Insight on the News

The Flag​—“A Living Thing?”

● Rules governing the use of the American flag have been revised for the first time in thirty-four years. The new legislation affects when the flag may be displayed and its authorized location on automobiles; it also deletes the hand-over-heart salute requirement for women. The revised code also adds: “The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing.”

If the flag is officially considered to be “a living thing,” can it be said that Christians who respectfully decline to join in the flag ceremony are unreasonable in citing as their basis the Bible’s command to “flee from idolatry”? (1 Cor. 10:14) Author Whitney Smith, director of the Flag Research Center and considered America’s top expert on flags, advocates flying and saluting the flag. Yet even he recently admitted that “we’ve turned the flag into a civil religion.”

Certainly where there is religious freedom, people whose conscience does not allow them to join in the rituals of the “civil religion” are not to be criticized. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in 1943: “The refusal of these persons to participate in the ceremony does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so. Nor is there any question in this case that their behavior is peaceable and orderly.”

“Haunted by a ‘Why?’”

● “Day Innocence Ended” was the headline of a recent editorial in Panama’s “Star and Herald” newspaper. It pointed to August 4, 1914, as the day that “began the first holocaust [World War I] of this century,” noting that “a half century of peace and progress, of tolerance, in a word, of civilization, ended on that day in 1914.”

“None, save the dwindling ranks of those who lived in the sunshine of the pre-1914 world,” declared the editorial, “can strike the sad contrast between those days and these.” And it raised the revealing question: “Although the facts have been raked over a thousand times and more, men still probe the wounds, haunted by a ‘Why?’ whose answer eludes them.”

But the answer as to why 1914 marked such a turning point in history does not elude those who consider the Bible’s prophecies about the “conclusion of the system of things.” Jesus foretold that “nation [rising] against nation and kingdom against kingdom” would mark “a beginning of pangs of distress” for the world. He also forecast that this would be followed by many other things that characterize our generation, such as the “increasing of lawlessness” that causes “the love of the greater number [to] cool off.” Certainly Christians need not be “haunted by a ‘Why?’” regarding the notable change since 1914.​—Matt. 24:3, 7, 8, 12.

“It Can’t Happen to Us”

● When the deadly flash flood struck Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon last summer, it is estimated that at least 150 persons were killed. One reason for the high death toll, according to the local sheriff, was that “we had trouble convincing them that the river was even coming up.” He said that “they’d want to know if it was going to be up to here or here,” holding his hand first at leg and then at hip level to indicate water depth. “The problem is that there wasn’t time to convince the people, to get the urgency across to them.”

Authorities noted that the canyon was crowded with “flatland tourists” who had no idea what flash floods can do. But there were also many others who had built homes and cabins there, believing “It can’t happen to us,” though they had been warned of the ever-present danger.

A similar situation confronts mankind since the pivotal year of 1914. The fulfillment of Bible prophecy since then proves that a flash flood of destruction will soon end the present system of things. Jehovah’s Christian witnesses have been warning people earth wide of this. But, as forecast in the Bible, the response is often similar to that of the Colorado flood victims. “In the last days there will come ridiculers . . . saying: ‘Where is this promised presence of his? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning.’”​—2 Pet. 3:3, 4; see also Matthew 24:3-44.