The Clarion-Ledger

May 22, 2001

Christianity and patriotism not part of old flag

The recent, ill-advised campaign based on economic self-interest, with no reference to right and wrong, swayed almost no one to vote to replace the Confederate emblem in the state flag. The case should have been made instead on grounds of patriotism and religion.

Mississippians claim to be patriotic. Perhaps someone can explain to me how one can be a patriot of the United States and still revere a flag that everyone, including its supporters, acknowledges is a symbol of an attempt to make our nation the Dis-united States.

Most Mississippians are irate at anyone who refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag. Yet that Pledge refers to "one nation ["under God" was added later], indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It was adopted in the 1890s as an explicit repudiation of the cause for which the Confederacy fought. How can anyone who believes in the Pledge want a state flag that contains a symbol of an attempt to divide the nation for the purpose of continuing to deny liberty and justice to a large portion of the Americans?

What would Jesus do?

The vast majority of residents of our state profess to be Christians. We urge our children to ask themselves, "What would Jesus do?"

Some of those pushing re-adoption of the old flag said that opposition to that flag was an attack on Christianity. This is absurd. How can a symbol that a large number of people see as standing for hatred toward them represent a religion grounded in love of all people?

The Confederate flag means a variety of things to those who favor it. But we all know what it means to a substantial majority of black people. Waving a Confederate flag is seen by most blacks as the equivalent of an obscene gesture. Does anyone really believe that this is what Jesus would do?

When will most Mississippi whites accept the truth that the Lost Cause was a cause that deserved to lose? Certainly most of those who fought did so with valor and deserve to be honored. But the cause of the war in which they fought was a bad cause: a cause for owning other people and for breaking up the United States. It was an un-Christian cause and an un-patriotic cause. Had the Confederacy succeeded, perhaps international pressure would eventually have brought slavery to an end, but neither the United States nor the Confederate States would ever have become a superpower.

The 'causes' were all bad

The cause of the white Mississippians in the 1890s who adopted the current flag was another bad cause: the prevention of majority rule by disfranchisement and lynching. And the cause of the people who waved Confederate flags in the 1960s was the maintenance, often through violence, of segregation, disfranchisement and the complete subordination of African-Americans. Had that cause prevailed, public facilities would still be segregated today and blacks would not be allowed to vote.

These causes were all bad causes that deserved to be lost. None of them was about loving your neighbor or turning the other cheek. They were the antithesis of Christianity.

What would Jesus do? We can be very sure of one thing He would not do: wave a Confederate flag.

Some people are saying to opponents of the old flag: "You lost more than a month ago; get over it!" They should think about what that advice means to those whose cause lost more than 135 years ago and again 35 years ago, but who still can't get over it.

The old flag won last month; patriotism and Christianity did not.

Copyright © 2001, The Clarion-Ledger.