Thank you for a thoughtful letter, Reverend Erthein. From the Take Down the Confederate Flag in Walton County Facebook page.
A letter from the John B. Erthein, the pastor of Euchee Valley Presbyterian Church in DeFuniak Springs, the oldest Presbyterian church in Florida.
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I write in support of the request to remove the Confederate battle flag from its (inappropriate) place of honor on the grounds of the Walton County Courthouse. I join in this request for these reasons:
First, I am, quite simply, a resident of Walton County. I have lived here for 4 and 1/2 years. I have paid the sales taxes, voted in the elections, bought most of our life necessities here, and have been civically involved, formerly in the Kiwanis club, and currently in the Emerald Coast Ministerial Alliance. I am blessed to be the pastor of the oldest Presbyterian Church in Florida, Euchee Valley Presbyterian Church, whose cemetery contains those who gave their lives both for the Confederacy and the Union. Therefore, I have just as much of a right and a duty to express my views on the issues of this County as does someone who can trace his or her ancestry back to the 1820s. It may be noted that the very fast growth this county has enjoyed over the past couple of decades comes primarily from people who used to live outside of Walton County ... even, to the apparent dismay of some, from north of the Mason Dixon Line.
Well, we live here now, and our voices deserve to be heard as much as anyone's. And I say in all clarity: I do not want that flag flying on the grounds of MY Courthouse. I say that because the Courthouse belongs to me as much as it belongs to someone who has lived here his or her entire life, and can even trace generations of residency here. Second, I want to see that flag taken down from the courthouse grounds because I am a conservative Republican. Like many other conservative Republicans, such as Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina; the son of Senator Strom Thurmond; Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama; former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and our own State Senator, Don Gaetz, I stand against a symbol that contradicts everything that conservatism and Republicanism stand for. Conservatives do not support symbols of insurrection and rebellion against our home country. And Republicans have stood since Lincoln for the "Union, forever." In any case, this wave of conservative, Republican opposition to the placement of the Confederate battle flag will hopefully refute ignorant or mendacious claims that this is all just some liberal plot to undermine Walton County's conservative values. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Third, I oppose the Confederate battle flag flying at the Courthouse because I am an evangelical Christian. An increasing number of us oppose this flag, including Russell Moore, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Office of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a Mississippi native whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy. Rev. Moore has stated that the flag and the cross cannot co-exist, for one will put the other to flames. Rev. Franklin Graham, an outspoken conservative evangelical, and a North Carolina native, also advocates removing this flag from government property such as courthouses and state capitols. The President of one of the most conservative, fundamentalist universities in America, Bob Jones University in South Carolina, has called for this flag to be removed from places that imply government support for the flag. While conservative evangelicals have not always gotten Civil Rights "right" in the past, we are striving for racial reconciliation now, and that means listening to our brothers and sisters in the African American church.
This leads me to oppose this flag flying at the Courthouse because of a brother in Christ who is African-American, a great man of God who treated me and my children with great kindness and courtesy when I visited his church on one occasion. Later, he came and told several of us evangelical pastors of the pain that seeing that flag causes him as he walks to do business at his courthouse. Yes, it is HIS courthouse too. How DARE anyone in this County discount the pain he and other African-Americans feel? Are African Americans not equally County residents, are they not equally American citizens, and are they not equally made in the image of God?
The battle flag was raised on the Courthouse grounds in 1964, as it was in so many other parts of the South during the Civil Rights Era, as a symbol of defiance, a clenched fist against people who believed in equality between the races, many of whom were martyred for their beliefs. Do we keep this clenched fist in its place at the courthouse, which is supposed to dispense justice equally to all?
I do not presume to write on behalf of all of my brothers in the ministerial alliance; nor do I claim to speak for every member of my congregation. But this is a matter that has stirred my conscience. I pray you will remove the flag and not delay any longer. To delay (or worse, to vote to retain the flag) is to say that those residents who moved here from elsewhere don't matter; and it says to our African-American brothers and sisters (so many of whom are exemplary followers of Jesus Christ), that they don't matter. It would say that the only people who matter are those who cling to a symbol of division and of white racial supremacy. Not all of those people mean to support the flag for those reasons: but keeping that symbol of contempt flying at the courthouse will tragically signal to this state and this country that Walton County cannot let go of the uglier aspects of its past, and that the cares and concerns of so many of her people do not matter to those who lead this County.
I say boldly that I cannot believe my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ could support that. In His Name, I ask the Walton County Commission to do what is right before God and take down that flag.
Very respectfully,
Rev. John B. Erthein
Euchee Valley Presbyterian Church
DeFuniak Springs
