other words, if our response is an unthoughtful, gut reaction of “[Bleep] no, ’cause… well, ‘Merica! I’m a patriot, gosh darnit!” I’m not sure that’s the best ethical system. These are definitely things to be thought through. And — personal confession — I’ll admit, I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with these things (i.e., pledge of allegiance, national anthem) out of principle.

War is Atrocious

August 20, 2016November 26, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Christian, war is stupid and atrocious. And yet many arenas and features of our culture (I’m particularly looking at entertainment and nationalism here) glorify it.

Christian, don’t contribute to or take part in this glorification of war. It’s a reprehensible thing.

At best war is using lethal force to stop evil, an evil we should wish didn’t exist and need to be met with such force in the first place. At worse it’s a feud that gets taken to a sinful level where we are actually willing to kill because of it (think about that; it’s crazy!) In either case, it is the taking of precious life and is, without exception, outside of God’s original design for this world, i.e., not the way things should be, and, thus, not something we should find in any way attractive or be mesmerized by.

War, in at least certain circumstances, is a definite ethical quandary or dilemma. And I’m not trying to simplify or ignore that reality. In fact, if anything, I’m trying to do the opposite here.

So please, before anyone bombards me with any vicious comments or notifications of their offense, this post isn’t intended to discredit or dishonor servicemen and -women or necessarily to throw out any idea of just war theory or any potential cases of so-called just war (I will leave the pacism v. just war debate to another time and place).

I will just say this: the fact that we as Christians historically have felt the need to engage in such serious reflection about what–if anything–constitutes a just war speaks volumes in and of itself about the nature of war. As I like to say to my more firm just war theory friends, If you’re not at least sympathetic to pacifism, you’re probably not even a just war theorist.