The first thing you have to envision is a mid size gymnasium in a Christian School. At one end of the Basketball court, about 20 feet high, tacked or stapled to a white stucco background, is a normally sized Christian flag. One really has to squint in order to see it since the white Christian flag blends into obscurity against the white stucco background. At the other end of the Basketball court is a huge American flag that looks like it is trying to make it into the Guinness book of World records as the most tacky American flag ever put in a gymnasium. Technically, it is not a flag, but something that looks like it was made out of a giant Lincoln Logs kit, replete with a do it yourself red, white, and blue spray painting manual. I kid you not … you could put 6 Christian flags inside the parameters of this American “Flag.” A blind man doesn’t have to squint to see this thing.

Next comes the music. I think they used a phonograph with a vinyl record. At least the recording of the Star Spangled Banner sounded like something that was pressed when Kate Smith was still trim and in her prime. Around me stood a couple hundred earnest God fearing Christians singing at the top of their sanctified voices, and there was my son and I, definitively not standing, trying to ignore the fact that we weren’t being ignored.

I’m sorry. I just don’t get it. Really, it is not like that I haven’t tried to get it. Here we are as a nation killing 4000 unborn babies a day and Evangelical Christians want to get all choked up while singing the National Anthem? Here we are trying to make Iraq safe enough so they too can start safely killing babies in their freshly minted Democracy and people want to cast a quick glance at the seated forms of my son and I and whisper … “Psst, Hey Martha, check out that cranky Reformed Pastor. He and his son aren’t standing again for the National Anthem.” Well, excuse me if I get in the way of your warm patriotic fuzzies. There they were pounding out at the top of their lungs … “The land of the free and the home of the Brave,” and nobody could see the irony and hypocrisy in that?

Look, we have no more business honoring this flag and the country for which it stand or singing its Anthem than German Christians had saluting the Nazi Flag and shouting ‘Sieg Heil’ as it passed by. To those who believe that we should snap to attention every time the flag gets unfurled I want to have a couple questions answered. At what point in a holocaust does one decide things have gotten so out of control that one can no longer be a proud American? How many bodies must be offered up to Molech until lines about ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ begin to curdle in your vocal chords?

Yes, yes … I know … I have been told a thousand times. Thinking that way isn’t nice and actually making those views known to people hurts their feelings. “Besides Pastor”, (so the routine goes) “what kind of witness are you if you sit down while the National Anthem is being played or while the colors are being posted?”

More Irony.

I was a little surprised when Colin Powell assured the world that the Sunni minority, which may or may not be boycotting the election, would be guaranteed positions of power. If you’re not running for office and no one voted for you, then how democratic is a system that grants you electoral office anyhow?

Even more worrisome are the rumors that “A formula is being actively sought to retain him [current Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi] as premier even if his showing is low” despite preliminary indications that his Iraqi National Accord party will receive only 8 percent of the vote and win only 22 seats of the 256 up for grabs in the Iraqi Parliament. In other words, vote for who you like, we’ll choose the winner anyhow. One could hardly blame the poor, confused Iraqi who wonders how this Western-style democracy is substantially different from the previous system of pre-determined elections.

History demonstrates that virtually every major military conflict has had lasting repercussions that were either unforeseen or completely ignored. Let’s look at just a few examples.

When Abraham Lincoln launched his unconstitutional war against the South in 1861, he did so with the idealistic goal of preserving the Union. 620,000 American lives later, he finally accomplished his mission. He also succeeded in destroying states’ rights and establishing the kind of strong, centralized national government that our Founding Fathers warned us about. Today, that government continues to grow more powerful and more intrusive.

U.S. involvement in the War to End All Wars may have saved England and France from military defeat, but all of Europe was plunged into ruin. This helped fuel the rampant fires of fascism, setting the stage for another global conflict.

During World War II, we sided with Stalin against Hitler and ended up winning the war in Europe. We also defeated Imperial Japan by becoming the first and only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in combat. But even our victories had consequences. The Soviet Union grew to be a much bigger threat than Nazi Germany ever posed, and our use of the atomic bomb marked the beginning of a furious international arms race that brought us to the edge of nuclear war less than 20 years later.

10, 15 or 20 years from now, what new danger will we have to confront as a result of our “war on terror”? In our rush to protect the present, is it possible that we are jeopardizing our future?

An excerpt from my most recent writing effort, “The Christian Life, Year One – Part One“:

Surely, I thought, if a “good person” such as I could not get into heaven, then I figured that it would be a pretty lonely place. Hell, I thought, was a place where God punished murderers and arch criminals, and not “righteous” people like me. I had never done anything “that bad” that I felt that I “deserved” to go to hell. After all, I believed in God and Jesus Christ, so I was okay. Wasn’t I?

But there were many things that I was never told while in this church.

No one there ever told me that a man is not saved by his “good deeds.”

No one there ever told me that I needed to be “saved” from anything in the first place.

No one there ever told me that I was a sinner.

No one there ever told me that I should fear God because I had broken His laws.

No one there ever told me about Judgment Day.

No one there ever told me that due to my sin, the wrath of the infinite God was hanging over my head like the razor-sharp blade of a guillotine.

No one there ever mentioned repentance.

No one there ever told me that Christ had said that unless you were “born again” you could not get into heaven.

No one there had ever told me about the basic doctrines of the faith, such as Regeneration, Justification, Propitiation, or Sanctification.

And because no one there had ever told me about these things, I continued merrily along in my ignorance, whistling Dixie while racing toward certain destruction. I thought that if I needed to know something important about the Christian faith or about heaven that my church would tell me about it. Wouldn’t they?

Due to techinical difficulties, I haven’t posted in a little while. So if you haven’t read my inane ramblings elsewhere, check out my Antiwar.com essay and my response to several critics.

As Claes Ryn and Paul Craig Roberts have written, neoconservatism is just a modern version of Jacobinism. Check out the quotes from right-wing media big-wigs and tell me who the zealous fanatics are on the contempoary scene.

I’ve also had a little to say about the Episcopalians and ELCA, Rick Warren, Richard Land, and the Christian Right.

Suppose the government of particular country…

• …enacts laws designed to protect those in power from political opposition.
• …uses the threat of military force to influence policy in other nations.
• …has funded the regimes of murderous tyrants.
• …engages in covert (and not-so-covert) operations to overthrow foreign governments.
• …has been known to attack non-military targets for the sole purpose of terrorizing civilians.
• …continues to stockpile weapons of mass destruction and has even used them to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
• …has turned a blind eye to the butchering of over 40 million of its own citizens.

Assuming Country “A” meets all of the preceding criteria, would Country “B” have the moral justification to use military force to bring about regime change in Country “A”?

If your answer is “Yes,” then you just called for regime change here in the United States.