No Quarter: No quarter will be given means refusing to spare the life of anybody, even of persons manifestly unable to defend themselves or who clearly express their intention to surrender.

Law Insider Dictionary, https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/no-quarter-will-be-given

Every Sunday I stand in my pulpit and look out the windows. From my pulpit I look out and see a flag. Every Sunday, same flag flying always.

It looks like this:

You have probably seen this flag around. It has become popular with certain political spheres to declare both that a Civil War is coming and no one will be taken prisoner or allowed to surrender.

Every Sunday I stare at this flag, its meaning and intent never absent or lost on me. Every Sunday I preach love, compassion, peace, and sacrifice under the veil of violence and glorification of war.

Every Sunday I look at that flag, waving across the street, a symbol of anger and hatred. And I stand and preach.

This week it bothered me more than usual. I just looked at it, and it began to send shivers down my spine. I could not place it at first, but now I know:

That flag declares the resident of that home would righteously kill me in the event of a Civil War. I stand and preach in defiance of it, and I will continue to do so, but it just chills me.

And I know my privilege here. Straight, CIS, white, male, Protestant pastor. The world, generally, has no tendency for violence toward me. Usually the worst that can come my way is a congregation firing me and needing to find a new job. My existence is not threatened.

But that flag. It declares an intention to harm me eventually (even if the person flying it could never act upon it). It chills me.

How did we get here? I know much, much smarter people than me can answer that question with history and theology — hi, David — but from a crudely emotional and pastoral standpoint, academics and scholarship be damned, how did we get to the point where it seems appropriate and right to wave a flag declaring, “Agree with me or die!”?

It chills me, but it also saddens me so. Part of moving back to Iowa and serving a small-town church was getting back to my people, and I am learning me people hate me. My people see me as the enemy and declare their willingness to kill me.

Love, compassion, peace, compromise, hope; this message I will preach until I no longer have a pulpit to fill.

And so I stare at that flag, let the chill go down my spine, and preach against it while it definitely flies out the window.

Peace,

– Robby