Posted on 09/10/2009 1:30:04 PM PDT by Colofornian
In 1916 a church asked the Salt Lake City Council to allow them to build a huge cross, "the symbol of Christianity," on Ensign Peak. "We would like to construct it of cement, re-enforced with steel, of sufficient dimensions that it can be readily seen from every part of the city," the request read.
That request came from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The cross was to honor the Mormon pioneers.
Even though the proposal was approved by the City Council, the monument was never built.
Today, there are no crosses on Mormon temples. Yet two are shaped like a cross. Mormon chapels do not have crosses, either. But many have prints of the crucifixion hanging on their walls. Michael G. Reed, who has a bachelor of arts in humanities and religious studies and a master of art in liberal arts from California State University, Sacramento, explored at a recent Sunstone Symposium what he called, in rather charged language, the "LDS Contempt for the Christian Symbol."
Reed also uses the word "contempt" for how Protestants feel about the cross -- 19th-century Protestants, that is. It turns out that cross "aversion" was a Protestant pastime in times past. Its source was anti-Catholicism. Reed quoted historian Ryan K. Smith, who said that from 1820 to 1850 the number of Catholics in the United States grew from about 195,000 members to 1.75 million members, the largest religious body in the nation. And Catholics used crosses.
And so the Protestants didn't. "To Protestant Americans, the cross was perceived to be a strictly Catholic symbol," Reed said.
So the Mormons got their "opposition" to the cross from the Protestants?
Not so fast, according to Reed. Mormons did not pick up their feelings about the cross from the Protestants. At least not entirely.
"While searching for evidence to support the assumption that early Saints had initially rejected the symbol of the cross, I couldn't find any," Reed said.
As a church of converts from other churches, it shouldn't be surprising if some attitudes crept into Latter-day Saints' attitudes. But Reed couldn't find any hints of the Protestant cross attitudes until around 1877. By that time, Protestants had already begun adopting the cross as their own symbol.
Instead, Reed found the cross all over Mormondom. It appeared as jewelry on Brigham Young's wives and daughters. It appeared in floral arrangements in funerals. It appeared as tie tacks on men's ties and watch fobs on men's vests. It appeared on cattle as the official LDS Church brand. Crosses were on church windows, attic vents, stained-glass windows and pulpits. They were on gravestones and quilts.
Even two temples, the Hawaiian and the Cardston, Alberta Temple were described in a 1923 general conference as being built in the shape of a cross. Reed said the cross "taboo" was grass roots and began around the turn of the 20th century.
In 1916, when LDS Church Presiding Bishop Charles W. Nibley asked the Salt Lake City Council to approve the church's plan to erect a large cross to honor the pioneers, he didn't anticipate any opposition. He was, according to Reed, "quickly criticized, and even accused of succumbing to Catholic agenda."
Anti-Catholic feelings quashed the effort.
Mormon missionary work in predominantly Catholic countries "was very challenging," Reed said. Mexican (and presumably Catholic) revolutionaries had executed a Mormon branch president and his cousin the year before. The two were told before they were shot, "If you will renounce your religion and confess before the Virgin Mary, we will spare your lives."
"As a result of conflicts with Catholics abroad such as this, smaller conflicts with Catholics in Utah had a tendency to get blown to greater proportions," Reed said.
Just two weeks before the LDS Church's cross proposal, Catholic Bishop Joseph S. Glass complained about Mormons dancing on Good Friday. He decried a "city of unbelievers" and called upon others to protest. "Are there not enough Christians in Salt Lake City to command some kind of general respect for the holiest day of the year?"
Reed said Bishop Glass' protest offended Mormons, who traditionally did not observe Good Friday. Non-Mormons also thought it was "arrogant" for the bishop to "impose his religious convictions upon others."
This controversy was "fresh on the minds of many Utah citizens who opposed the 1916 Ensign Peak proposal," Reed said.
Plans for a monument on Ensign Peak were reluctantly set aside for almost two decades. But it was only a year later, on July 24, 1917, that a This Is the Place monument in the shape of a cross was erected at the mouth of Emigration Canyon.
For 40 more years the symbol of the cross continued to polarize Latter-day Saints. "While some rejected the symbol," Reed said, "others continued to embrace it."
In 1957, a jewelry store in Salt Lake City advertised cross jewelry for girls. LDS Church Presiding Bishop Joseph L. Wirthlin called President David O. McKay to see if it was proper for LDS girls to purchase the crosses to wear.
Reed believes that President McKay "institutionalized" the LDS Church's feelings toward the symbol in his reply. President McKay expressed two reasons why he didn't think it was a good idea.
He told Bishop Wirthlin that the crosses were "purely Catholic and Latter-day Saint girls should not purchase and wear them. ... Our worship should be in our hearts."
According to Reed's reading of Gregory Prince and Wm. Robert Wright's book "David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism," President McKay had developed some critical attitudes toward the Catholic Church when he served in the 1920s as president of the LDS Church's European Mission.
These attitudes ended when Catholic Bishop Duane Hunt met with President McKay about an LDS author's book that was highly critical of Catholics. President McKay began to "privately re-examine his own beliefs" about Catholicism, according to Reed.
Reed said that members of the LDS Church have rid themselves of "much of the anti-Catholic ideas of the past."
But even when the use of the cross is divorced from anti-Catholicism, Mormons, as a whole, still do not generally use the cross as an outward symbol of their faith.
In 1975, President Gordon B. Hinckley, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, spoke in general conference about the symbol of the cross. He recognized and respected how other churches view the symbol, and said, "But for us, the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ."
"Contempt." "Aversion." "Opposition." "Taboo." Reed struggled throughout his presentation to find the right word to describe how Mormons feel about using the cross as a symbol. In a recent telephone interview, Robert A. Rees, an LDS scholar (and the "response" to Reed's presentation at the Sunstone Symposium), used the word "ambivalence" to describe Mormons' feelings toward using the cross as a symbol.
Not hostility, but a shifting ambivalence.
The attitude of Mormons toward the cross has changed over the years. Members of the LDS Church did not accept the 19th-century Protestant prejudice against the cross. Over time, some embraced the cross as a symbol and others avoided its use. Some even used it as a way to denigrate the Catholic Church.
Today members of the LDS Church concentrate on the body and blood of Christ more than the nails and wood. The cross may not be used as a special outward symbol any more than the crown of thorns, the whip and the spear, but thoughts of the cross and what it represents still cause Latter-day Saints to stand all amazed.
Define "many", and please include examples.
There is a difference between the cross and the crucifix.
And there is power in the cross.
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
Galatians 6:14
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.
Maimonides says (Guide for the Perplexed III:45) that the figures of the cherubayim/Seraphin were placed in the sanctuary only to preserve among the people the belief in angels, there being two in order that the people might not be led to believe that they were the image of God.
Not to discredit Maimonides, but in this case (whether or not images are prohibited in Jewish worship) I think a better source is MOSES and DAVID and a bunch of other dead Jewish prophets. They used images all the time.
When it comes to correct Protestant belief, Maimonides was probably correct, at least in the plain churches, but then again, he wasn't a Christian.
And what was it Moses did with a serpent? Well, he put it on a staff ~ when you see a cluster of religious symbols and there's a guy with a snake on a stick, that's Moses.
Taken literally, the Son of Man (Jesus, as He's referred to elsewhere) must be "lifted up".
The Crucifix meets the qualifiation set forth in John 3:14.
BTW, that same piece of Scripture is read OTHER WAYS of course.
I just bring it up to note that Moses and John both recognized that religious symbols do contain something other than geometric forms ~ snakes, eagles, angels, demons, men, women (hogarth?), and so on.
I draw the line at venerating these images ~ they're just substitutes for words in my estimation, and were of inestimable value in societies where reading and writing was a rare and highly valued skill.
WEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
There is so little in that lyin’ mess that could not be commented on...
Gee I wonder where all those crosses on Christian churches and Christian graves of the 1800s came from ???
If the cross was important to 1800s mormons why did Brigham Young knock down the cross and desecrate the graves of his victims, the 120 murdered members of the Fancher party at the Mountain Meadows massacre ???
Mormons have never acted like the cross was important to them...anything but..
The mormons in these threads argue that the cross is unimortant to salvation...and instead Jesus saved us in the Garden of Gethsemane..
The mormons dont honor Good Friday ??? The day Jesus died on the cross to save them ??? Well that tells on them...
Whay do they think the Commuion cup and wafer is ??? Jesus commanded us to remember his DEATH...and why He died for us...
1Cr 11:23 ¶ For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the [same] night in which he was betrayed took bread:
1Cr 11:24 And when he had given thanks, he brake [it], and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
1Cr 11:25 After the same manner also [he took] the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink [it], in remembrance of me.
1Cr 11:26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Gollies the Jesus of the Bible tolld us to remember His death and yet mormons refuse to and boast of their disobeidence...well after all, they are non-Christians ...
My gg grandfather got a cross on his grave in 1868..
As a child I attended a church built in the 1800s ...
Any crosses, Nana ???
Yeppers..a big one on the roof, a gold stand up one on the alter, embroided onto the vestments of the pastor, on our choir robes, on the wooden pulpit, on the stand tghat held the huge Bible,
Plus above the alter was the Star of David...I learnt that Christians were connected to the Jews...
Women wore crosses around their necks etc...
The Protestants put an enormous lighted cross on the hill overlooking the town...it could be seen for miles...
Its still there to this day..
To commemorate the settlers eh, Nana ???
No to commemorate Jesus the one who died on the cross to save us...
The cross is a center of the Christian faith...
Without it there would be no Christianity...
Paul wrote about the importance of the cross...
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18
1Cr 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
1Cr 1:18 ¶ For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
1Cr 1:19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
1Cr 1:20 Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1Cr 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
1Cr 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
1Cr 1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
1Cr 1:24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
1Cr 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1Cr 1:26 ¶ For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, [are called]:
1Cr 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
1Cr 1:28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, [yea], and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
1Cr 1:29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
1Cr 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
1Cr 1:31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:17-31
Yes the cross may be foolishness to mormons but to Christians it is the power of God...
and that is why the Christians, Catholics and Protestants alike, honor the cross and have a cross on their buildings etc...in remembrance of Jesus, the one who died for us...on a cross...
The Old Rugged Cross sung by Jim Nabors...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAB41b3gNU0
When I was in graduate school, I had several discussions with Mormons about the cross. They seemed surprisingly offended by it. I had one explain to me that they would never think of wearing a gun to commemorate the martyring of Joseph Smith. I pointed out that Christ's death accomplished the forgiveness of our sins while of course Joseph Smith's death did not.
Frankly, these discussions illustrated to me that Mormons do not understand the centrality of the cross in the Gospel nor the offer of grace which the Father provided through the Son. Paul wrote Galatians 1:6-9 for the first-century Galatians and the "Latter-Day" Galatians. Verse 8's reference to the angel of heaven perverting the true Gospel should have warned Joseph Smith and should stand as a warning to his present followers. Do not stand in the company of the "enemies of the cross." (Philippians 3:18)
I suppose; I think you are confusing two issues.
The “graven” image has been forbidden since Mt. Sinai; Golden Calf and all. That is, an object of worship. Moshe’s snake was not an object of worship.
You are correct that there has been an arguable expansion of the mitzvah to essentially all statutes of “real” beings (e.g., person, angel, but not a garden gnome or a Power Ranger) essentially in an abundance of caution.
My point is the cross with Jesus on it, or the various saint statutes, look a lot like “graven” images to me.
That said, they’re not Jewish, and it’s none of my business.
I will say, however, from the outside, it looks (regardless of intent or actual fact) like idolatry.
Call it the “appearance of idolatry.”
Isn't that amazing.
I’m not sure of the relevance of your statement.
First of all, how is posting Mormon church-based articles -- like this one (which is probably about 70-80% of the threads I post -- "anti-Mormon"? I mean, what? Even the Mormons are anti- Mormon now?
Secondly, the "all" part isn't true, either. I posted plenty on a recent infant baptism thread -- and even recently on the Loch Ness monster & a few others.
So, so far, you're 0-for-2.
We have a radical communist administration now.
Now what, then? Does this mean (4U 2B consistent) you're actively lobbying to FR that it totally close down the "religion" section of FR? I mean, if the only subject that's allowed to be published in your version of a so-called "Free" Republic are threads & posts about socialistic administrations, then not only doesn't Mormonism qualify -- but neither does anything religiously tinged.
The Mormons are one of the most consistently conservative groups in the USA.
Hey, the Pew Forum folks came out yesterday with their latest polling data (maybe I'll post that, too). They asked which religious groups are more likely to be frowned upon -- and of course, Muslims were #1. Well, Muslims are consistently "conservative" on social issues like homosexuality and abortion -- have you defended this minority group, too?
The Pew poll also says more folks think Evangelicals are frowned upon than Mormons (27-24%). [So, I'd hope based upon that you might consider defending Evangelicals, too]
You can keep your transparent attempts to drive a wedge between conservatives.
Apparently, history wasn't your stellar discipline of study -- at least not religious history. To "drive a wedge" usually implies closeness, tightness. You really think the Mormons have "buddied up" to their Christian neighbors all these years (aside from their proselytism efforts, that is?)?
Rewind button: Early 1830s. Joseph Smith reports, about a dozen years "after the fact," and a few years after writing the Book of Mormon, upon his so-called founding vision from two unnamed supernatural entities. He reports that they tell him...
...#1 not to join ANY church;
...#2 "ALL" those churches' creeds are an "abomination" to them;
...#3 claims "ALL" their professing believers are "corrupt".
Now mind you, that wasn't simply Smith's supposed "opinion" of all Protestants, Catholics & Orthodox churches -- he claimed that was God's opinion! So much so that a later generation of Mormons canonized those words as Mormon "scripture" (Pearl of Great Price -- Joseph Smith - History, verses 18-20).
Then Smith later added that all of us were "apostates," too.
Now we have 60,000 Lds missionaries running around the world claiming daily on doorsteps that we're all "apostates" -- not much difference, mind you, that Muslims calling Christians "infidels." [But, of course, no mention from you how that might be "driving a wedge" in your conservative coalition]
So let's do a little role reversal:
(a) Let's say Christian churches sent out 60,000 missionaries -- half to places like Utah, southern Wyoming, southern Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii and the South Pacific -- all Mormon strongholds or at least higher than normal %.
(b) Let's say before doing that, Christians published "The Book of Revelation, II" -- and specifically claimed in it that Mormons were heretics.
(c) Then, upon ringing every Mormon doorbell several times every few years, these missionaries made constant mention to Mormons of the "universal heresy" among ALL Mormons.
(d) Then, what if in response, Lds Freepers started posting Christian articles from Christian sources and commented upon them to give their view -- including the fact that they didn't appreciate these 30,000 Christian missionaries emphasizing Mormon heresy, etc.
What would be your commentary then? In your ideal political, who would be your wedge-drivers then?
Having lived and traveled extensively in the Balkans, I visited many very old Catholic and Orthodox churches in obscure locations. Often the graphic and gruesome nearly life-size statues of an emaciated Christ at the altars inspired disgust more than reverence. But maybe that’s just me.
OK, well McKay was supposedly a "prophet" speaking on behalf of the Lds church. So the Mormon god believes or believed the cross was "Catholic?"
Since I think we can see the false conclusion here, doesn't this make McKay out to be a "false prophet?"
Now what do you imagine the statue was about?
One thesis has it that it was a statue of the "household gods" ~ the thought being that in that time Judaism was pretty much practiced in the Tabernacle of God and other stuff was practiced everywhere.
No doubt David's wives were familiar with the "godesses of the hearth" ~ Saravasti and company (Maha Kali and Maha Lakshmi), or possibly even Sarakka, Juksakka, and Uksakka, all of whom do the same sort of thing and were a good way for the women of the house to recall their duties and obligations as well as their authority in certain spheres of life.
Today's Judaism no longer accepts the utility of "household gods" or "goddesses of the hearth" ~ I'm not even sure anyone is sufficiently equipped with a knowledge of ancient Hebrew to figure out how the Indo-European or Fenno-Dravidian forms could be translated, but there's a "Sa" sound in one, a "ks" sound in another, and a "uk" in the third whatever their names were in the days when Abraham set his tents with his flocks.
It doesn’t help when people like Tennessee Nana post something to the effect that the cross is the center of the Christian religion. I always thought Jesus was the center. It makes Christians look like Muslims—prancing around the Kaaba.
To me it seems ludicrous to insinuate that an image of a cross has more meaning in Christianity than Christ himself. Although it represents one aspect of his ministry, it neglects the act in the Garden of Gethsemane (where he took upon himself our sins) and the resurrection. Without the resurrection, the death would have no meaning. But, I’m a fringe Christian, and you’re a Jew, so we’re not equal to the real Christians on Freerepublic.
I like your screen name, btw.
And, the ultimate surprise, in Jesus' time Jews were also Jewish ~ all different kinds of 'em ~ all the sects ~ something else Christianity inherited from Judaism.
You guys don’t know “fringe”. I’ll tell what it is ~ Seventh Day Baptists are “fringe” ~ hardcore! That’s particularly so when you get to the “Non instrumental Seventh Day Baptists” ~ definitely “fringe”.
“You said “they’re not Jewish””
Um, the Christians and their aguable idolotry.
I was not refering to their persons of worship.
I hadn't either. But a quick google search turned up some examples like this one.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb050/is_4_70/ai_n28885951/
Doane was among the few American Protestants of the 1830s and 1840s who risked making "a Catholic appearance" by employing the cross as a church symbol. For the symbol's associations with Roman Catholicism ran deep--Doane's cross had provoked an anti-Catholic fury despite the Greek associations of the piece's design and despite the variety of classical features surrounding it on St. Mary's Church. Like the crucifix, with its bodily representation of Christ's suffering, the cross had served as a sacred Catholic instrument for centuries. One Boston Episcopalian explained in 1847 that "when a stranger enters a city, and passes a church with a cross upon it, his impression is that it is Roman Catholic; and when one visits the cemetery ... and sees a stone embellished with the same symbol, he takes it for granted that a Roman Catholic sleeps underneath." Indeed, canon law prescribed specific architectural locations for Catholic crosses and crucifixes, thereby bolstering their prominence. These qualities made the cross a regular target for anti-Catholic mobs, like the one that cheered the rising flames at St. Augustine's Church during Philadelphia's 1844 riots, or the one that attacked a chapel near Boston in 1854, dispersing only after the group had wrenched the cross from the top of the steeple and publicly burned it. Thus, in the eyes of many American Protestants, and in the words of one Presbyterian magazine, the cross was "not a symbol of redemption through the blessed Saviour, but a perverted, abused symbol of a great system of superstition and imposture." The use of this symbol on Protestant churches not only tempted "idolatry," but it also confused religious loyalties. (2)
The Protestant attack on the symbol extended onto the pages of anti-Catholic literature. Even as Doane, Upjohn, and others began to experiment with the cross, the distribution of profane images of the cross reinforced Protestant animosities. One "ex-clergyman," sick of the "abundance of form, ceremony, pomp, and circumstance" that was sweeping "all the churches and church establishments now in existence," opened his controversial 1855 pamphlet with an ominous engraving showing a waste pile of crosses and other elements of "Romanism" (see figure 1). Another example appeared in several publications of the 1830s and 1840s, including Illustrations of Popery and the American Protestant Magazine. This image pictured four notable Protestants standing on "the immoveable rock of TRUTH," academically attired in black robes and holding books. Beneath these four, floundering in "the stormy ocean of theological disputation," appeared four angry Catholic authorities bedecked with crosses, beads, a crosier, and a crucifix. The Protestant figures showed no concern for the sinking papal devices. But the supreme insult was delivered to the cross as symbol in an 1855 pamphlet published in Boston, entitled The Satanic Plot, or, Awful Crimes of Popery in High and Low Places. In this pamphlet championing free schools and Protestant churches, the cover art centered on a discussion between the seated figures of the Pope and Satan over a map of the United States. Not only did the cross appear prominently on the back of the Pope's chair, but it adorned the back of Satan's chair as well. Such a scene left little doubt that Protestant loyalties to the symbol were thin. In these and other images, the cross served as a Catholic trademark, a piece of visual shorthand representing the sensual tools of Catholicism and the oppressive authority of the Catholic church. (4)
To clarify further (my wife is helping me; English is not my first language), I mean “it’s none of my business what the Christians do with regard to graven images; they [the Christians] are not Jewish and thus never subject to the Mt. Sinai Covenant.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.