Graven Images

Last night, a few friends and I were thumbing through my hymnal collection. I love church music, and so drifting through and singing all sorts of song written to praise God is one of my favorite pastimes. It's amazing the variety language we can use to express ourselves!
However, I always find it disheartening when I reach the back of the hymnal, and I find myself in the section that holds all of those patriotic songs like "America the Beautiful" and "The Star-Spangled Banner," for the same reasons I recoil whenever I see a flag in a sanctuary. I always feel like that dangerous divide between church and state is being lost, and in the process, the church is losing their prophetic voice. It seems idolatrous to associate those songs together, putting love of country side by side with love of God, and it permeates US Christianity.