Many people say they stand during the national anthem as a sign of respect to those around them, even if they do not sing the words themselves. Indeed, some people do not think the anthem glorifies war. Instead they claim that it merely describes a battle scene in which the flag remains even though a military had attacked Fort McHenry. As one person recently commented:
The primary intent of the lyrics is not for calling people to arms; the lyrics, primarily, are meant to illustrate a scene in which the flag waved proudly after weathering an attack from a foreign power and to use this as a sign of hope for the survival of our nation and its ideals. The battle imagery in the lyrics is in the context of the United States defending an attack from British bombs bursting in air.
–Joseph Penner
In their book, Blood, Sacrifice and Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag, Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle argue that American patriotism is a civil religion of blood sacrifice in which the flag is a sacred object akin to totems and idols. Violence is key to this religion. The Star-Spangled Banner is a hymn to the American flag. It essentially is about how the sign of the flag was a beacon of hope that the American patriots would not be defeated by the British military. As Marvin and Ingle state:
The patriotic statement that Americans are an unconquerable people, common at times of totem peril, is a deadly serious statement of totem faith. The totem wards off evil and protects from harm.
-Marvin and Ingle, Blood, Sacrifice and Nation, 37.
The “totem,” in this case the American flag, has to deliver protection to be effective. If an army overruns and defeats it, the totem will cease to exist. Thus its group members have to be willing to exchange themselves for the totem, to sacrifice themselves to renew the flag’s power. It is a bloody ritual, enshrined in the Star-Spangled Banner. Marvin and Ingle write:
During the British bombardment of 1814, Francis Scott Key was moved to model in poetry the flag’s endurance under fire. The battle for the death defying Star-Spangled Banner was ritualized as a creation-sacrifice guaranteeing the nation for eternity and illuminated by the regenerative dawn.
-Marvin and Ingle, Blood, Sacrifice and Nation, 245.
The battle for regenerative power of the flag is replayed at every sporting event as people, stand, turn their bodies toward the flag (or the music), and place their hand over their hearts in a pious act of reverence that re-enacts a creation myth of bloody proportions. This deeply idolatrous ritual, is also enshrined in federal law that mandates body posture whenever the national anthem is played:
§171. Conduct during playing
During rendition of the national anthem when the flag is displayed, all present except those in uniform should stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. Men not in uniform should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should render the military salute at the first note of the anthem and retain this position until the last note. When the flag is not displayed, those present should face toward the music and act in the same manner they would if the flag were displayed there.
This law states not only that people should stand but directs people’s body posture. This is the type of thing that civil religion ceremonies are made of. In the sporting events the flag and its hymn—the Star-Spangled Banner—remind us that we are Americans, and that what we share is a submission to a violent authority, whose totem power is to protect us from harm. It is godlike.
Thus, this ritual is far from harmless from a Christian perspective. But there are simple ways to resist it. The simple act of staying seated communicates a powerful message that Christians are for Christ rather than this totem blood ritual. This is not unique to the United States. All nations have these totem rituals. Christians should find ways to witness to Christ in the face of these idols.
–Andy Alexis-Baker
