The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. wants to remove two stained glass windows honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

The Dean of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., which is an Episcopal Church institution but serves as a place for national religious pageantry, wants to remove two over sixty-year-old stained glass windows honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

“There is no place for the Confederate battle flag in the iconography of the nation’s most visible faith community,” explained Dean Gary Hall in a news release about the windows that include small Confederate flags as part of their interpretation of Lee and Jackson. “We cannot in good conscience justify the presence of the Confederate flag in this house of prayer for all people, nor can we honor the systematic oppression of African-Americans for which these two men fought and died.”

Hall specified: “Here, in 2015, we know that celebrating the lives of these two men, and the flag under which they fought, promotes neither healing nor reconciliation, especially for our African-American sisters and brothers.” In a June 28 sermon, Hall complained that the windows put a “decidedly saintly spin on two leaders of the Confederate Army,” whose “inscriptions portray them as exemplary Christian gentlemen,” but “contain no reference to the sin of slavery which both men fought—and one died—to uphold.”

Read the article “The National Cathedral’s Confederate Window Problem” on firstthings.com.