{"id":33063,"date":"2015-07-06T00:30:50","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T03:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/?p=33063"},"modified":"2016-11-24T22:57:43","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T01:57:43","slug":"local-churches-raise-christian-flag-over-american-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/06\/local-churches-raise-christian-flag-over-american-flag\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Churches Raise Christian Flag over American Flag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two church pastors in Shelby, NC, have decided to create a visible reminder of their priorities when it comes to God and country: They&#8217;re flying the Christian flag <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wbtv.com\/story\/29472787\/shelby-church-to-fly-christian-flag-over-american-flag\">above the flag of the USA<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On Sunday, Pastor Rit Varriale will raise the Christian flag above the American flag in front of Elizabeth Baptist Church&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you stop and think about it, it should be our commitment to God first, then our commitment to country,&#8221; Varriale said.<\/p>\n<p>The controversial move is one <!--more-->that Varriale noticed his fellow pastor, Walter Wilson, doing down the road a few months ago at Focus Missionary Baptist Church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In an interesting twist, Pastor Varriale of <a href=\"http:\/\/elizabethchurch.org\/\">Elizabeth Baptist Church<\/a> seems to be taking a page from the playbook of the LGBT movement, which has tried to appropriate the rainbow as its flag:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Varriale tells WBTV he believes Christians need to stand up just as the LGBT community has been doing recently.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The reality is, they have been willing to sacrifice more and be more bold for their cause than the church of Jesus Christ for serving God, and that&#8217;s got to change,&#8221; Varriale said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The move does violate the US Flag Code, which is technically US law. That&#8217;s caveated with\u00a0&#8220;technically&#8221; because the US Flag Code is generally understood to be unenforceable, and thus isn&#8217;t enforced &#8212; whether for those who burn or otherwise desecrate the flag, or for those who <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2015\/02\/11\/complaint-filed-over-lgbt-flag-on-us-air-force-base\/\">appropriate it for<\/a> the homosexual movement.<\/p>\n<p>Pastor Varriale is calling his action &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.godbeforegovernment.org\/\">God Before Government<\/a>,&#8221; which was also the subject of\u00a0his July 5th sermon.\u00a0It&#8217;s an interesting perspective, and certainly one that will inspire debate &#8212; particularly given the fact Christians believe God installs and removes governments, and the Bible instructs Christians to &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Romans%2013\">be subject to the governing authorities<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Also at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beaufortobserver.net\/Articles-NEWS-and-COMMENTARY-c-2015-07-04-278695.112112-Finally-two-pastors-take-a-stand-God-first-country-second.html\">Beaufort Observer<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two church pastors in Shelby, NC, have decided to create a visible reminder of their priorities when it comes to God and country: They&#8217;re flying the Christian flag above the flag of the USA: On Sunday, Pastor Rit Varriale will raise the Christian flag above the American flag in front of Elizabeth Baptist Church&#8230; &#8220;When you stop and think about [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[23,96,5235,1144,5237,5238,442,17,10,171,5234,5236],"class_list":["post-33063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-bible","tag-christian","tag-elizabeth-baptist-church","tag-flag","tag-focus-missionary-baptist-church","tag-god-before-government","tag-homosexual","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-rit-varriale","tag-walter-wilson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}