History records Southern churches smelting down church bells for Confederate cannon balls.  It also notes Baptist papers finding likeable traits in pre- World War II Hitler.  Today hosting two or three patriotic services and honoring veterans is a basic calendar event and growing in local churches.  Frequently guest musicians will play each anthem for the different armed services and ask alumni of each to stand at the front of the assembly while the song is played.  
     This July 4th holiday week end I treated myself to viewing the movie that is called the most successful all time film in box-office history.  I saw the movie based on Margarett Mitchell's novel from 1936 named, Gone with the Wind.  The classic, like another Hollywood hit, Birth of a Nation, is the Southern view of the Civil War.  A public school history teacher recently told me, the Civil War was really the War of Northern Aggression. The viewpoint of the movie portrays a graceful and superior Southern Culture far ahead of the Northern version.  
     Several myths abound in the epic.  The idea of content "darkies" who loved their lives and fought for the Southern cause is the Mitchell legend.  Antebellum culture is portrayed as an empire of knights and chivalry.  The story unfolds to reveal how that this superior culture succumbed to the invasion of a morally depraved North.  Christian Reconstruction claims that the war was fought by a Christian South against a Unitarian North.  One Atlanta scene after the war spells out the results of the conflict.  Honor and decency are now gone in the South as the heroine Scarlett O'Hara is set upon in the city by crude and immoral men now that antebellum culture is overthrown.  Mitchell's saga claims there was a high standard of moral virtue yet it is filled with stories of cousins marrying cousins, brothels, and the chief character devoting her life to perusing a married man.
     Southern myths abound also about religious liberty.  A common legend holds that it was an activist Supreme Court that threw prayer out of public schools.  Truth is that many schools had already ceased this practice and sought refuge in court rulings to make their predicament easier to administer.  
     The myth that founding fathers were active church members is another recent dogma without much merit.  Recent attempts to forge a new version of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are a prime examples.  The idea that the Constitution is not a secular document is another myth much like Disney alligators that talk and are harmless.
     Seldom will there be any mention of the First Amendment, a Baptist offering to the Constitution.  The idea of religious liberty will be offered as an idea that Christians must make a stand and not fear government interference.  Scarcely will anyone mention from the pulpit that any religious view is welcome in America.    Karl Barth warned Europe about their tribal gods that led to bloodshed and war.  "Blessed are the peacemakers" will rarely be quoted.  Haiti once elected a leader who was once a Catholic Priest.  He later on burned 19 soldiers to death and then claimed it was God's will.  Mixing God's blessing with the state can be a dangerous thing.
     There is an old story about a minister who is seeking to raise funds for a new church building.  In the service he announces that anyone who wants to give $1,000 to the building fund can rise to stand as they feel led to respond to the proposal.  He tells the pianist to play a song for people to respond to.  She asks what he wants her to play.  "Play the National Anthem", he replies.