A rant at Salon decries efforts to give precedence to the Christian flag above the national one:
The push began last week, when North Carolina’s Elizabeth Baptist Church Pastor Rit Varriale posted a video to YouTube calling people across the land “to stand up for traditional values and beliefs” by raising a Christian flag above the American one to send a message that “We’ll serve God before government… a government that tries to coerce us to violate our commitments to God.”...The entry at Wikipedia offers some historical perspective:
In a conversation with Baptist Press, Variable added that “If you stop and think about it, [flag etiquette] is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches us. We are first and foremost Christians who are called to serve the living God.” (Flag etiquette dictates that the American flag always appear above all other flags on the same flagpole.)...
This spring, both Cochran and Bleckley County, Georgia, voted to raise a Christian flag over municipal buildings — despite the fact that as Americans United for Separation of Church and State pointed out, “It sends a crystal clear message that one religion is favored above all others.”
The Christian Flag is a flag designed in the early 20th century to represent all of Christianity and Christendom, and has been most popular among Protestant churches in North America, Africa and Latin America. The flag has a white field, with a red Latin cross inside a blue canton. The shade of red on the cross symbolizes the blood that Jesus shed on Calvary. The blue represents the waters of baptism as well as the faithfulness of Jesus. The white represents Jesus' purity...The entry there goes on to discuss denominational flags and Christian elements in various national flags.
The Christian Flag was first conceived on September 26, 1897, at Brighton Chapel on Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York...During World War II the flag was flown along with the U.S. flag in a number of Lutheran churches, many of them with German backgrounds, who wanted to show their solidarity with the United States during the war with Germany... It can be seen today in or outside many Protestant churches throughout the world, particularly in Latin America and Africa...
Photo credit: Flickr/Joanne Canen, Creative Commons License