Colin Kaepernick sits during National Anthem

[aieyiamfu]

Seems like someone hit a nerve.....

Not even close, strangers in an Internet forum are not getting my goat for sure.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Is that verse included in the national anthem as it is presented today or has it been disregarded (discarded)?

Neither one. Rarely is all verses of a national anthem sung simply because of time constraints; anthems are usually sung at scripted events and time does not permit multiple verses.....nothing nefarious going on....

 

[dzheremi]

I can't believe how fast this thread is moving. 110+ messages since I decided to take a nap a few hours ago! Also, the quasi-theological turn as of late is interesting. I guess there is a question of whether or not it's Christian to be patriotic. That's a little anachronistic, considering how nations mentioned in the Bible have survived into modern day with their borders more or less intact. I guess there's Egypt, Ethiopia...uh...maybe that's it? Or maybe not even that. There is the question of what precisely 'Ethiopia' would have meant in ancient times (it certainly wasn't modern Ethiopia, as that didn't exist; even the Kingdom of Axum wasn't founded until c. 100 AD, presumably some centuries after the composition of the Psalms in which Ethiopia is mentioned by name), though Egypt has been remarkably stable since ancient times, its unification having occured c. 3100 BC.

I think the potential evidence is certainly mixed, such that those who feel that patriotism is anti-Christian can point to verses about how we are not to place our trust in princes, while those who feel that patriotism is in keeping with their faith might argue that rendering unto Caesar those things which is Caesar's and unto God those things which are God's provides the Christian with room to be patriotic within certain defined limits (i.e., not so the flag might replace God, but that we might be thankful to God that we live in whatever circumstances we do, with whatever opportunities that this might entail). I will say that the ancient practice of the Church of Egypt that I belong to is to pray for the king (ruler) of the land that he might be just and rightly-guided in his decision-making. That usually hasn't worked out too well for the Church, but we still pray it because a good leader would be better than a bad one, and who can say that God cannot change the heart of a leader the same as any other? I'm told by friends of mine from church that seeing St. Mary atop the Church at Zeitoun personally inspired then-president Gamal Abdelnasser to seek better relations with the Coptic minority, though of course I don't whether that is true or not (it was slightly before my time).

Anyway...point is, it doesn't seem as cut and dry as 'you're a bad Christian if you are/n't patriotic' or whatever. Certainly things can be taken too far in one extreme or another, but I don't think Kaepernick's action is a good example of that. The man chose not to stand up; he didn't prevent others from standing or do anything to actually physically disrupt the anthem. I wonder if those who are vilifying him for that decision would similarly vilify the martyrs of the pre-Constantinian period, when Christianity was still underground, who would not participate in Roman civic paganism and paid with their lives for that decision to not pay due reverence to false gods. Certainly I think it is possible to make the USA and its symbols into a kind of false god to be worshiped, albeit unintentionally.

One could argue that he is successful in spite of racial discrimination in the United States.

I know this was a million posts ago, but this is exactly what I was getting at in the post this was a reply to. Barack Obama's success doesn't prove that racism is a thing of the past any more than Magic Johnson's ability to live so long with AIDS means that AIDS is not a thing anymore. They're outliers, and while it's good if both can use their success to inspire others (to have big dreams of making political progress, to wear a dang condom...whatever positive lessons you can get from them), their fame or affluence or whatever does not stand in for others. It's not like Barack Obama being the president is going to give Trayvon Martin's parents their child back or whatever.

 

[aieyiamfu]

No, it is a refusal to throw out everything from the past because certain attitudes are not in line with what we think today.

I throw it out because it's crazy statist stuff but the racism isn't a bad reason to reconsider either.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

No, it is a refusal to throw out everything from the past because certain attitudes are not in line with what we think today.

Requiring people who were or are harmed by those attitudes to show respect for them is the problem.

 

[keith99]

Requiring people who were or are harmed by those attitudes to show respect for them is the problem.

So a song, statue or painting cannot stand on its own?

 

[dzheremi]

So a song, statue or painting cannot stand on its own?

Is that what people who are so upset about this situation are asking for, though? If that's the case, then it seems like the argument can be made even more strongly that it shouldn't matter if one guy doesn't want to stand for the national anthem because of his objections to how black people are treated in this country. After all, the anthem stands on its own, right?

It seems that what the offended want is for their feelings about this country which they have tied up in the anthem to trump the feelings of another citizen who sees that the anthem has just such an emblematic power. That's the point of not standing for it. If nobody cared about the anthem and what it stands for, we wouldn't be talking about this.

So maybe whether or not it can stand on its own is secondary to the reality that it doesn't. Just like separating Triumph of the Will from Hitler's Germany might make an interesting intellectual exercise for those who are far enough removed from what it represents to approach it just as a film, but that doesn't change the fact that they're actually watching Nazi propaganda.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

So a song, statue or painting cannot stand on its own?

The lyrics of the song reference these artitudes, and these attitudes haven't fully changed. We shouldn't outlaw the song, but should we really be villifying someone for not showing respect? And what would be wrong about a new anthem that represented all of us?

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

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This thread is closed at the request of the OP.
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[mnorian]

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Some post were deleted because of flaming
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