Clashing Over Church Ritual, Flag Protocol at Naval Academy

[trof]

Source: NYT

Clashing Over Church Ritual and Flag Protocol at the Naval Academy Chapel

By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: March 8, 2008

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — On Sundays at the Naval Academy Chapel, at a few minutes past 11 a.m., the choir stops singing and a color guard carrying the academy flag and the American flag strides up the aisle. Below a cobalt blue stained-glass window of Jesus, one midshipman dips the academy flag before the altar cross, and the other dips the American flag.

The dipping of the flag has begun this nondenominational Protestant service at the Naval Academy for 40 years. But in civilian life, the American flag is never to be dipped, and the Navy says, it is not dipped at any other worship service at the academy or at any other installation.

In October, after the academy’s superintendent, Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, raised questions about the ritual with the academy chaplains, they suspended the flag-dipping because “there was a concern over teaching midshipmen something not practiced anywhere in the fleet,” the academy’s spokesman, Cmdr. Ed Austin, said in an e-mail message. But the pause lasted only a few months. Now the flags are being dipped again, and the superintendent, who has held his post since June, has stopped attending the 11 a.m. service. Evangelical Christians and their critics alike assert that the academy had to reconsider after an outcry by congregants and alumni.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/us/08chapel.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1205065864-kjt/zCt6U2MWLo3McmHB6w

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Onward Christian Sailors

[rfranklin]

1. Just think about if someone were to dip the flag during...

prayers to Allah.

[bemildred]

2. Well, the flags dips are out in force at the Naval Academy. nt

[crikkett]

6. LOL

:spray:

[HawkerHurricane]

3. I'm fine with this.

The U.S. flag is never dipped to a living person. It can be dipped to honor the dead. By dipping the U.S. flag to the cross, they are admitting that Jesus is dead.

(Old Navy Signalman here. Amazing how little these fundies know about things they do.)

[kimmylavin]

4. But is that really what they're doing?

Admitting that Jesus is dead?
Or dipping the flag as a sign of allegiance to the cross?

I don't know that much about flag ceremonies - what are the usual reasons for a flag to be dipped at something?

[HawkerHurricane]

10. A dip is a salute

Showing respect. But the U.S. flag is never dipped to anyone alive. It is dipped to 'honored dead', the U.N. flag, the Olympic flag/flame during the Olympics, during funerals, in honor of deceased presidents, supreme court justices, vice presidents, allied foriegn officials... Half Masting is a form of dipping.

(No, that's not what they think they're doing... but that's what I'll tell them they're doing.)

[TechBear_Seattle]

12. They are declaring that US sovereignty is subservient to God's sovereignty

That is the whole point of bowing to the altar and the like: giving God (or the location where God would be if present) the submission due a sovereign. In short: they are comitting treason.

[Thothmes]

5. The National Ensign is also dipped in response to a foreign flag ship

dipping their colors to a U.S.Navy vessel. That said, we never dip the National Ensign first. Question for a skivvy waver. When the church pennant and the National Ensign fly from the same halyard, If I remember the rules correctly, the Church pennant flies above the National Ensign during divine services. Is this correct.

[HawkerHurricane]

9. Partially

The appropriate worship pennant flies above the Ensign of a ship from the same point of hoist, but NEVER the same halyard. Use a seperate rope.

There are three worship pennants, The church pennant (white with Latin cross in blue), Jewish worship (white with Star of David/tablets of the law in blue), and Islamic service (white with cresent moon in blue).

[Thothmes]

14. Thanks, sigs

[neverforget]

8. Because we all know that Jesus was an American

[DBoon]

16. So the flag dip means Jesus did not rise again?

and that he is as dead as anyone else they honor?

[hedgehog]

7. On the other hand, just what are flags doing in a Christian service, anyways?

A lot of Catholic Churches used to have an American flag prominently displayed in the sanctuary. It was left over from the days when Catholics had to prove that they were loyal US citizens and not secret agents of the Papacy! (Laugh, but I can remember those days. In fact, my mother remembers the time the lady stood up at the school board meeting to complain that the Catholics should build their own kindergarten instead of overcrowding the one at th public school!) In any case. honor for the symbol of this country too often borders on idol worship for me to be comfortable seeing a flag in church these days!

[Peace Patriot]

11. That's gotta make Jesus laugh--the guy who said, "Turn the other cheek," and

"love thine enemy," getting a flag dipped at him, which to many means war, and currently means slaughtering 1.2 million innocent people to get their oil.

Thomas Jefferson had the right idea. NO. ESTABLISHMENT. OF. RELIGION. And I'm sure he got it from all the religious wars between nations and factions that had ravaged Europe and the Middle East for centuries. He banned all this crap from the newly born republic, God bless his liberty-loving soul! (And God forgive the slavery that he tried to, but could not, get banned in the "Declaration of Independence.")

-------------------------

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny imposed upon the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson (inscribed around his statue in Washington DC)

[JVS]

13. Burn it, dip it, do whatever. Free speech.

[jody]

15. God/Jesus don't care, after all they are omni gods. Would Christians protest if Old Glory was

dipped in a Muslim mosque?

[L0oniX]

17. They worship a country and its flag.