Book deals with that ‘Mormon Taboo’ … the cross

Ogden Standard-Examiner ^ | June 19, 2013 | Doug Gibson

[Colofornian]

The Mormon Church has an ambivalent history with Christianity’s most iconic symbol, the cross. For about 70 years, the cross was generally tolerated within the church’s cultural fabric. However, the first decades of the 20th century initiated a slow but steady expression of disapproval of the cross; a criticism influenced by LDS leaders’ willingness to publicly declare the Roman Catholic Church as the “church of the devil” described in LDS scripture.

“Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo,” (John Whitmer Books) by Michael G. Reed, is a slim but valuable volume on the history of the Mormons’ relationship with the cross. As Reed notes, the Mormon Church was founded during an era of widespread Protestant hostility to the cross, a hostility that was due to that era’s wariness of Catholicism.

As Reed notes, Mormons were generally no fans of Catholicism, but they were more responsive to the cross as a religious symbol. There are two reasons for this. The first was that Mormonism was founded during a time of spiritual awakening in the early United States. While “organized religion” was criticized, individualistic spirituality flourished. Within these “rebel theologies,” spiritual manifestations were not uncommon. The symbol of the cross often played a role. Another reason the cross was tolerated by early Mormons, according to Reed, was due to founder Joseph Smith’s interest in Freemasonry. In fact, Nauvoo in the early 1840s was a hotbed of Freemasonry interest.

That interest is a key reason that the symbol of the cross traveled with the saints to Utah. Reed presents many photographs, both central to Mormonism and 19th century Utah, in which the cross is prominent.

However, as Reed notes, criticism of the cross started to creep more into the Mormon culture as a the 20th century began. Reed cites statements from leading Mormons, including then-apostle Moses Thatcher, that connected the cross to anti-Catholicism. Around 1915, a proposal in the Salt Lake area to put a cross on Ensign Peak received significant opposition, one that initially surprised LDS supporters. The eventual failure to place a memorial cross at Ensign Peak is cast — correctly by Reed — as a dispute between church leaders. The author writes that younger church leaders, such as David O. McKay and Joseph Fielding Smith, had not grown up in the early era of the LDS Church and therefore had not been influenced by the more liberal, anti institutional, even anti-government thought of the 1840s to 1860s LDS leadership. Also, they had not been influenced by Freemasonry.

In my opinion, it’s important to note that in the first 30 years of the 20th century the LDS Church leadership had what might best be referred to as a “second Mormon reformation.” Leaders such as McKay, Fielding Smith, and later J. Reuben Clark, Mark E. Peterson and Bruce R. McConkie, successfully moved the church to extremely conservative ideology, including a renewal of harsh rhetoric against Catholicism.

As Reed notes, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote, “To bow down before a cross or to look upon it as an emblem to be revered because of the fact that our Savior died upon a cross is repugnant…”

The more blunt McConkie described the Roman Catholic Church as “being ‘most abominable above all other churches,’” writes Reed.

What I describe as a conservative era eventually endured about as long as the early Mormon Church’s initial tolerance of the cross. In the 21st it has waned. As Reed notes, it would be shocking to hear an LDS leader denounce Catholicism as McConkie once did. However, Reed still sees an institutional taboo against the cross in the LDS Church. To still use the term “taboo” though is too harsh.

While it’s true that an anti-Catholic diatribe by an LDS leader would be greeted with shock today, it’s also true that a talk about the symbolic spiritual value of the cross would mostly be greeted with non-surprised acceptance by most Latter-day Saints.

This article, from the LDS publication The Ensign, is evidence of a stance on the cross that would have been at odds with the rhetoric of church leaders of the past. A specific condemnation of the cross may be an occasionally tactless utterance from some church members, but most others would find such beliefs offensive. Today, Latter-day Saints define the cross as a responsibility to live a righteous life. That seems a pretty ecumenical position.

[Colofornian]

Why would "the cross" being "taboo" to Mormons? (keep reading)

Here's a 19-minute clip of author Michael G. Reed speaking at the 2011 Mormon Sunstone Symposium on this same subject: Banishing the Cross: Michael G. Reed

Of course, this is all in SHARP contrast to what the Bible teaches: But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. (Galatians 6:14)

From the column: The Mormon Church has an ambivalent history with Christianity’s most iconic symbol, the cross. For about 70 years, the cross was generally tolerated within the church’s cultural fabric. However, the first decades of the 20th century initiated a slow but steady expression of disapproval of the cross; a criticism influenced by LDS leaders’ willingness to publicly declare the Roman Catholic Church as the “church of the devil” described in LDS scripture. “Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo,” (John Whitmer Books) by Michael G. Reed, is a slim but valuable volume on the history of the Mormons’ relationship with the cross. As Reed notes, the Mormon Church was founded during an era of widespread Protestant hostility to the cross, a hostility that was due to that era’s wariness of Catholicism.

Interesting concession by Doug Gibson, a Mormon, citing Reed, about both Mormon leaders' hyped-up anti-Catholicism as well as Mormon treatment of the cross as if they were...well, vampires, trying to avoid the shadow of the cross falling upon them!

[Colofornian]

From the Gibson column: ...as Reed notes, criticism of the cross started to creep more into the Mormon culture as a the 20th century began. Reed cites statements from leading Mormons, including then-apostle Moses Thatcher, that connected the cross to anti-Catholicism. Around 1915, a proposal in the Salt Lake area to put a cross on Ensign Peak received significant opposition, one that initially surprised LDS supporters. The eventual failure to place a memorial cross at Ensign Peak is cast — correctly by Reed — as a dispute between church leaders...As Reed notes, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote, “To bow down before a cross or to look upon it as an emblem to be revered because of the fact that our Savior died upon a cross is repugnant…” The more blunt McConkie described the Roman Catholic Church as “being ‘most abominable above all other churches,’” writes Reed.

Joseph Fielding Smith became an Lds head "prophet"; and Bruce McConkie was an Lds "apostle."

[Colofornian]

Few Mormons wear crosses, depicting their aversion to it. For more on this, see:

* No-Cross Protocol ["New" Mormon tradition]

* Sunstone speaker attempts to explain LDS 'aversion' to cross [published by Mormon church owned Mormon Times]

[ROCKLOBSTER]

What about cross-dressing?

[Zakeet]

Why don't Mormon temples have crosses on them?

For the same reason that Buddhist temples don't have crosses on them.

[trebb]

Few Mormons wear crosses, depicting their aversion to it.

How many Catholics wear the cross after their early years indoctrination into the Faith?

How many folks wear the cross as a decoration with no sense of the meaning of it?

Why is the physical symbol of the cross and other statuary/art so important?

[Elsie]

<--- or --->

[Elsie]

What about cross-dressing?

They got's that covered...

---

I'm a MORMON ...

 

 

 

http://www.affirmation.org/

[autumnraine]

When I was 12, was wearing a cross necklace. Some guy (not sure if he was Mormon or what) asked me why I didn’t just wear a little electric chair around my neck.

I told him that Jesus didn’t die in the electric chair. He just pursed his lips and walked away.

[MrB]

The cross symbolizes the fact that there is no salvation without the sacrifice of Christ.

This is offensive to those who believe they can “work their way into heaven”.

[Elsie]

Well; the cross is a symbol of Christianity, and it seems that MORMONs don't like Christians very much...

---

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[Elsie]

Question put to Joseph Smith: 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'?

  'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119). 

---

If I wuz a MORMON, I'd worry more about myself being DAMNED!!!

---

"Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned;

and I will go still further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given,

and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.

Brigham Young - JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)

[trebb]

The cross symbolizes the fact that there is no salvation without the sacrifice of Christ. This is offensive to those who believe they can “work their way into heaven”.

I understand the symbolism of the cross and I love Jesus for the gift He gave us through his willing sacrifice. I'll leave the second statement alone as it makes assumptions that can be argued but not validated.I asked questions about the wear/non-wear of the cross as a decoration and as a sign of faith (although not always both).

I also asked why the super importance of the physical cross/necklaces of the cross/statuary, etc. I ask such questions to make folks think and to consider what the Bible tells them about things. Not necessarily to change minds - sometimes to strengthen/validate the opinions.

I wonder how many folks actually revere/adore some of these physical symbols vs. just the ideas that make them relevant. It is probably mostly for the ideas, but some seem to think they need to revere the statue of Mary and that it is a sin to defile it. Not saying you are one of them. I would hope that when confronted with such people, one might go back to the Old Covenant and explain why idols were deemed useless and wrong because they could be made of part of the same tree's wood that was used to make a chair or to cook a meal. My questions were posed to provoke thought as i see far too many folks of good faith misusing quotes and forming opinions based on the misuse/misunderstanding of what the Bible tells us.

[greyfoxx39]

I wonder how many folks actually revere/adore some of these physical symbols vs. just the ideas that make them relevant. It is probably mostly for the ideas, but some seem to think they need to revere the statue of Mary and that it is a sin to defile it.

"I wonder how many folks actually revere/adore some of these physical symbols vs. just the ideas that make them relevant".....as in the claim of "sacredness" for mormon temple garments. They are not to be seen by "gentiles" and are credited with powers of protection by many mormons.

"It is probably mostly for the ideas, but some seem to think they need to revere the temple garment and that it is a sin to defile it." Disposal of worn temple garments must be done in an approved manner to avoid this "defilement".

The wearing of the cross is in memoriam of the sacrifice of Jesus...a much more meaningful event than hiding the body by wearing of underwear.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Substitution of magic underoos for the Biblical symbol of the Sacred Cross our Savior died on placemarker.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I think different cultures and subcultures have different responses to symbolism, and that's legitimate, just as different individual temperaments and tastes are legitimate. It shouldn't lead to instant judgment, but to a deeper quest for understanding.

Some people highly averse to symbolic signs of reverence in church, nevertheless become irate if they see a U.S. flag trampled, would react with indignation if somebody mishandled a wreath put at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and vocally deprecate a person who failed to rise and put his hand over his heart at the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sometimes a gesture can have many meanings, and it can be tricky to figure out what is meant: a kiss, for instance. Add a physical object (kissing a cross; kissing the Torah; kissing a Heisman Trophy; kissing the ground; kissing a picture of one's departed mom; kissing a lottery ticket)--- and you kinda have to "be there in the culture" before you really understand what it's about.

[SoConPubbie]

Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo,” (John Whitmer Books) by Michael G. Reed, is a slim but valuable volume on the history of the Mormons’ relationship with the cross. As Reed notes, the Mormon Church was founded during an era of widespread Protestant hostility to the cross, a hostility that was due to that era’s wariness of Catholicism.

Good luck finding any historical proof to support this bald-faced lie.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oh! And, my husband and I do Shape-Note Singing and this takes us around to various churches of different denominations which provide a venue for the singing. Saw this at a Baptist (I think it was Baptist?) Church:

Not only do they love statues, but their statues love statues.

Attention, Baptists! The Pope and I approve of this message.

[CelticIrish]

Trebb good conversation starter. As a Catholic I see all too often people use the symbol as an accessory. In both Catholic and Protestant arena's this is an almost necessary piece of clothing without the meaning it is intended. I carry a cross in my pocket that no one sees but myself. It was carried by my father in the Korean War. I start each day with it in my hand and remember that Christ is within us, above us, below us, in front of us, behind us. In my words, in my actions and in my hands as they serve others. The cross is not an Icon it is a meaning. This is where the discussion should be centered. In terms of Idols and worshiping Icons I can make the argument that I do not idolize the Cross or Mary I seek them as a focus of my Admiration of HE who sent me.

[Elsie]

I'll leave the second statement alone as it makes assumptions that can be argued but not validated

Any comments on the second statement seen in reply #12?