What Is That Flag With The Green Pine Tree All About?

Created
Sun, 12/11/2023 - 10:30
Updated
Sun, 12/11/2023 - 10:30
It was everywhere at the January 6th insurrection You know by now that Mike Johnson is a far right theocrat who should not be let anywhere near power in our constitutional republic. His beliefs are way beyond the pale even for most evangelicals. But it gets worse. Keen eyes spotted a flag outside his office last week that tells a much more disturbing story: The flag — which Rolling Stone has confirmed hangs outside his district office in the Cannon House Office Building —  is white with a simple evergreen tree in the center and the phrase “An Appeal to Heaven” at the top. Historically, this flag was a Revolutionary War banner, commissioned by George Washington as a naval flag for the colony turned state of Massachusetts. The quote “An Appeal to Heaven” was a slogan from that war, taken from a treatise by the philosopher John Locke. But in the past decade it has come to symbolize a die-hard vision of a hegemonically Christian America. To understand the contemporary meaning of the Appeal to Heaven flag, it’s necessary to enter a world of Christian extremism animated by modern-day apostles, prophets, and apocalyptic visions of Christian triumph that was central to the chaos and violence of Jan. 6. Earlier this year we released an audio-documentary series, rooted in deep historical research and ethnographic interviews, on this sector of Christianity, which is known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). The flag hanging outside Johnson’s office is a key part of its symbology. The New Apostolic Reformation is a set of…