The Pine Tree Flag is popping up on the desks of RI Senators. What does it mean?
The words “An Appeal to Heaven,” is taken from a quote by
philosopher John Locke, written in defense of the right to revolution. The
flag was seen at the failed January 6th Insurrection and most
recently outside the vacation home of United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel
Alito in 2023.
The end of the session at the Rhode Island General Assembly being a hectic time, none of the Senators, nor Chief of Staff Brandon Bell, responded to my inquiry about the flag, but I did find Senator Rogers in the hallway of the State House.
Senator Rogers: I don't see why there's a controversy over
flags. We have flags on our desks all the time. In today's society, we start
tearing down statues and everything else. They try and rewrite the history of
what flags are. That one was commissioned by George Washington for the first
fleet. It's important to put it up there so people like you ask questions and
then we can get out there what the flag stands for at this time when there are
such misconceptions - with Alito and everything else, the meaning of the flag gets
lost.
Steve Ahlquist: That, and also January 6th,
Senator Rogers: The meaning gets lost. I mean, you can't
rewrite what the flag originally stood for. If everybody tries to rewrite the
flag based on modern history, it gets lost. I'm glad you asked me because it
reiterates what that flag stands for and where it originally came from.
Steve Ahlquist: Is it being displayed now by four members
of the Senate because of the present political situation? Is it about Stop the
Steal?
Senator Rogers: It has nothing to do with that. It's really
to say, "Hey, why are you flying it on your desk?" It's to bring back
what the flag stands for, which is why we're here. It's just to say, "Ask
me a question." What that stands for can't be lost. I don't like it when
anybody steals any flag and somebody else labels it January 6th or something.
That's wrong. So we fly it, you ask the questions, and that gets out what that
flag stands for. It's about George Washington...
Steve Ahlquist: I know the history of it. It's a John Locke
quote about the right to revolution. But I've also read stuff that puts it in a
different context and that's why I'm asking.
Senator Rogers: And again, it's just a statement. Ask about
the flag, this is what it stands for, please don't lose that. Because that's
the historical battle. In the past few years, we've seen statutes coming down.
We haven't gained anything. We've just lost the ability to ask, "Hey, why
is that statute there? What does it stand for? Where did it originate
from?"
"Well, there was a civil war. It was the North and the
South and these are statutes of men who fought on both sides. You walk through
this building there are portraits of men who fought on our side. I know they're
not taking them down, so it's important to keep it in the forefront, ask the
questions, and circle it back to what it really stands for.
Dr. Matthew D. Taylor is a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic,
Christian, & Jewish Studies and an expert on the New
Apostolic Reformation (NAR)
- an extreme, white-nationalist form of Christianity that was instrumental in
the insurrection that took place in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021.
“While the Appeal to Heaven flag is rooted in American history,
it has taken on a whole raft of new connotations in the past decade,” writes
Dr. Taylor at The Bulwark. “And in that timespan, it has also
grown far more popular than it has been since it was first flown. These flags
have proliferated in public buildings and government offices not as a
celebration of American independence, but as a coded endorsement of an ongoing
Christian nationalist crusade, hidden in plain sight.”
While the history of NAR and its use of the Pine Tree flag can
be complicated, and I would recommend reading Dr. Taylor's essay in full, the
NAR and the broader movement the Pine Tree flag represents are overtly
anti-democratic and Christian Nationalist - but you won't hear that said out
loud very often by the people flying it. They will almost always couch their
defense of the flag in “secular and historical terms.”
“The National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL)
is leading one campaign to fly the flag over government buildings,” writes Dr.
Taylor. “The energy for that initiative … publicly makes its case for the flag
in purely secular and historical terms…
“The Appeal to Heaven flag has come out of the nation’s dusty
archive to be raised over one of the most energetic (and dangerous) Christian
movements in recent American political history. At this point, it has been
linked to some of the most powerful figures in each of our three branches of
government: the former president, the speaker of the House of Representatives,
and, finally, a Supreme Court justice...
“Should Trump win the White House again this fall and begin to
enact Project 2025, it may no longer be necessary for
Christian nationalist hardliners in positions of power to disguise their true
ideological commitments. Their vehement appeal to an unaccountable power will
have finally come to fruition.”
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