San Diego monument removal
In this extremely biased article, The voice of San Diego reports that a cross that serves as a memorial monument is the target of a legal suit. In short, an ACLU lawyer, working for an atheist veteran who, evidently believes that his anti-faith is more important than the present and past faiths of other veterans, is trying to tear down a cross. Christian groups are angry and have been fighting back in the courts and newspapers and ballot box.
I have mixed feelings about this. I'd like to say I'm all for preserving crosses and ten commandment monuments everywhere, I am. But I'm not for that as a Christian but as a supporter of art.
1. As a Christian, I can't help thinking that we've missed the point. The cross is not a good symbol of our salvation, it is a symbol of our shame. We have no equivalent symbol in our society, but maybe an electric chair, it represents the death of a criminal, or better a syringe, because of lethal injection and because, though we might not understand the symbol (as the cross would not have been understood in the first century) if you heard someone talking about the glorious syringe, you would expect them to be ashamed, not because of lethal injection, but because of drugs (so I guess that doesn't really work either, but it's closer).
2. I am confused by the belief that Christianity ought to be accepted. Christianity has never been what it should be when it was the dominant religion of a country, at least not that I have ever heard. On the contrary, Christians have always, as far as I know, lived the Christian life best as a persecuted minority, as enemies of the state. When Christianity gets involved in politics, it becomes a force for political authority, a tool by which the power-hungry seek to wield domination, a subjugator of the very people whom true Christianity seeks to free.
3. The cross is, to many people in the world, most specifically to European Jews, a symbol of what is perhaps the greatest misuse of Christian symbol, history, and scripture: The Holocaust. Actually, the Holocaust was only the culmination of many centuries of anti-Semitic persecution. Christians who never understood even the smallest part of the life of Jesus, who never realized that the Apostles never left Judaism, that Jesus died a Jew, these Christians blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus. They used the cross to persecute Jews because they did not understand what the gospels make abundantly clear, if read in their original context: WE ALL KILLED JESUS, if the gospels put a focus on the Jewish nation, it is because it was intended to be the primary recipient of the faith, because the people of Israel were/are the people of God. We gentiles have been brought in, but that is just grace, salvation was not for us first, go read Romans 9.
So, maybe we should not be so eager to bring up the cross as a symbol of our faith in every public place because we are often misusing the symbol, because we don't want to be the dominant power behind the government and because, for many Jews, it brings up memories of our persecution of others, rather than our persecution by others and our savior's death as a criminal, an enemy of the state.
One final thought: the crowds, the Jews, and the state were all counted guilty of the death of Jesus in the Gospels. The crowds and the Jews both entered the church in large numbers, but few of the well-born (ευγενεις -ICor 1.26), that is people with hereditary authority, people at the top of societal power, entered the church.
So, I'd vote to keep the monument, because I could not bear not to, but I would not be angry at its removal.
I have mixed feelings about this. I'd like to say I'm all for preserving crosses and ten commandment monuments everywhere, I am. But I'm not for that as a Christian but as a supporter of art.
1. As a Christian, I can't help thinking that we've missed the point. The cross is not a good symbol of our salvation, it is a symbol of our shame. We have no equivalent symbol in our society, but maybe an electric chair, it represents the death of a criminal, or better a syringe, because of lethal injection and because, though we might not understand the symbol (as the cross would not have been understood in the first century) if you heard someone talking about the glorious syringe, you would expect them to be ashamed, not because of lethal injection, but because of drugs (so I guess that doesn't really work either, but it's closer).
2. I am confused by the belief that Christianity ought to be accepted. Christianity has never been what it should be when it was the dominant religion of a country, at least not that I have ever heard. On the contrary, Christians have always, as far as I know, lived the Christian life best as a persecuted minority, as enemies of the state. When Christianity gets involved in politics, it becomes a force for political authority, a tool by which the power-hungry seek to wield domination, a subjugator of the very people whom true Christianity seeks to free.
3. The cross is, to many people in the world, most specifically to European Jews, a symbol of what is perhaps the greatest misuse of Christian symbol, history, and scripture: The Holocaust. Actually, the Holocaust was only the culmination of many centuries of anti-Semitic persecution. Christians who never understood even the smallest part of the life of Jesus, who never realized that the Apostles never left Judaism, that Jesus died a Jew, these Christians blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus. They used the cross to persecute Jews because they did not understand what the gospels make abundantly clear, if read in their original context: WE ALL KILLED JESUS, if the gospels put a focus on the Jewish nation, it is because it was intended to be the primary recipient of the faith, because the people of Israel were/are the people of God. We gentiles have been brought in, but that is just grace, salvation was not for us first, go read Romans 9.
So, maybe we should not be so eager to bring up the cross as a symbol of our faith in every public place because we are often misusing the symbol, because we don't want to be the dominant power behind the government and because, for many Jews, it brings up memories of our persecution of others, rather than our persecution by others and our savior's death as a criminal, an enemy of the state.
One final thought: the crowds, the Jews, and the state were all counted guilty of the death of Jesus in the Gospels. The crowds and the Jews both entered the church in large numbers, but few of the well-born (ευγενεις -ICor 1.26), that is people with hereditary authority, people at the top of societal power, entered the church.
So, I'd vote to keep the monument, because I could not bear not to, but I would not be angry at its removal.
posted by Unknown at
9:17 AM
2 Comments:
Beautifully written.
This topic touches on one of the reasons I chose not to watch The Passion of the Christ--because they focus on the death (which, granted, is important) and tag the most important part of the story at the end as an afterthought. If Christ had died and stayed dead, he would be no different from all the other martyrs, revered but mostly forgotton. True, we could not have been saved without his sacrificial death, but but how could we be resurrected from our death to sin into a new life with Christ if Jesus had not been raised from the dead? The resurrection is the most important part of the story--all prophets die eventually...Jesus is set apart as the Messiah because he rose from the dead and the others did not.
I would much rather wear a pendant of an open tomb around my neck instead of a cross, but I don't think any jewelers make those. I do sometimes wear a cross pendant, but it has a much deeper meaning for me than just a symbol that identifies me to the world as a Christian--I wear it to remind me that my sin put my Savior on the cross.
I'll be honest. I'd vote to keep the monument simply because the atheist and the aclu (whome I detest) are being bastards. Simply put.
I like the idea of making a difference between the cross and the crucifix. The crucifix is more of a catholic symbol and has Jesus still stuck to it. A cross is empty, a sign that he is no longer there. I like that idea. I like the idea of an empty cross and an empty tomb. Those crucifixes that have Jesus still stuck to them are missing by a million miles. That Jesus, the one stuck to the cross, would be a terrible Jesus to worship.
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