Earlier this month I attended the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Advocacy in Action in Washington, D.C. On the fourth day of the gathering we headed to Capitol Hill to meet with our various representatives.

On the walk to the six buildings in which every U.S. senator and House representative offices, CBF’s director of advocacy, Jennifer Hawks, casually mentioned to me that — given my interest in Christian nationalism — I might be interested in seeing the Christian nationalist flags some of these politicos choose to fly alongside the American flag outside their offices.

Of course I was interested.

This is how I ended up spending six hours walking a total of 19 miles through the six office buildings at the Capitol. I walked by every single elected official’s office to document exactly which of them fly these flags.

According to Merriam-Webster, the very first definition of a symbol is “an authoritative summary of faith or doctrine: creed.”

Yet because symbols are referents and stand in for something else, the meanings of symbols change over time. The most obvious example of this is the swastika.

For nearly 7,000 years, the swastika symbolized “good fortune” and “well-being” across multiple cultures including those in India, China, Africa, native America and Europe. But after Adolf Hitler adopted the symbol for the Nazi flag, the meaning of the symbol changed.

It’s interesting to note how Americans responded to the changing nature of the swastika during and after World War II. An archived article from The New York Times dated June 11, 1938, announced that New York Hospital was removing two swastikas from its 335-foot chimney and replacing them with crosses because the symbol no longer pointed toward well-being.