Flying a Flag, Perhaps

There is a story that when an archdeacon, or somesuch dignitary, inspected Thaxted church in Essex early during the incumbency of that church’s ‘Red Vicar’, Conrad Noel, to see for himself what all the considerable fuss was about, he asked Noel to justify the presence of the red flag he could see in the chancel. ‘It stands for the Blood of Christ, staining all the nations of the world’, replied the vicar. ‘Very good, Mr Noel,’ admitted the archdeacon, but pressed ‘Then how might you explain the IRA tricolour on the other side?’ No further explanation was forthcoming. Noel does seem later to have put up an amended Red Flag which made matters a bit clearer.

Whatever sympathy I may or may not have with Conrad Noel’s opinions, I have always felt a bit uncomfortable with the display of any symbols in church which aren’t directly related to the Christian religion. This cropped up this weekend when Sylv our pastoral assistant asked to put up a Ukrainian flag and an encouraging message to welcome any Ukrainian guests who might find themselves worshipping with us. I thought this was essentially a nice gesture but the flag turned out to be quite big and its position draped over the church door was very obvious indeed. Of course that was the point. However I did take it down at the end of Sunday evening, folding it up into a box in the entrance area to put out again next week.

This may seem picky and fastidious, but I suppose the root of my discomfort lies – if it’s anywhere other than in my own scepticism and tendency to see the ambiguities and contradictions in any statement or position, including my own – in a feeling that the Christian Church exists to proclaim the Kingdom of Christ, and nothing else: no subsidiary cause, no secondary human organisation, no matter how worthy or admirable. We have to announce the primacy of the Incarnate word, and nothing but, because nobody else will. I don’t even feel that comfortable with our own national flag which plenty of churches fly: even though the Cross of St George has a religious significance (it’s the red of martyrdom against the white field of innocence, and, well, it’s a cross, which is why the Lamb of God carries it as well as St George), its primary meaning now is national, which is why it was one of the other insignia Conrad Noel displayed in Thaxted Church. The blue-and-yellow of Ukraine which is now so familiar to us I can just about cope with as a sign of welcome to a particular group, but that’s as far as it goes. There are loads of causes I could rope Jesus into supporting, from Extinction Rebellion to the Museums Association. But somehow I do not dare!