Kimstu
January 7, 2010, 10:05pm
41
ratatosK:
Thanks to everyone for their anecdotes about customs of displaying the national flag inside places of worship for various religions and countries.
We still do not have any historical evidence of when, where and why this custom originated.
So I’m bumping this one time in case there are any historians out there who have an inkling…
[coconut shells] clippety-clop, clippety-clop, clippety-clop… [/coconut shells]
“Whoa there, boy!” “Neiiighhhh! ”
Here are the dispatches, General. According to the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church ,
Rev. Prof. William Schmelder, seasoned parish pastor, historian and professor emeritus of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, has responded to a query from the Commission on Worship regarding this matter:
"To the best of my knowledge, the U.S. flag began appearing in our churches in response to two things: the desire to express an unquestioned loyalty as U.S. citizens (a reaction to WWI sentiment) and the growing sacralization of the flag in U.S. culture. In the history of my home congregation (Immanuel, Bristol, CT), the story of the responses to both WWI and WWII is given in some detail. However, the picture of the church after the renovation in 1948 does not show a flag. There was a flag on the grounds between the church and the school, and it was raised and lowered with considerable ceremony when school was in session. I think that is one response evident in many congregations: we could show our loyalty in many ways without placing the flag in the church; other congregations seem to have brought it into the building itself, with great debate about the proper location (nave, chancel, narthex, etc.).
“Non-Americans are often astounded to see a national symbol in the church (perhaps they have memories of the Nazi flag being touched to the altars of German churches). […]”
As Professor Schmelder mentioned, this probably developed out of the desire of congregations of prominently German-American heritage not to appear German during and after the world wars […] (Lutherans never did this prior to WWI, and then only in America).
However, another historian notes that many Methodist churches introduced this practice as far back as the Civil War :
From at least the mid-nineteenth century onward, the flag has often appeared inside and outside Methodist churches and at church gatherings during periods of national crisis. […]
Nowhere was this connection between duty to God and duty to country more obvious than in the Methodist Episcopal Church during the 1860’s. An article originating from the New York Tribune, and printed in the New York edition of the Christian Advocate, reported:
It [the Methodist Episcopal Church] was the first religious body to pledge its unswerving loyalty to the government after the attack on Fort Sumter. It was first to telegraph congratulations to the government on the surrender of Lee. In the cause of the nation it gave a hundred thousand men to war for the Union. The national flag has waved from its spires, and draped its pulpits, and the national struggle has kindled to the highest fervor the characteristic enthusiasm of the sect.
[…] After the nation’s war, flags remained or were placed in many church edifices, North and South. […]
The surge in patriotism around the two world wars saw an increase in the interior and exterior installation of flags. Church sponsorship of Boy Scout troops also was a factor in the presence of a flag on the premises; in some cases, it was the Boy Scout troop that donated a flag to the congregation.
The influence of the Civil War on this custom within Catholic churches as well is asserted is this website devoted to the display of flags in churches in various countries :
However, a Catholic author in an essay entitled “Sacerdotal Flagism” says that US flag display wasn’t really embraced in Catholic churches until later:
The placing of the U.S. flag inside a Catholic Church was not a widespread practice until World War II. At that time manipulative mechanisms were employed by the government to “encourage” the public display of flags in various surroundings, including Churches. It was not only the U.S. government that latched onto this ploy to heat-up and divinize nationalistic emotions during these war years. But, it was only U.S. Catholicism that acquiesced so totally to governmental pressure to display the flag as part of the permanent Church atmosphere. In the majority of countries, the permanentizing of a national flag in a Catholic Church was looked upon as so utterly inappropriate that governments were simply unable, for the most part, to finesse this piece of their war-time agenda into the sanctuary and other Church environments. After the War in countries outside the U.S. where governments had been temporarily successful in introducing a flag into Catholic Churches, Church authorities rapidly removed them. In the U.S. Catholic Church, however, sacerdotal flagism paraded on into the post-war, anti-communism, Joe McCarthy, Korean War years without missing a step until Vatican II.
Hope that helps.
“Hi-yo, Silver!”
[coconut shells] clippety-clop, clippety-clop, clippety-clop… [/coconut shells]
RickJay
January 7, 2010, 11:47pm
42
The thing about this sort of thing is that once it’s started it’s difficult to get rid of, because if you take away the flag at least some people will go berserk over it.
If you think about it, it’s pointless and a waste of time to sing the anthem before a baseball game, too. But imagine the conniptions that would take place if you tried to get rid of it.
Kimstu , thank you so much! That flag website is especially interesting. That’s exactly the kind of info I was looking for!
I’ve seen Canadian and provincial flags in numerous churches, although not so much in Quebec Catholic churches (either Canadian or Quebec) for obvious reasons.
I also recall an abundance of interesting flags of various regions, many of them quite far from Marseille, hanging in that city’s cathedral.
Come to think of it, many of the older Anglican churches in London have historic, moth-eaten old British battle flags hanging from the ceiling.
I don’t recall seeing any flags in either Anglican or evangelical churches in Hong Kong. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside a Catholic church there.
Lapsed Catholic here – our church has always displayed a U.S. flag.
Kimstu
January 8, 2010, 3:24am
48
Them there are probably examples of laid up flags .
TBG
January 8, 2010, 3:31am
49
Don’t some jurisdictions have (or used to have) laws requiring the flying of US flags in gatherings of more than a certain number of people? Or was that episode of Happy Days just makin stuff up? I tell ya, that Officer Kirk, he’s such a butthole…
Shodan
January 8, 2010, 3:35am
50
We display both the Christian and American flags, but the Christian flag is always higher than the US flag. This is deliberate.
Regards,