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."
It ain't easy to answer that one, I'm afraid. (That's the concerns which Reformed Protestants have. Some of us do very well without the props.)
The Reformed tradition has a strong tendency to misinterpret God's grace. Wesleyan-Armenians do not believe that sin is "neutralized." We believe, in contrast to the Reformed/Calvinists, that God's grace is available to everyone, not just the "elect." There is a huge difference between that and saying that sin is "neutralized by universal prevenient grace."
2. I agreed with ShadowAce's recommendation that we migrate this discussion to the "current" thread, now located Here I will not maintain multiple threads regarding the same topic of discussion. If you can't handle that, enjoy your own company, you will not have mine. Further if you ping me back to this thread in the attempt to lure me into a conversation I will merely ping you back to this post.
3. You seem to have quickly forgotten that I have informed you on multiple occasions that you will never convince me of your faulty interpretation of 1 Corinthians 2:14. That said. I'll tell you the same again, but on the Other Thread
All of these verses will start making sense to you for the first time in your life if you will forsake your party spirit.
Again, you flatter yourself and your understanding. I have also told you on multiple occasions that I do not consider you to be scripturally accurate or spiritually superior. In fact you are not even worthy of my consideration because you continually assert that I must consider your position while you will give no consideration to my position because I am "wrong." Your posts are a waste of my time. I will simply laugh at anyone who tells me "we've got all the answers and you have to see it our way."
See you on the Other Thread
And if they did, you'd say they weren't "Reformed believers" anymore, giving yourself a clever little "out" you didn't allow the rest of us in your little bashfest.
Incidentally, the PCUSA used to be a whole church full of "Reformed believers". Some of them are now into worshipping "Sophia" (who?) and others of them think abortion and homosexual perversion are just variant forms of Christian expression. But, since they aren't "Reformed believers" anymore, you don't have to apologize for them.
Incidentally, where I come from, Crossan is an apostate. Even identifying him as a "Roman Catholic" is sick. The guy outright denies the resurrection, among many other things. That he is still on faculty at DePaul just goes to prove that DePaul is not a Catholic school.
patent
Maybe your attention span is greater. :') BTW, I am always puzzled by those who question our ways, as I have never heard a Catholic challenge a Protestant as to why he doesn't use a cross.
I will simply laugh at anyone who tells me "we've got all the answers and you have to see it our way."
But Ward, we don't claim to have all the answers. On the other hand, we do dare to point out that you won't even address the important questions. In other words, you won't entertain our position. You have essentially admitted this in several communications.
We Calvinists are not stonewalling in the way you are. We have seen both sides in the controversy very clearly. The overwhelming majority of us are former Arminians.
I'll agree with you on that. But I would dare to say that the RCC is derelict in her Scriptural duty. Crossan should not only be thrown off the DePaul faculty but excommunicated from the RCC.
The Bible is not vague about this.
To the contrary, I have been told by your compatriots - and made a great deal about it on another thread that you do indeed have "all the answers." AND, you have told me yourself that you do not need to consider my position.
I have also told you on multiple occasions that if I were not willing to consider your position I would not be here.
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