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The cross: A symbol, but of what?
AP via Providence Journal ^ | 3/16/02 | RICHARD N. OSTLING

Posted on 03/16/2002 6:42:19 AM PST by LarryLied

It's the most familiar symbol you can imagine, but ponder for a moment how odd it is that Christians display an "emblem of suffering and shame," as the hymn says.

The cross reminds us that Jesus was executed as a common criminal, hardly the upbeat message a publicist might choose.

Yet two decades after Calvary, the Apostle Paul wrote, "Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). Under this mysterious emblem, the early Christians vanquished the empire that had crucified Jesus.

The symbol holds 21st-century power. Two days after the World Trade Center attack, a rescue worker wept as he discovered a 20-foot cross -- two fused metal beams buried in the rubble. This cross provided comfort to impromptu worshippers amid the mourning.

Yet the cross is spurned by Christian liberals Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. They find belief in Jesus' saving death repellent, saying this sanctifies violence and submission to evil.

"To say that Jesus' executioners did what was historically necessary for salvation is to say that state terrorism is a good thing, that torture and murder are the will of God," they say in their book Proverbs of Ashes (Beacon).

Brock, a Harvard Divinity researcher, has chaired the joint global ministries board of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ, and was a theology speaker at the Disciples's national assembly last year. Parker is a United Methodist Church minister and president of the Unitarian Universalist seminary in Berkeley, Calif.

Roman Catholic leftist John Dominic Crossan has joined in, hailing the authors' attack upon what he considers "the most unfortunately successful idea in the history of Christian thought." And the current Unitarian Universalist magazine features Brock and Parker in a cover story headlined "Violence and Doctrine: How Christianity Twists the Meaning of Jesus' Death."

"Perfect . . . sacrifice"

By contrast, another current author joins Paul in glorying in the cross. Fleming Rutledge, a traveling Episcopal preacher who lives in Port Chester, N.Y., embraces the Book of Common Prayer's Communion affirmation that Jesus Christ made "a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world."

Rutledge has collected seasonal meditations in her book The Undoing of Death (Eerdmans). Though sermons often fall flat on the printed page, this book is unusually readable devotional fare.

She believes the cross is misunderstood if we forget that Jesus the Son is equally God along with the Father (which liberal Christians and Unitarians deny). And some conservatives portray "a wrathful Father piling condemnation on an innocent, victimized Son. This mistake must be strenuously resisted," she writes.

The heart of the atoning sacrifice on the cross, Rutledge insists, is "the fact that the Father's will and the Son's will are one. This is an action that the Father and the Son are taking together." They are "accomplishing our redemption together," acting in united love for humanity.

However, her Good Friday sermons worry less about such liberal or conservative theories than about people's inclination to pretend their sins aren't all that bad so they have no need of a Savior.

"We do not like to believe that we deserve condemnation," she says.

Some seek to justify themselves by the kind of people they like to think they are -- more moral, sensitive, loving, intelligent, thoughtful, patriotic, fashionable or socially aware than others. Then there's the opposite, people who tell themselves they're more misunderstood, long-suffering and deserving than anyone else.

But Christianity says we're all sinners in the light of God's holiness. Despite sin, Rutledge believes, when Christ looks at someone "he sees a person that he loves more than life, more than glory, more than power, more than riches, more than divinity itself."

She also contends that the cross shows us Christianity is true. The reason? Mere human imagination or wishful thinking would never have concocted "a despised and rejected Messiah."



TOPICS: General Discusssion
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To: rdb3
How long has it been with the Mormons that they believed the curse was lifted off of dark-skinned people?

Well, they are still black, aren't they? Do you know why certain children are born with the "curse of Cain"? Let us see if any of our mormons will tell you why. You are gonna love the answer...

281 posted on 03/26/2002 8:23:51 PM PST by CCWoody
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To: RnMomof7
Your #229: I have asked several times if there are public records of baptism in your church.You made the statement that some of the founding fathers asked to be baptised in the Mormon church.I am interested in who they are and if there is a record.

Go to FamilySearch.org and search among the millions of records there for John Wesley or any other name you care to search for. You will be able to see if Temple work has been done.

Sometimes the name is listed there because a descendant submitted the name, or in other cases the name is there because it appears on the microfilm of a parish register from long ago.

282 posted on 03/26/2002 10:20:49 PM PST by White Mountain
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To: RnMomof7
Your #228: Are seizures negative?

Terry, I will explain it to you and help you understand.

If you were to say that Isaiah wrote his prophecies from voices he heard as he was coming out of a seizure, you would be casting grave doubt on his calling as a prophet. You would be among those doubters who deny the validity of the Bible, which is Holy Scripture, and try to explain it away as myth or delusion, because Isaiah was indeed a true prophet of God and received the Word of God from the Holy Spirit, not from seizures.

It is the same with Joseph Smith. He was and is a true prophet of God and a true apostle of Jesus Christ, and received the Word of God by revelation through the Holy Spirit, as Isaiah did.

283 posted on 03/26/2002 10:34:25 PM PST by White Mountain
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Comment #284 Removed by Moderator

To: CCWoody
Your #280: You DENY Almighty God because [yet another lame justification]

Wrong again, Woody. How do you expect people to believe you when you post such obvious falsehoods?

We do not deny Almighty God, and we do not deny those He has sent.

285 posted on 03/26/2002 11:38:03 PM PST by White Mountain
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To: rdb3
Your #279: How long has it been with the Mormons that they believed the curse was lifted off of dark-skinned people?

We have always welcomed people of all ethnic groups, races, and colors as members. Some were restricted for a time from holding the Priesthood, but it was not on the basis of skin color, and the Lord did not tell us why, but they wanted to be members anyway because they know this is The Church of Jesus Christ.

We were told that the day would come when that restriction would be lifted, and we eagerly awaited that day. We greatly rejoiced and were absolutely delighted when it came.

286 posted on 03/26/2002 11:54:23 PM PST by White Mountain
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To: RnMomof7; Some hope remaining.
Your #270 to hope: We (you and I) have almost nothing in common doctrinally

You, hope, and I have so much in common doctrinally! We're a team! Don't be in denial, Terry.

>> now you said a "permament hell" so you have a purgatory type hell too?

Go back and look at restornu's long list of verses on hell, and actually read them. Hell is where you go when you refuse to repent of your sins. Those who go there are not saved from hell, obviously.

When they have paid the full price for their sins, when they have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling wrung out for a thousand years or more, they are redeemed by the power of Christ from hell, are resurrected in the last resurrection, and are brought to stand before the judgment bar of God.

Those that are filthy still, those who have sinned against the Holy Spirit, are sent back to the lake of fire to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity. All the rest of those who suffered in hell inherit a kingdom of glory, the telestial kingdom, which Paul compares to the glory of the stars, but where God and Christ dwell they cannot come.

>> I once asked if Jesus due to his obedience would have his own planet at some point..but he was never married...what kind of doctrinal stance do you hold on the eternal fate of Jesus?

Remember what I said last time you brought this up? You continue to repeat this stuff, how you think Latter-Day Saints are trying to "have our own planet", as if your eternal goal was to have your own harp on your own little cloud, or your own asteroid, like St. Exupery's "The Little Prince".

Jesus inherited all the Father hath, and those who become joint-heirs with Him, through repentance and obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel (the things He commands us to do, but which you are pleased to denounce as "works") will do the same.

So repent and be obedient if you hope to be saved and dwell in the presence of the Father and the Son in eternity. That means, among many other things, you need to treat people you disagree with much better than you do.

I do not think a Jewish man could be a rabbi, as Jesus was, without being married.

287 posted on 03/27/2002 12:37:53 AM PST by White Mountain
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To: White Mountain,Grig,CubicleGuy,Illbay,Some hope remaining.
For post 240

Click on Broadcast Archives list on your right

There are mighty fine talks on the Trails and Cucifiction.

Insight For Living- Chuck Swindoll

The Suffering Savior

288 posted on 03/27/2002 1:28:14 AM PST by restornu
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To: Wrigley
Your #227: Hardly Biblical. You do not worship the same God as Christians. Who is God, the Christian Jehovah, or your Elohim?

Like I said, it does not matter how many times you deny it.

We all, all mankind, have One God, and we worship Him. If you worship something else, you are free to do so under our Constitution.

See also my replies just above.

The Hebrew words that are rendered in English as Jehovah and Elohim both refer to God.

289 posted on 03/27/2002 1:28:36 AM PST by White Mountain
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To: White Mountain,Grig,CubicleGuy,Illbay,Some hope remaining.
Cucifiction correction Post 240, was doing this with only the light from windows could not see the key board so was to be spelled

Trails and Crucifixion.

290 posted on 03/27/2002 1:37:19 AM PST by restornu
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To: rdb3
(Reposting with an edit or two.)

Your #279: How long has it been with the Mormons that they believed the curse was lifted off of dark-skinned people?

We have always welcomed people of all ethnic groups, races, and colors as members. Some members were restricted for a time from holding the Priesthood of God, at the Lord's direction, but it was not on the basis of skin color, and the Lord did not tell us why. Those members wanted to be members of the Church anyway because they know deep down inside, by the witness of the Holy Spirit, that this is The Church of Jesus Christ and that every blessing would one day be theirs through their faithfulness. Eternal blessings are predicated for everyone upon our faithfulness.

We were told that the day would come when that restriction would be lifted, and we eagerly awaited that day. We greatly rejoiced and were absolutely delighted when it came.

291 posted on 03/27/2002 1:51:34 AM PST by White Mountain
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To: rdb3
Do you have a link for this? Thanks.
292 posted on 03/27/2002 2:55:20 AM PST by Ward Smythe
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To: White Mountain
WM - can we assume that every name on FamilySearch.org would have been baptised?
293 posted on 03/27/2002 2:57:05 AM PST by Ward Smythe
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To: restornu
Brain dead? I guess my next stop is a belief in Mormonism, from what I've seen, brain death is what it takes.
294 posted on 03/27/2002 4:25:31 AM PST by Wrigley
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To: restornu
Are you denying that you teach that Jesus was married to Mary, Mary Magdeline and another whose name escapes me. (Can you imagine Jesus calling for her.)
295 posted on 03/27/2002 4:30:21 AM PST by Wrigley
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To: rdb3
I made that point earlier and eventually was called brain dead. I can only wait to see what they call you.
296 posted on 03/27/2002 4:32:41 AM PST by Wrigley
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To: RnMomof7; rdb3
"He did it because of ME I nailed Him to that cross "

On this we agree, however, it was Ward that put the hammer down!

Jean

297 posted on 03/27/2002 4:35:58 AM PST by Jean Chauvin
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To: White Mountain
but it was not on the basis of skin color, and the Lord did not tell us why, but they wanted to be members anyway because they know this is The Church of Jesus Christ.

It WAS because of skin color black people were denied priesthood. You see dark skinned people as decendents of Cain who was cursed with dark skin because of his skin. I know back in 1978 your president had another revelation, but to deny the history is wrong, and dare say I, misleading.

298 posted on 03/27/2002 4:38:15 AM PST by Wrigley
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To: White Mountain; Jerry_M; OrthodoxPresbyterian; RnMomof7; the_doc; Jean Chauvin; rdb3; Wrigley...
We do not deny Almighty God, and we do not deny those He has sent.

Really! Then let me hear you confess your worship of the Ancient of Days who all of Christianity declares to be Almighty God.

299 posted on 03/27/2002 4:54:36 AM PST by CCWoody
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To: White Mountain; restornu; RnMomof7; la$tminutepardon; Jerry_M; OrthodoxPresbyterian; the_doc...
I do not think a Jewish man could be a rabbi, as Jesus was, without being married.

I guess you must have something wrong with your gray matter. At least, this is what restornu said about me when I made a similar declaration. Perhaps you should huddle up and figure out what kind of "stuff" you will attribute to Christ.

BTW, simple question, when Christ walked the earth was He then Almighty God or was he just a man, the firstborn of Elohiem, waiting to be exhalted to the status of God?

300 posted on 03/27/2002 5:01:27 AM PST by CCWoody
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