[LightHugger]

This is a bit of a tangent, but you mentioned removing an american flag from the podium in a church. This makes me think, we care about removing religion from government, but do we care about removing government from religion and places of worship? Protecting government from religious influence is an obvious win but does it matter if patriotism is in churches?

I'm interested if anyone has any more formed thoughts to share on this, because my initial reaction is that separating church out of state is what's very necessary and desirable, but separating state out of church probably doesn't really matter, does it?

[giraffe_lady]

It's an ongoing conversation in the eastern orthodox church you might find something interesting there. Historically it was the state church of the byzantines, later (and still officially) greece and russia. There are liturgical gestures and phrasing that indicate an entanglement with the state that is not really true in most places today.

There are factions that openly consider this the "ideal" form of the church and think we should return to it. Others think that was an embarrassing political necessity and are happy to be free of it. There was a lot of meddling in church affairs by the soviets that showed people the downsides. But the allure of power is still there I suppose.

You also run into interesting stuff about like, what is the state from the church's point of view. In liturgy we pray for "the president, armed forces, and all civil authorities." So for example during the russo-japanese war, was a russian orthodox mission in japan praying for russia's enemies? The canonical answer is yes and this makes almost everyone uncomfortable one way or another.

[codechicago277]

On a legal basis I’m not sure, but on a theological basis many people find it very important to separate patriotism and allegiance to a particular government from theological beliefs, which is why many saw Trump’s Bible as heretical.

It’s also worth pointing out that rejecting state influence over religion is the original reason for the concept of separation of church and state, at least in America. It was was far from the norm at the time.

[1] https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/establishment-clause...

[2] https://goodfaithmedia.org/heresy-of-the-trump-bible/

[satiric]

I was interested, so I went on a wikipedia tangent. It was brought up in the courts in Reynolds v. United States in 1878, when the Mormons were saying that anti-bigamy laws were unconstitutional (they did not convince the court, and it continues to be illegal now).

More recently, it's also been used to say that the bans on peyote use were illegal, because of the folks that use peyote in religious ceremonies. Because of that it's now legal in all 50 states if using it in a traditional Native American ceremony.

So yeah, it might not be as commonly talked about, but it's still come up in the courts, and there are plenty of folks who care.

[carlob]

It doesn't matter as long you don't (or are allowed not to) participate in church.