When Rev. Ashley Guthas became pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, last summer, it sparked headlines. That’s because it’s the church where the most famous Baptist Sunday School teacher in the country had long taught. Coverage also highlighted her as the first woman to serve as pastor of the church where people flocked from around the world to hear former President Jimmy Carter teach. Carter, a longtime advocate for women in ministry, passed away in December. But Guthas is moving the church, which is part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, in another historic manner: she moved the U.S. and Christian flags out of the sanctuary.
“There are many appropriate places for the American flag and I fully support it being flown around our country and will remain grateful for the sacrifices of the men and women who fought for our freedom,” Guthas wrote in an open letter on Wednesday (March 26). “I do not believe the institutional houses of worship are an appropriate place.”
The events leading up to her letter started out quietly but led to a more public scene of removing the flags just before a recent Sunday worship service. As Guthas noted in her letter, as the Christmas decorations went up in the church late last year, she “moved the flags off stage.” But when the decorations came down, the flags remained off stage. Until, she added, “a few weeks ago, someone moved them back.”
That led to a moment between the Sunday School class Carter used to teach in the sanctuary and the start of the worship service on March 16 when Guthas decided to carry the U.S. and Christian flags out — as the livestream carried the moment and people in the pews watched and listened to the prelude.
“As I sat in Sunday School, looking up at them, I was compelled to move them and to do this in front of everyone between Sunday School and the 11 a.m. service,” she explained in her letter. “I did this calmly (and with some trepidation) with the help of another member. When it came time for me to step into the pulpit, I acknowledged that the flags do not belong to the right or left of the cross and that I do not wish to be flanked by them as I preach.”
During that service as she welcomed the congregation, she acknowledged that she had just moved the flags. She argued that “it doesn’t mean that I don’t love our country,” but said that if she is “called to lead us directly to the heart of Jesus, there can be nothing else that we might mistake and place our allegiance in.”
In her letter this week, Guthas mentioned she had previously been told that Carter didn’t think the flags should be in the sanctuary since “they could be a hindrance to someone having the ability to hear the message of Christ.” Yet, there they stood “to the right and left of the large wooden cross that Mr. Jimmy carved himself.”
Guthas also noted that “our nation is being plagued by what has been labeled as Christian Nationalism.” For her, responding to this means removing the American flag from the sanctuary since “we are called to examine our hearts, to ask God to show us if there is anything that is getting in the way of our devotion to God.”
At the end of her letter, Guthas noted that in a deacon meeting on the Sunday after her act of removing the flags, a “compromise” was reached to place the flags in the vestibule instead of the sanctuary.
