Goshen College, a small, private, liberal arts school located in Goshen, Indiana made news recently when it decided to ban the national anthem from being played before athletic contests held at the school. The uproar that has ensued prompted Goshen to clarify its stance, saying that it has not banned the anthem at all, but rather asked that an alternative like America the Beautiful be played in its place…which strikes me largely as a distinction without a difference. Goshen’s position is that some of the “violent” lyrics found in The Star Spangled Banner simply run too far afoul of the Christian pacifist values of Mennonites, the religion with which the school is strongly affiliated.
Those who know me know that I favor liberty before favoring just about anything else. I believe we are born free men, and those whose basic human rights are subjugated by governments both here and abroad have the right to fight to regain those inalienable freedoms…and if the deprived freedoms are indeed basic enough, then those men have the right to regain them by any means necessary. This is a long-winded way of overemphasizing that Goshen has every right, both legally and philosophically, to do what they did. However, the exercise of liberty can be an awfully tricky thing, at times; pretty much by definition, the exercise of liberty by one person runs the risk of offending another. That in no way means liberty should be restricted; it means that all who support it must recognize its very real construction as a double-edged sword (if Goshen will pardon the use of such a violent expression), and be plenty willing to get cut on occasion.
Our national anthem is a song forged literally during one of our battles for independence as a nation. The War of 1812 represented essentially the “Part 2” of our efforts to be free from English tyranny once and for all, and it was from his witness to this war’s Battle of Fort McHenry that Francis Scott Key penned the poem that would later serve as the lyrics to the anthem. Given its genesis, I believe the song rightly pays homage to that singular time in our history that represents our greatest moment as a nation: our very birth. Accordingly, the singing of this national anthem is not out of line by anyone or any group that now enjoys the fruits of those gallant efforts at independence so long ago.
Admittedly, Goshen comes by its objections to the lyrics of the national anthem honestly; as noted above, Goshen is a college that is closely tied to the Mennonites, who will never likely be mistaken for a tribe of Viking warriors. Still, in recognizing that all things in these present United States descend directly from the days in which it was conceived and born, the idea of Mennonites retaining and proclaiming as the national anthem a song that celebrates the fight it took to create a country that allows them to safely and securely be Mennonites is more than appropriate.
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Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).
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