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."
BTW, Jesus IS God, in the flesh.
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.
More Jesus gotcha books. They are in for a big suprise. DrMike
I expect this from Unitarians (my church). They've been on this road for 200 years. But a Catholic priest? What is he doing in the church?
Nice thought, but the fact is God is no respecter of persons. "Lord, I am not worthy..."
These two cannot be Christians. The 'submission to evil' and the death and Resurrection of the Christ is the central point of Christianity. Several times, Jesus is shown in the Gospels having ( a very human ) difficulty with the fate of which he was aware ( such as the Agony in the Garden ). It is through his sacrifice that humanity was redeemed--purchased by the ultimate price.
To claim to find this idea 'repellant' is definitely not Christian. Perhaps the two women mentioned above are from a town named 'Christian', since they definitely do not have a basic understanding of their faith.
'Liberal' churches are the source of much of the socialism that has degraded and eroded the foundation of our republic.
Thanks for a great post.
Regards...EV
Of course that's what they're after anyway. Deny the basic tenets of the church, then why bother going to church to feel good, we can do that right here in our humanistic government sponsored feel good seminar. Take faith out of the equation and all you have to rely on is the State. Thanks, but no thanks. God works miracles, they don't.
1Timothy 2:12 - But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)
As for UCC - Should be renamed... "First Liberal Church of Agnosticism, unReformed".
I was there on a personal, silent retreat while they had a women's group retreat going on. One day, there was no mass scheduled on the grounds and so I attended their Communion service. The song of choice during the distribution of Holy Communion was "When You Wish Upon A Star."
No joke. The one from, I think, Pinnochio.
At least the sentence makes sense now.
This seems to be increasing habit with habit-less nuns (pun intended). Maybe they have the same view as Eve who didn't think being made in the 'image and likeness' of God was good enough. Eve wanted to be God.
Maybe with the 'People-is-God' attitude today, these nuns do not accept a 'consecration' performed by some 'apple eating-Jesus-acting' man.
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.