Last modified: 2007-11-17 by rob raeside
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by António Martins, 9 September 2007
Seen in the window of a nearby conservative evangelical
bookstore both the familiar "Christian" flag and a new design I had not seen
before -- the same as the S&S but with a white "ichthys" fish symbol in place of
the stars in the canton.
Joe McMillan, 25 January 2002
by António Martins, 27 January 2002
I have seen a blue flag, with red letters (fimbriated in white): "JESUS IS
LORD"
Dean McGee, 25 January 2002
by Chrystian Kretowicz, 2 January 2003
FOTW was alerted to a "new" Christian flag by "treelife", as posted at http://www.cafeshops.com/cp/store.aspx?s=ChristFlag.
The church behind the flag seems to have the website www.tolag.org/Knights.htm and to
belong to the Assemblies of God - so the flag
would possibly not be used outside that particular branch of
Christianity.
Ole Andersen, 11 January 2003
The design is a narrow square red cross of St. George, overlaid with 13 gold,
7-pointed stars in a circle, all on a white field. The link is a catalog page,
not specifying denomination, of assorted novelties decorated with this design
(which looks, from a distance, like a Red Cross or medical logo). But nowhere
were there any actual flags for sale! One is curious whether this is a square
flag, as the picture implies. One also wonders about the significance of the
design elements: 12 apostles plus Christ for 13 stars? The 7-pointed star is
reminiscent of Masonic usage (vide US Bennington) or
Islamic symbolism, but could well stand for the 7-day week and hence the
Sabbath.
This [flag] has the [design] problem of the gold (or yellow) small stars
on white, which similarly disappear.
Bill Dunning, 11 January 2003
The site did actually mention reasons for the "change", as well as having a
link to a site which has lots of meanings associated with the flag and a
particular group/program "Knights of the Warrior Bride". The whole question of
"changing" the Christian Flag is of course dependent on what you think the
point of such a flag is. This is more
a case of one group (or more) deciding to use a different flag. The question for
this group is what is the symbolism of the flag? It doesn't seem that they have
a problem with the deliberate symbolism of the original Christian Flag, rather
that they have a point they want to make, and they can make it using the
symbolism of a new flag and some unintended symbolism of the old flag, which
they presumably feel accidentally reflects/is reflected by the attitudes of many
Christian groups/people. On the shop site, they say that on the old flag, the
church is tucked away in a corner, with Christ within the walls, and the
"harvest field" of the earth is left outside. The "new flag" is meant to show
Christ throughout the 4 corners of the earth, (with the stars representing the
church?) If you see the purpose of a Christian flag as to be a symbol to
remind/teach people of certain things, this would probably be a good reason for
a new flag. If you see the purpose of the flag as to represent God's people,
then you may see the new flag as a better symbol. Whether it is worth "changing"
the flag would depend on how much the "original" is seen as *the* Christian
Flag, rather than just a flag which symbolises Christianity.
On the Knights of the Warrior Bride
site, we read that "we" are the stars in the dark world. There are 13,
representing
i) "we" (Christians, or KWB?) as the 13th tribe
ii) The KWB
program where each person should "pattern themselves after Christ, who is the
Bright and Morning Star" and disciple 12 others to do the same
iii) The
"Thirteen Commandments" - the 10, and the 3 'love commandments' given by Jesus
(two of which, sometimes said to summarise the 10, are actually in Deuteronomy
and then quoted by Jesus, the third being the "new commandment" to "love one
another as I have loved you")
The circle of stars represent
i)
sharing the same centre (Christ) (just noticed that they *do* use the "British
spelling", so I didn't change it when I typed it - where are these guys?)
ii)
a well, with quite a bit of different symbolism
iii) the "promise of our
marriage to Christ"
iv) the crown of the bride (doing interesting things with
Revelation 12)
The colour of the stars is apparently the colour of light
("British" spelling again) and the seven points represent:
i) the fleeing of
the enemies in 7 directions (Deut 28:7)
ii) the sevenfold spirit of God
(Revelation - 7 isn't unique to Islamic
symbology!)
iii) the 7 points of the KWB motto and code.
The cross is
red for Jesus' death/blood and extends across the whole flag because there is no
end to Jesus' love. The four corners are "the four corners of the earth, white
and ready for harvest". The flag is pictured both square and with greater width
than height.
Jonathan Dixon, 11 January 2003