Are Red, White and Blue Liturgical Colors?

I'm looking forward to worship on Sunday.  Part of the service will be given over to a "Celebration for the Gift of the Nation."  We will hear excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, "I Have a Dream" speech.  We will sing familiar national hymns that should stir our hearts. And I say, "Of, course, wear your red, white and blue." 

While respecting those Christian traditions that prefer that a safer distance be kept between church and state, with a bit of fear and trembling, I think it wise that we allow a celebration like Sunday's from time to time. But it will be a bounded celebration. You will notice in the order of worship that the center of the service will be, properly, the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the Lord's Table. In the call to worship, the Psalmist will remind us that, "The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save," an important reminder in a world where we tend to trust foolishly the state's power to make right what has gone wrong or to change the nature of human persons or human history. In our time of confession we will admit national sins and humbly ask that God "mend our every flaw." Continue Reading »