F'ing Flags

A friend from another blog life posted about "the church militant", in particular about a gun-bearing color guard standing behind a member of the clergy while he preached. To which I really only have one response, one that has been bubbling in me for quite some time:
Take the flags out of our churches.
All of them.
Now.

The church is not American. The church should not ever be American. The Gospel has no nationality, and neither should the people of the Gospel. Churches out to be like embassies: each embassy, no matter what country it happens to be located in, is sovereign soil of the country it represents. Churches, especially sanctuaries, are sovereign soil of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Isn't it really about the first Commandment? American Christians have made the nation into a god, into an idol, that we look to as the thing that we trust in and rely upon. I have actually had a member say to me (about Obama): "I could never vote for him. By not putting his hand to his chest during the pledge he disrespected the flag, and that's like disrespecting God." It doesn't get any closer to good old pagan idolatry than that.

Take out the flags. Become Christians who happen to live in American, rather than American Christians.
Of course, it leaves the whole issue of what to do about the pledge and the first commandment, but that is another topic for another time.