The United States Flag Code (4 USC 1, §7 (k)) reads:
When used on a speaker's platform, the flag, if displayed flat, should be displayed above and behind the speaker. When displayed from a staff in a church or public auditorium, the flag of the United States of America should hold the position of superior prominence, in advance of the audience, and in the position of honor at the clergyman's or speaker's right as he faces the audience. Any other flag so displayed should be placed on the left of the clergyman or speaker or to the right of the audience.
This is federal law. Many churches avoid breaking it by simply not displaying the flag. But in many others, including most of the churches I have attended from childhood, the flag is displayed according to this law, along with, on the left of the pulpit, an early twentieth-century invention called the “Christian Flag” whose pledge says it stands for the Savior’s Kingdom.
This arrangement symbolically elevates the United States of America, one of the nations among which believers are supposed to proclaim, “the Lord reigns!” an ephemeral entity that is “a drop from a bucket, accounted as dust on the scales . . . as nothing before him,” to “the position of superior prominence” over the Kingdom of which there will be no end, and to which every believer owes his first and comprehensive loyalty.
To what shall we attribute this wholly remarkable state of affairs? Ignorance? Stupidity? Negligence? Inadvertence? A fancy of decorative symmetry? Block-headed inability to recognize the symbolic significance the flag placement? Blind patriotic enthusiasm? Fear of being suspected of disloyalty? Of being a thought a liberal–unbelieving, unthankful for the terrible blood sacrifices that allow so many ungrateful swine to live in peace and freedom, aggressively and willfully blind to the magnalia Dei in this land upon which God has so generously shed his grace?
Perhaps we can’t really know, but these would be understandable and less than ominous excuses. What is truly frightening are indications that the spirits of these (typically “conservative”) churches do in fact place one of the kingdoms of this world before the Kingdom of God, that this is in fact a belief to which many who call themselves Christians hold–that they are Americans first and Christians second–to which the symbolics of their churches bear unmistakable witness, and in which they believe religiously.
In a recent posting to his blogsite, Touchstone senior editor Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Seminary, engaged the same subject, and has raised a considerable stir:
A Mormon television star stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and calls American Christians to revival. He assembles some evangelical celebrities to give testimonies, and then preaches a God and country revivalism that leaves the evangelicals cheering that they’ve heard the gospel, right there in the nation’s capital. The news media pronounces him the new leader of America’s Christian conservative movement, and a flock of America’s Christian conservatives have no problem with that. . . .
Glenn Beck, of course, is that Mormon at the center of all this. Beck isn’t the problem. He’s an entrepreneur, he’s brilliant, and, hats off to him, he knows his market. Latter-day Saints have every right to speak, with full religious liberty, in the public square. I’m quite willing to work with Mormons on various issues, as citizens working for the common good. What concerns me here is not what this says about Beck or the “Tea Party” or any other entertainment or political figure. What concerns me is about what this says about the Christian churches in the United States. . . . In order to be this gullible, American Christians have had to endure years of vacuous talk about undefined “revival” and “turning America back to God” that was less about anything uniquely Christian than about, at best, a generically theistic civil religion and, at worst, some partisan political movement.
Rather than cultivating a Christian vision of justice and the common good (which would have, by necessity, been nuanced enough to put us sometimes at odds with our political allies), we’ve relied on populist God-and-country sloganeering . . . . Too often, and for too long, American “Christianity” has been a political agenda in search of a gospel useful enough to accommodate it. There is a liberation theology of the Left, and there is also a liberation theology of the Right. . . . The liberation theology of the Right wants a golden calf, to represent religion and to remind us of all the economic security we had in Egypt. Both want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah.
Although I have not consulted Dr. Moore before writing this, I think it safe to say that he and I are both loyal Americans, but believe that Christians must derive and discipline their loyalty to their countries from and by the love of something infinitely greater. To our nation we would adapt Richard Lovelace’s declaration to Lucasta, “I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Something more.” What concerns Dr. Moore here is a practical example of what C. S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters called “Christianity-And,” where the senior devil writes:
What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call "Christianity And". You know — Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring.
Here we are dealing with the variety of Kingdom-mixing called “Christianity and the United States of America” in which the greater finds itself defined by the interests of the (infinitely) lesser rather than the other way ‘round. This is not to say a person may not be greatly devoted to something other than the Faith and its Kingdom–a man, for example, is called to the highest levels of devotion to his wife and children–but that this love, this interest and loyalty, must be ordinate.
When speaking of the polities of man and of God, it should be very clear where the order lies. It cannot lie in what Dr. Moore identifies as a “generically theistic civil religion” or in a “partisan political movement,” for in each of these, by definition, the interests of the lesser are allowed significant control over those of the greater. In the case of the flag display, those who pay light attention to it will see a scalar balance of national and Kingdom interests on either side of the podium; those who understand the Flag Code’s rule will see the assertion of a nation's superiority to the Kingdom of God. Neither case is acceptable to the Christian faith. Such is also the case with all civil religion, whether Glenn Beck’s or anyone else’s.
Do Dr. Moore and I agree in any sense with Beck that America’s hope is in the Lord Jesus? We cannot say for certain, for we do not know what he means by this. His Mormonism is against him, for the Mormon Jesus is different from the one worshiped by orthodox Christians, and the Kingdom for which the Mormons look is different too. (One might suggest it does look more like America than does the Kingdom of God preached by our Lord.) It is our duty as Christian teachers to say so, to resist the enthusiasm and sentimentalism which are so tem
pting in these environs, and to get the unwelcome point across.
This arrangement symbolically elevates the United States of America, one of the nations among which believers are supposed to proclaim, “the Lord reigns!” an ephemeral entity that is “a drop from a bucket, accounted as dust on the scales . . . as nothing before him,” to “the position of superior prominence” over the Kingdom of which there will be no end, and to which every believer owes his first and comprehensive loyalty.
Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. Your post begins by quoting the US Code; does that signify that, symbolically, the positive law of the US occupies an encompassing and regnant position vis-a-vis the Word of God in your essay?
What is clear, however, is that congregations who decide to display the flag in church should follow the law whilst doing so. To suggest otherwise would be to countenance (if not encourage) antinomianism. On the other hand, to suggest that the Stars and Stripes should not be displayed at all if it’s not placed according to your symbolic etiquette implies some variation on the theme of the secularists’ call for a “wall of separation” between Church and State. Are you sure it’s wise to harmonize with that tune?
What is truly frightening are indications that the spirits of these (typically “conservative”) churches do in fact place one of the kingdoms of this world before the Kingdom of God, that this is in fact a belief to which many who call themselves Christians hold–that they are Americans first and Christians second–to which the symbolics of their churches bear unmistakable witness, and in which they believe religiously.
Perhaps we do things differently in Texas, but (here I risk being compared to Pauline Kael) I can’t think of a single man or woman I know who thinks they are an American first and a Christian second. Or a single congregation that would assent to such a proposition.
We as Christians all have to deal with the tricky situation of being in the world but not of it. To claim, without strong proof, that there are “many” who have resolved that tension into a position where their American patriotism has taken pride of place is both reckless and uncharitable.
It is our duty as Christian teachers to say so, to resist the enthusiasm and sentimentalism which are so tempting in these environs, and to get the unwelcome point across.
And I’d say that it is our duty as Christian teachers to resist the temptation to burn down the revival tent in an attempt to smoke out a Mormon.
I hold no brief for the LDSers, who I consider to be following a species of polytheistic Gnosticism. Nor do I hold any special reverence for Glenn Beck, whose written words I have not read and whose only speech I’ve heard was given at the “Restoring Honor Rally.” However, I can feel only dismay when reading the venomous words that have been written about him by both you and Dr. Moore in your respective essays. Not just because of their lack of loving-kindness, but because they express ingratitude towards a fellow American who was willing to speak in public in defense of American liberties — including, of course, the religious liberty that he as a Mormon, and I as a Christian, share.
Ah, I see . . . symbolically elevating the U.S. flag over a symbol of God’s kingdom does not really signify what it appears to because people who do it don’t really mean it. I think this would fall under several of the attributions I have suggested.
One might also mention that I didn’t write this essay under the provisions of a law that stipulates the symbolic meaning of its frontal material.
Venomous? Well, if one does not wish to put a stop to what we are trying to halt dead in its tracks, I suppose one can see where the accusation comes from. The “wall of separation” Jefferson fudged up to placate the Danbury Baptists does not exist: I have described the partition elsewhere as a complex semi-permeable membrane. But there is a difference between the Kingdom of God and the governments of men, the domains of God and Caesar, that does need to be maintained by Christians, and which the teaching of the Lord requires they discern. Dr. Moore and I are insisting that enlisting an ambiguous Jesus in political causes, even those with which we may largely agree, transgresses the line between the kingdoms.
We become angry, with good reason, when religious liberals import a liberal Jesus into their politics, but must play fair: we should be just as angry when someone tries the same with an all-purpose, or at least a Mormon/Christian conservative Jesus–who does not exist any more than the liberal one does. Mr. Beck would do his country a service if he would back off the theology which forces people like Dr. Moore and I to drive home the points we are making, and tell his followers that “on these things we agree.”
Ah, I see . . . symbolically elevating the U.S. flag over a symbol of God’s kingdom does not really signify what it appears to because people who do it don’t really mean it. I think this would fall under several of the attributions I have suggested.
That’s not the argument I’m making. Asserting a symbolic relationship as self-evidently true, without making an argument to prove your point, doesn’t amount to a reasonable argument. It’s just begging the question. [For that matter, just because a congregation follows a fire code or a building code in their construction of their church's sanctuary doesn't mean that they are symbolically bowing down before Leviathan.] The proximity of your excerpt from the US Code to your anecdote about what you’ve seen in churches you’ve visited might paint a pretty picture on a webpage, but it doesn’t constitute proof… any more than the fact that you quote the US Code as an authority at the very beginning of your essay proves that your posted words symbolically signify the encompassment of the Word of God by Federal law.
But there is a difference between the Kingdom of God and the governments of men, the domains of God and Caesar, that does need to be maintained by Christians, and which the teaching of the Lord requires they discern. Dr. Moore and I are insisting that enlisting an ambiguous Jesus in political causes, even those with which we may largely agree, transgresses the line between the kingdoms.
Your point about trying to keep the domains of God and Caesar separate is an obvious one. However, you have yet to substantiate your original claim that “many” American Christians hold their nationality to be dearer than Christ. And I don’t agree that Jesus Christ, in an ambibuous or unambiguous sense, was being “enlisted” at the Restoring Honor Rally… any more than a minister “enlists” Christ when he opens a session of the Texas State Senate with a prayer. In your angry haste to dispell your fever dream of a “Mormon/Christian conservative Jesus,” it seems to me you are just re-establishing the secularists’ “wall of separation” in a different way.
From 4 USC Sect 7: “(c) No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy.”
So the Navy got it right – heh.
The code does raise a difficult question. I suppose it is still Constitutional because it does not require the US flag be displayed, but it certainly implies that the US flag (and therefore, the country for which it stands) should take prominence over any other loyalty. As another famous More once said “The King’s loyal servant, but God’s first.”
To claim, without strong proof, that there are “many” who have resolved that tension into a position where their American patriotism has taken pride of place is both reckless and uncharitable.
Have you visited conservative Christian blogs around August 6th or 9th lately?
I’ll let the comments of Benighted Savage stand at this point for evaluation by others.
Yes–a very interesting exception provided for the Navy, no doubt closely related to a very strong tradition. It would be interesting to know its history. A similar exception is made for the United Nations, which is exempt from many U. S. laws.
I can understand why the Flag Code is written as it is. The state cannot permit the recognition of an alien sovereignty on its own ground any more than the Church can, and there is much disputed ground between church and state, a perennial contest in which each tends to claim far more than the other will permit.
We become angry, with good reason, when religious liberals import a liberal Jesus into their politics, but must play fair: we should be just as angry when someone tries the same with an all-purpose, or at least a Mormon/Christian conservative Jesus
We might if those religious liberals were trying to say thier Jesus was the true one. But how was the same thing done with “an all-purpose, or at least a Mormon/Christian conservative Jesus”? What aspect of the message about Jesus at Beck’s rally did you take issue with? Frankly, there was very little about Jesus specifically as Beck wanted it to be as ecumenical as possible.
Do you, like Bill Press ostensibly, object to the use of religion in civic rallies? Or would you have been more comfortable with it if it were an orthodox Christian leading the rally? But the trap there lies in thinking that we can only come together civically as believers with those whose beliefs we accept. Perhaps it is is a blessing that a man whose faith the majority of Christians reject as Christian is calling the nation to prayer. Few will be tempted to think him their religious leader, or make of the call a sectarian and divisive one.
Perhaps the mistake was, as noted, the 20th century inovation of a “Christian” flag. What on earth (literally) are we to do with it, seeing as how the Church has no ground over which it can claim sovereignty (except perhaps Vatican city, where I’m guessing the “Christian” flag is not terribly popular). Flag ettiquette itself should make the mistake clear. We would not fly the American flag outside of America, so why would we fly the “Christian” flag outside of the kingdom it supposes to represent?
Sigh. I am a huge fan of Mr. Hutchins (I especially love my autographed photo) and I agree wholeheartedly with his cautions about placing the state (and its symbols) before the faith, which must be paramount for any believer.
And yet, to whom are believers expected to appeal when their beloved (but flawed) country appears headed for the trash heap of history? May they not appeal to the God of Heaven, as many (most?) of the Founders did, for the well-being of their nation (which is, after all, the country that not only they but their descendants will inhabit)? May they not offer prayers for the nation in public, rally people to support such causes as the end of abortion and the preservation of marriage, and seek fiscal soundness in public policy? True, the Lord may return tomorrow and make all this moot, but he told us not to count on it until we actually saw him coming.
I understand Mr. Hutchins’ worries about priorities. But a faith focused entirely on private matters is one that will do our countrymen little good. My private charity affects a few people, and my exhortations to faith a few more. But if I can persuade millions to join me, the amount of people helped will expand exponentially (no, I don’t mean more government welfare, I mean people motivated by the Spirit to preach the Gospel and physically help others because they are made in imago Dei). I watched most of the Beck rally on C-Span, and most of what I saw was my fellow Americans being exhorted to follow God in both their personal and public lives. I do not think that either one is worthy of condemnation, even when the principal exhorter is not a Christian. I will take him for a stopped clock who this one time chimed noon when it actually was noon.
@smh: @smh: Title IV was enacted in 1947 between the end of WWII and Truman’s communism containment doctrine. Been searching in the archives for some sort of docs related to Congressional intent, but that’s at least the context.
Title IV’s an interesting read vis the Republic’s history of church and state which truly stretches back to our founding. You can find sections related to the constitutionality of “under God,” church-state arguments, and “in God we trust” in national symbols. Worth a scan. Link below for your convenience.
Captains have a long tradition of and ultimate authority over religious doings on their vessels at sea, including convening religious services, officiating marriage, and burial at sea. That the Navy had this codified into law to protect such traditions certainly makes sense.
I can’t speak to the “christian flag” but for every sailor who has known heavy seas with no land in sight, Psalm 107 is a heartfelt prayer. It is no wonder that the Chaplain’s penant flies penultimately.
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/Title_04.txt
…follow up…
does Mark 12:17 scratch the itch?
Parenthetically: My rule for myself is to stop commenting when I am reasonably sure that what I have written in the original posting has been sufficiently clarified for those who have read it with reasonable care.
The maxim attributed to President Eisenhower, “Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply held religious belief–and I don’t care what it is” sounds humorous when put in so bald a form, but it is very American, as American as references to God or Providence on our documents and coins, of which it is just another expression.
Ultimately we cannot know what someone means when they speak of God, but it is the responsibility of teachers of Christian doctrine to maintain as clear a framework as possible for the speaking, and that means resisting the ambiguities that fuel civil religion of either liberal or conservative varieties in states with no established religion.
We may agree with non-Christians that the God we worship has certain attributes, on what this means for the life of the state, and on the actions we should take together for the common good. But on this side of an eschaton when meanings shall be finally clarified, mankind will undergo its final and absolute division, the true theocracy established, and all enemies put under the feet of Christ, there must remain the proviso that the realms of God and Caesar are different, that pains must be taken to distinguish them, and that attempts to mix them must at length come to grief.
Count me another huge fan of Mr. Hutchens, even after he recently came out as a Tory. I wondered if he was going to weigh in on the Beck controversy and now that he has I feel that in rising to Beck’s defense I am weighted down with several layers of those lead aprons they give you just before a dental x-ray. And it’s possible after his penetrating comments that my own arguments will seem full of holes.
First of all, concerning Beck, I think that to dismiss him as a brilliant entrepreneur is to imply a mendacity in his character that doesn’t seem to ring true with those of us who have watched his show or, like Deacon Michael, watched most of the restoring honor rally. Some have called him a “happy warrior” and it does seem to me that one of the characteristics of many conservatives shared by such disparate personalities as Bill Buckley, Rush Limbaugh and, yes, Glenn Beck is good-naturedness. This is in contrast to most of the Left who are usually quite humorless and strident. They are the Puritans that the Puritans never were. And by the way, the theme “restoring honor,” does that remind anyone else of C. S. Lewis’ observation that we are increasingly producing men without chests? Is it any surprise that when our culture excoriates the concept of honor that traitors arise among us? I admit that Beck’s enthusiasm sometimes undoes me: he seems like one who has got ahold of a certain amount of the TRUTH and is off on a full gallop with the bit between his teeth. It may all lead to foolishness and embarrass us all, but the issue that Hutchens and others have brought to the fore, the relation between the two kingdoms is worthy of some deep reflection.
I am probably not the only one who cringes when commentators or politicians refer to the twin towers site as “hallowed ground.” Do they have no concept of the Holy? And yet, if I had been in Gettysburg in 1863 to listen to Abraham Lincoln say the same thing regarding that battleground, I doubt that I could have held myself aloof. I think that we are bumping up against something rather mysterious here and that the concourse between the two kingdoms is more profound than might appear at first sight. A couple of years ago a friend of mine and his wife lost the eldest of two sons when he was killed the day before Thanksgiving in Fallujah, Iraq. This 18 year old man, and no, that is not an oxymoron, was a committed Christian who volunteered for the Marines and was more than willing to be deployed to Iraq because he believed it was the right thing to do. The memorial service was held in our church and was attended by quite a few Marines in full dress uniform, many of whom gave testimony of their fallen brother’s integrity and faithfulness. I seem to remember that there were American flags in attendance, though I cannot recall just where they were placed. I was not at the graveside service, but I can imagine, just as many of you can, the special moment when the flag which covers the casket is taken up by the honor guard and crisply folded and handed to the mother. As my friends have born their grief in this jaded and sophisticated university town, no one has dared to say that their son’s sacrifice was foolish no matter what they might think. Do we dare assume that the calling of a man to preach the gospel is necessarily higher than giving his life in the service of his country. I simply don’t know; I have to back away from the question in awe.
But one thing is clear. Our adversaries in the realm of Islam do not lack chests. I have always thought it was way off the mark to refer to the attack on the twin towers as cowardly. Deluded certainly, but not cowardly. And what of these young deluded men, the un-cowards? As they passed through the fire into eternity were they dis-illusioned? Were they met by Someone? It is not inconceivable that we may yet encounter these Tash worshipers where we least expect to find them. But for now we are locked in a struggle with a people who see our culture, not without reason, as lacking in honor. What are our criticisms of their treatment of women compared to the abominations which we both tolerate and encourage. I say if Glenn Beck can help us grow chests, fine, and let’s sort out the theology along the way.
“I say if Glenn Beck can help us grow chests, fine, and let’s sort out the theology along the way.” If we can return to CS Lewis, readers of “That Hideous Strength” will remember the group at St. Anne’s were prevented from using the NICE’s tactics in their fight. Is the peril so dire now that moral relativism should hold sway.
Have you visited conservative Christian blogs around August 6th or 9th lately?
I visited Mere Comments around August 6th and 9th of this year. I even left behind a few posts. Why do you ask, and what does your question have to do with the issues at hand?
Neil, I would respond that the “direness” of the peril may be relative but morality cannot be. The questions of tactics is an interesting one. I am not a regular watcher of Beck’s show but one which I did catch a while back seems relevant. Using his patented blackboard Beck listed a number of the huge problems facing our nation; it did indeed appear “dire.” Then, turning to the camera while tapping the blackboard with the chalk he said, “Politics can’t fix this….Only God can.” According to Beck, the tactics he is advocating are prayer and a return to God and Christian morality. I doubt that you would object to these so I think you must be referring to his vocational style as a communicator in the media. Fair enough, but I don’t think the point is relevant if we are talking about the tactics which Beck himself is advocating.
A few years ago an article in Touchstone posed a memorable scenario: Imagine that you find yourself on a beach at dawn to face an adversary in an old-fashioned duel. Some disagreement occasioned by a slight to a lady’s honor for example. But as you are about to draw swords, or choose pistols, or whatever, the two of you look out to the sea’s horizon and perceive a huge armada of enemy ships bearing down upon your coasts. What do you do concerning your present quarrel?
If the author of this parable did not intend it to be extended as far as Mormonism I apologize but still maintain that joining in a common and appropriate cause may accomplish much. In addition it offers opportunities for the orthodox to educate their own and to sharpen the necessary distinctions. It can be a good thing to talk about Mormonism and precisely why it is beyond the pale of orthodoxy. And who knows, maybe some Mormons will listen and question, and if the pre-mill thing works out and we’re gone and they’re still here, maybe they will remember the conversations and do the things they need to do to join us later.
Bob–interesting you choose an existential parable. There is no correct answer, it depends on each man’s perception of the character of the other man and each man’s perception of the threat. If we are dueling you might think that we should both turn and face the armada. I might think ‘he trusts a Glenn Beck I’ll not turn my back on him.’ Spending last year with the Army in Iraq reinforced for me that a men much prefer not to be wrong than to be right. “I don’t want to die an idiot” is another way of expressing it.
Haley Barbour just won my deep respect referring to Limbaugh, Beck and O’Reilly as comedians and not commentators. Barbour said they do not speak for the Republican party. Barbour is right. Even if Beck was sincere on 8/28, his character is all too obvious every day of year.
OOOPs. The sentence above should read:
Haley Barbour just won my deep respect referring to Limbaugh, Beck and O’Reilly as comedians and commentators.
NOT should NOT be in that sentence. They are commentators.
It is more than understandable that a politician — in particular, a governor — immersed in the give-and-take and daily deals and compromises of effective politics should be disparaging of those who do not have those responsibilities and are not elected to their posts. On the other hand, while it is perfectly true that talk show hosts do not speak for the GOP or any other party, in the absence of a president of that affiliation, who DOES speak for it? Certainly not Haley Barbour (whom I have met and been very impressed by) or any other current political figure. Indeed, the next two years will, among other things, select someone to speak for the party, a process that has barely begun.
Meanwhile, it is worth pointing out that more people listen to Limbaugh, Beck and O’Reilly (and Hannity and some others) in a single day than Haley Barbour has listen to him in a year. And while they are not party leaders, they do a considerable bit of agenda-setting that the party (any party) should pay attention to, as in, “There go the people. I must catch up with them, for I am their leader!”
There’s a lot of disdain for their role, but if conservatism (however defined) is resurgent these days, these people, and not any elected official, are the principal reason.
Are they flawed? Sure, just like the rest of us. Does God pick flawed people to serve his purposes? Well, it’s not like He has any other choice, is it?
Michael–The short answer is “So what?” Would there be a vacuum if Limbaugh et al disappeared? I don’t think so. Conservatives would be represented by those who have or aspire to elected office. There is no equivalent on the left. MSNBC and the former Air America are proof Liberals don’t need a commentariat. Keith Olberman et al never approach the ratings of Limbaugh/O’Reilly/Beck. . .
When we claim to have all of the power of the Eternal at our beck and call, why would we call Beck?
Neil: We need Beck, et al., because liberals still control and set the agenda for the major TV networks, most newspapers of any size, academic establishments and all cable news outlets except Fox. It takes politicians millions of dollars to run enough ads to overcome the advantages those outlets provide Democrats (Ronald Reagan had them, thank goodness), and if it were not for talk radio (and Fox, and lately the Internet), conservatives would still be watching today’s equivalent of Walter Cronkite giving us the liberal take on things and crowning it with, “That’s the way it is.” No, there wouldn’t be a vacuum. But only the left would fill it. I remember those days, and I like today’s ability to hear more than one side of an issue better.
Michael–That is as clear a statement as I have heard on the matter. If you see Fox as credible and Beck as necessary then I will leave the discussion here.
Neil
Would there be a vacuum if Limbaugh et al disappeared? I don’t think so. Conservatives would be represented by those who have or aspire to elected office.
There would be a partial vacuum. There would no longer be a conservative alternative (such as it is) to the ABCCBSNBCPBS radio and TV news and commentary Behemoth. To use a somewhat extreme analogy, sans Limbaugh and Co. the US would suddenly become like the old Soviet Union without the presence of Radio Free Europe.
When we claim to have all of the power of the Eternal at our beck and call, why would we call Beck?
At our “beck and call”? Are you sure about that?
If you see Fox as credible
That statement is rather a giveaway to not being conservative. Anyone who thinks Fox is not credible is hardly interested in conservatism in any practical matter. And the same goes pretty much for those who disparage the power that Limbaugh and Beck have done for the movement. There are some kinds of “conservatives” who don’t want the movement to be successful if it meant becoming crass and embarrassing to them, while there are others who simply don’t want it to be successful at all but will speak nicely about it while it remainsns polite and nonthreatening.
Those of us who are actually interested in conservative ideas taking hold in politics and being reflected in public policy understand the importance of the ability to communicate and popularize them. Many of us also understand that such communicators needn’t be perfect in our eyes as long as they are not a scandal in the eyes of those being reached. I may not need Beck or Limbaugh to tell me why morality and God are important for the nation, but I may well need him to help communicate that to the wider public.
God did not choose angels to spread his message. He chose inferior and fallible human beings. In the same way we should not look gift communicators in the mouth.
Perhaps we should simply be shamed that Beck (essentially) beat us to the task of publicly calling our country to repentance and faith.
I just want to say that Hutchins is truly on track. I am not scholar, nor a minister. But I take very seriously my relationship to Christ and the ministry of reconcilation (in which every believer is called). Everything else is secondary to that. There is nothing that should even equal that. Everything I do must reflect that. I love this country as much as the scriptures tell me to. I respect and pray for my leaders the way I am mandated in the Holy Scriptures to do. In my life of obedience to the truth of scripture, cannot follow the voice of another (ie. Glenn Beck). There truly is a anti-Christ Agenda at work here. I don’t believe that it coming from the left. There is very obvious to me a “Wolf in Sheep’s cothing here”. When a man of what most Christians would call a cult begins actually leading the people that call themselves the church (blind-folded by love for country). I say this in love for the body of Christ. Do not be decived! Ultimately as Christ said “My sheep hear my voice. Another they will not follow”. I truly believe the office of Head of State and the Prophetic Head of the church are different positions. We must not get them confused. Let us rememember that the minsitry of reciliation is based on the premise humanity is morally malad and is in need of Christ. If what Paul writes to the belivers of Ephesus is true and we are not saved by our morality (our works), then, I say we are a off track here. We as the body of Christ are indeed separate from this world should be transformed. We can try to use Constentine version of Christianity (that didn’t work), or we can go back to the model that Christ mandates us to use. If we are truly concerned for our country, let’s be moved(compeled) by the love of God. But if we are like Christ (who was God)gave up all of His rights to reach the lost, we will have not fear. We have the Book. It says we win. We cannot allow fear of the future (which would be lack of faith in the Word of God) to cause us to follow Error. Now all of what I said can be found in scripture. If you are Christian you know it. Now of you disagree, then lets here the scriptural version. BTW do you really think God couldn’t find a conservative Christian to fight “His” battle? If this truly the battle we should be fighting then shame on us concervative Christians.
“Anyone who thinks Fox is not credible is hardly interested in conservatism in any practical matter.”
Puh-leeze. Fox can be praised to a certain extent for giving establishment GOP ‘conservatism’ a voice that it doesn’t have in the MSM. But Fox is just as much agenda-driven as is NPR — it’s simply a different agenda.
Any person or organization that states, implicitly or explicitly, that “what’s good for big business is good for America” needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt, Fox included. Note that our current Leviathan is a two-headed hybrid, the corporate-managerial state. It does no good to attack one head by aligning oneself with the other.
Ronda,
You seem sincere in your opinions but when you said that there is truly an “anti-Christ Agenda at work here.”…and that you “don’t believe that it [is] coming from the left,” I confess that I had to pick my jaw up from the floor. While I don’t presume to know the inner councils of God or how He will shape our final redemption it doesn’t seem so very difficult to pick out Satan’s agenda. A short list would certainly include the holocaust of the unborn, a welfare system that promotes absentee fathers and general promiscuity, the banishment of Christian witness from public institutions, the virtual imprisonment of disadvantaged children in failing schools, and finally the intentional deconstruction of the idea of virtue in our country’s founding fathers. I don’t think I am exaggerating in the least to say that the Left has for many years served as a willing enabler in this agenda and that some of us on the Right may believe that part of our Christian calling is to push back against these things. If our land and its people can be compared to a flock, it is quite clear that the flock is being cruelly ravaged but it is not necessary to look for wolves in sheep’s clothing– our fear of being thought intolerant has allowed the wolves to come among us in their own wolves’ skins. The last thing we should want to do in this situation is to malign the sheep dogs for all their yapping, even if some of them are of a breed we don’t ordinarily approve.
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