Originally Posted by Meta4
When I visit various church services via the Internet (eg. sermonaudio), it seems that very nearly every church in the U.S. displays the U.S. flag prominently, up front. But I'm not sure whether I have ever seen a national flag displayed in any church outside the U.S. Is this a requirement (either official, or perhaps unofficially) of having tax exempt status granted?
Interesting question..... and one I cannot definitively answer. However, to my limited knowledge, there is no official nor unofficial regulation or policy that the American Flag be displayed. My guess, which is just that at best is that displaying the flag is a tradition that perhaps began after the country was founded and the flag became its symbol (of freedom). In the beginning, the government was far more amiable toward the states and territories that gave allegiance to the country and its flag. One can easily see this by reading the preamble+ to the Declaration of Independence:

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IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
And, as I have quoted above from the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, where the founders wrote in its Bill of Rights, that all men are to be guaranteed the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech. To guard and protect the freedoms of all citizens, and to the angst of half of the citizenry and those whom they elect to government; the Progressive Left, aka: Socialist, the founders immediately after in the Second Amendment wrote:

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A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Thomas Jefferson is claimed to have written or spoken the reason for the Second Amendment: "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." In addition, this reason, in various forms is found in the Federalist Papers and other sources during the time of the nation's founding.

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simul iustus et peccator

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