Re: LdS, The Cross, And Millennialism

"Lost Mormon" <LostMormon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in news:12qq26q870cbf12
@news.supernews.com:


Father of Peace wrote:

It really gets me wondering when the church corporation
is engaging in activities, such as constructing churches
in the shape of a cross, that the typical member might
find upsetting considering the strong anti-cross culture
within the church.

As a member, I have often wondered why we don't use the symbol more.
Why not? The argument that the church doesn't worship and doesn't want
to encourage worship of the cross doesn't go far with me. We have all
sorts of symbols. We don't worship garment symbols or sacrament symbols
or the dove or ... you've got the picture. I've also heard that the
church doesn't want to celebrate Christ's death but instead wants to
celebrate his life and resurrection. Brother...

We love symbols. We're going to balk at the cross as perhaps the most
common and powerful symbol of Christianity? So strange. Borrowing this
common symbol might be helpful to strengthen ties to other Christian
sects. Personally, I see nothing wrong in doing so.

It seems to me that when I was growing up, there was an undercurrent in
the Church of emphasizing the differences between LDS and other Christian
denominations. Sometimes the currents weren't all that under. So we
talked about not liking the emphasis on symbols like the Catholics do
with their heavy symbolism. But, in fact, we also have a lot of
symbolism. We just tried to keep it away from the symbolism of those we
were trying not to be like. I think that's a function of human beings
loving and responding to symbolism. You can try to take the symbolism
out to make yourself stand out from the crowd, but it will creep in
anyway. Then you just have to decide if you are going to let the same
stuff creep in or try to at least insist on different symbols. We wear
CTR rings instead of cross necklaces and go on and on about why that is a
Very Different Thing.

But these days we seem to have an undercurrent of emphasizing more of the
similiariites instead of so many of the differences, so maybe cross
shaped churches are more acceptable.

Paula

.