Goshen College in Indiana stops playing national anthem before games

Goshen College fountain. Photo: taygete05, Flickr

Actually, Goshen, a Mennonite college, never played the national anthem before games until 2010, when it began playing an instrumental version. Now it plays America The Beautiful instead, after complaints from the 58 percent of the students (and alumni) who thought The Star Spangled Banner inconsistent with a faith based on pacifism and global citizenship, and especially singled out lyrics like "the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air."
     While AKSARBENT welcomes the cessation of grandiose, enforced patriotic displays before public events and certainly supports the college's right to do whatever it wants, we would take issue with the characterization of The Star Spangled Banner as anything close to glorifying violence or jingoism.
     The lyrics in question, after all, depict the survival of the emblem of a small, new country, enduring a British bombardment, intact. We like that, subversives that we are.