As several others have said, this is a Mennonite school. I’ve dealt with Mennonites for years, I have major problems with Mennonites both theologically and politically, and I don’t in any way support people who object to the National Anthem. Anyone who is a Mennonite or in any way connected with Mennonite doctrine needs to be examined **VERY** carefully before being elected to political office because of the wrongheaded views of Mennonites on pacifism and church-state relations.
However, some of the comments written here disturb me. This is not only a private school free of government control but also a Christian school which is part of a theological tradition that has a centuries-old stance on pacifism. Can I politely suggest that unless we want to have the Obama administration start imposing evil mandates on our own conservative evangelical Christian schools, or secular conservative schools like Hillsdale, we’d better be very careful saying that a Mennonite school has to obey mandates from the government that the school administration believes contradict the core tenets of their faith?
Parents have every right to refuse to send their children to this college, and that’s the appropriate sanction, not government penalties. If anything is going to be done beyond a student and donor boycott to change the college administration or policies, that’s an internal matter for the Mennonites to deal with.
As others here have said, there are many politically conservative people within the Mennonite tradition who are very proud to be patriotic Americans because of our American history of freedom of religion and believe the best thing they can do in time of war is to pray for the defeat of evildoers. The suggestions by some here that Mennonites might somehow be supportive of the Soviet Union would be particularly strange to many Mennonites who lost their farms and were expelled from the Soviet Union during the era of forced collectivization. The only thing the Communists wanted from the Mennonites was to take their land, which had been brought out of wasteland into productive agriculture by the sweat of generations of Mennonite work.
Those of us who are outsiders but share non-Anabaptist versions of evangelical Christianity need to pray that the Mennonites who understand biblical principles on most things other than pacifism and church-state relations will be able to use this incident to galvanize their own members. I suppose we can regard conservative Mennonites as Christian brethren who need prayer. Otherwise, with all due respect, I don’t see that people who aren’t part of the Mennonite tradition have a dog in this fight.
Nope. Not buying it.
This nation came into being through violence. It remains a strong and safe nation through the implementation of violence and the assurance that violence will result if we are attacked. If these people wish to take advantage of what violence brought forth for them, and continues to provide to them, they need to respect the price paid.
Every person that died to provide this national environment for all of us, is trashed by their delusional disgusting behavior.
If they don’t like it here, they should GTFO. I can recommend a number of nations around the world that will get them real religion should they move there.
This is very well said.
No one is suggesting they be forced by the government to play anything. But free speech is a two way street so people are free to voice their reactions.