Writes Ken Reffner:

Today I made the mistake of attending my conservative, evangelical church on the day before July 4th. Usually I boycott the church on or near holidays dealing with nationalism. Today we sang “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “This is My Country,” “God Bless America” twice, and the “Star Spangled Banner” twice! Not a single hymn was sung. The sermon fit right with the music, but I will spare you the details. Times like these always cause me to think about the German churches in the 1930’s that assisted the government in using nationalism to replace morality. After all, the real purpose of nationalism is to ensure that honest people spend their time thinking about the health of the country instead of issues of morality.

UPDATE from Charles Pearson:

Your blog post reminded me of a Sunday around this time last year at the Catholic parish I often attend. During the Prayers of the Faithful, one of the prayers read something to the effect of “Let us pray for an end to abortion, euthanasia, and all indignities against human life.” Amen!No joke, the very next prayer then began, “Let us pray for the U.S. Military…” I hope that my audible sigh wasn’t too disruptive.

UPDATE from Stephen Holst:

Attending church today my hackles raised with the organ rendition of Onward Christian Soldiers. Thankfully, I quickly looked ahead and left before the singing of this from The Lutheran Hymnal:

1. God bless our native land!
Firm may she ever stand
Thro’ storm and night!
When the wild tempests rave,
Ruler of wind and wave
Do Thou our country save
By Thy great might.

2. For her our prayer shall rise
To God above the skies;
On Him we wait.
Thou who art ever nigh,
Guarding with watchful eye,
To Thee aloud we cry,
God save the State! Amen.

UPDATE from Toni Covella:

I have a praise report! I attend the City Church in San Diego. We had a wonderful worship service today that was COMPLETELY void of any patriotic songs, prayers for the wars, hat tips to the military, yada yada yada. The entire service was focused on worshipping the Prince of Peace! This is one of the many reasons I love this church. Isn’t it great to know that there are churches out there that don’t bow down at the altar of the State?

UPDATE from a friend:

I don’t live in US, and so what I’m going to say may not be relevant here. I’m a Catholic, and I can tell you that during Catholic masses, priests almost never talk about State – and if, then they often condemn its actions (using, for example, quotation from Thomas Wood’s book, as it happened some time ago in a letter from bishops). 

UPDATE from Stephen Peterson:

Our Lutheran church did not use any patriotic songs this past Sunday, but stuck entirely to hymns appropriate to the prescribed liturgical theme for this week in Pentecost. Our congregation also generally limits prayers to those for the congregants, friends and family. So, sometimes prayers are said for military personnel, but usually not. In fact our pastors have regularly made note that Jesus does not wear an American flag t-shirt. 

finally, I would not that our congregation does have an American flag in the sanctuary. This is controversial in many Lutheran circles, but you often see it in congregations that have or have had large German contingents. From what I understand, flags began to be placed in Lutheran churches during WWI when there was a backlash against German-Americans. Many Lutheran congregations also still held services in German (or Swedish or Norwegian or Finnish) and they were subject to abuse by authorities for not being sufficiently “American.” As a result, in came the flags and many have been there ever since.

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.