Missouri congregations move US flags off altars as Episcopal Church condemns Christian nationalism

[Episcopal News Service] The American flag still has a place at Calvary Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Missouri, but under new guidance from the bishop, that place is no longer on the church’s altar.

Calvary is located near the Mississippi River in the northeastern Missouri community of Louisiana, population 3,200. Last month, during a Sunday service, the small congregation ceremoniously moved its American flag from the altar to the back of the nave, where it now is posted next to a columbarium, partly in honor of veterans who are interred there.

“People felt like it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it, and it was done with no disrespect,” the Rev. Deb Goldfeder, deacon-in-charge at Calvary, told Episcopal News Service in a phone interview.

Missouri Bishop Deon Johnson had issued his guidance on flag display days earlier in a message to his St. Louis-based diocese on March 19. In it he lamented the pernicious rise in the United States of Christian nationalism, a politicized distortion of Christianity that was most prominently on display in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump supporters.

The House of Bishop’s Theology Committee released a report in October on “The Crisis of Christian Nationalism,” urging all Episcopalians to do their part in countering such movements. Johnson referenced that report in announcing his guidance to Diocese of Missouri congregations to remove American flags from their altars.

“Rooted in a conflation of faith and national identity, this ideological movement distorts the Gospel of Jesus, misusing Christianity to justify division, exclusion, inequality, racism and supremacy,” Johnson said. “This ideology further demands that laws, culture and public policies be based on a distorted interpretation of the Gospel that elevates power and control over love. These ideologies are in direct contradiction with our faith.”

Johnson acknowledged that the flag can be “a symbol of national unity which honors the hard-fought freedoms won by brave women and men who willingly sacrificed for its purpose and the cause of peace.” At the same time, to conflate the flag with the cross – the Christian symbol of hope in Jesus’ resurrection – “intentionally blurs the division between our faith in a loving, liberating and life-giving God and national pride.”

His guidance directs clergy and congregations “to contextualize the flag by properly placing it outside the altar area and next to rolls of honor, books of remembrance, or service memorials to those who served.”

The House of Bishops’ report on Christian nationalism does not specifically advise moving American flags from altars, though it offers a range of other suggestions for responding to the crisis.

“This challenge is not new or particular to this day and age,” the report says. “In the early church, gentiles had to renounce their allegiance and their participation in the Roman army when they became Christians. Each generation must explore and renew its understanding of life in Christ in its moment in history.”

The full 128-page report, in English and Spanish, was released in October and is available for purchase from Church Publishing.

Former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry had asked the House of Bishops Theology Committee to study the issue in 2022, and Curry wrote a foreword for the published report. Christian nationalism “threatens our country’s soul,” Curry said in the foreword. “It is because we love God and it is because we love our country that we want to respond in ways that are healthy, holy, and true.”

The report is one of the latest examples of The Episcopal Church’s ongoing response to the increasing threat of Christian nationalism. Executive Council, meeting in January 2021 less than three weeks after the Jan. 6 riot, passed a resolution committing the church to “deradicalization efforts. The measure asked the church’s Office of Government Relations and Office for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Relations “to develop a plan for The Episcopal Church’s holistic response to Christian nationalism and violent white supremacy.”

Curry, participating in a webinar on the topic later that month, called Christian nationalism “absolutely a threat to a pluralistic, democratic society, and something that needs to be wrestled with in order to move forward and not repeat the events of Jan. 6.” He and other leaders have continued to speak out on the issue in the ensuing years.

The 81^st General Convention adopted a resolution in June 2024 urging Episcopalians to educate and equip themselves for action in response to “the urgent, troubling, and deeply rooted issue of religious nationalism, the intersection of religious extremism and nationalist ideologies, both domestically and globally.”

And last month, at the latest meeting of the House of Bishops, Atlanta Bishop Robert Wright spoke forcefully against Christian nationalism as “demonic.”

“Christian nationalism is not an imperfect or evolving rendering of Jesus’ life and teachings, neither should it be characterized as simply a difference of theological or political interpretation or emphasis. Christian nationalism is a deceitful rendering of Jesus’ teaching for the purpose of manipulation and the increase of mammon,” Wright said, according to his notes provided to ENS. “This is not a fringe movement as the data shows. This is a deeply embedded, well-funded, strategic, compellingly argued appeal.”

Johnson’s emphasis on flag placement in his Diocese of Missouri congregations raises what may be a sensitive issue at congregations across The Episcopal Church where American flags can sometimes be found posted on altars, either separately or alongside Episcopal Church flags.

Spokane Bishop Gretchen Rehberg, in a personal reflection included in the “Crisis of Christian Nationalism” report, offered her own perspectives on this question.

“A simple example of our perhaps inadvertent complicity in Christian nationalism is having a U.S. flag in our churches,” Rehberg said. “I have been clear that I do not believe that flags belong in churches, but I have not forbidden them. The diocese will also need to be willing to accept increased losses in our membership when those who are too uncomfortable with this work leave us. In a time of diminishing numbers this will be hard for some.”

In an email response to an ENS request for comment for this story, Rehberg said she has considered giving written guidance about flag placement to congregations in eastern Washington and northern Idaho but has not yet done so. “What we are concentrating on here is helping all of us learn how to be better at communicating across differences, learning how to be curious and courageous across differences,” Rehberg said.

In the Diocese of Missouri, Johnson informed clergy in advance that he would be issuing new guidance on flag placement. That allowed clergy time to consult with their congregations on how best to comply.

Goldfeder, the deacon-in-charge at Calvary, already had been raising issues of social justice in her sermons. Knowing that Johnson would soon request that flags be moved from altars, she began preaching in March on issues specific to the threat of Christian nationalism. After Johnson released his March 19 statement, one of Calvary’s wardens read the statement during the following Sunday service.

Typical Sunday attendance at Calvary is about a dozen worshipers, and turnout on this Sunday was a bit lower. After the warden read Johnson’s statement, Goldfeder invited a veteran in the pews to retire the American flag from the altar to the back of the nave. Some covered their hearts, and at least one person saluted,” Goldfeder told ENS.

Once the flag was moved, the congregation exchanged the peace. The moment clearly left an impression of those in attendance, Goldfeder said. “People were sharing during the peace that their late husbands had been veterans in Vietnam,” she said. “So, we got to learn more about their history, their experiences.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.