Of Temples, Churches and Crosses

Columnists, bloggers and other writers frequently do not familiarize themselves with the terminology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And may I say, it's mutual. We Mormons don't know a nave from an apse; we don't kneel in our services and so don't know what a prie-deux is. Mention hermeneutics or exegesis to us and our eyes will glaze over. We can only respond, "How's that again?"

But we don't spend a lot of time writing about other churches in the major dailies. And we try to be polite and not bother to correct things others say about us, unless they really cross the line, usually something about doctrine.

So forgive me if I take a few minutes here to define some terms.

First of all, it's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not the Mormon Church. We recognize that that's a bit of a mouthful, so it's acceptable to call members or cite instances of history or doctrine "Mormon" or "L.D.S."

Outsiders tend to use three separate terms, which are perfectly clear to us, interchangeably. These are Church, church and Temple.

• The Church. The overall organization. As in "The Church places great emphasis on higher education."

• the church. The meetinghouse, where Sunday worship services are held. Also used for other kinds of meetings, parties, etc.

• The Temple. The place where special ceremonies, such as baptism for the dead, are performed. They are closed on Sundays so members may attend their regular meetings. On Mondays they are closed for cleaning.

One blogger wrote of a black family that was turned away from a Temple on a Sunday. All they wanted, the writer stated, was to attend a simple Sunday worship service. The writer interpreted this as racism. In fact, the Temples are closed on Sundays and nobody -- black, white or green -- gets in.

It's true that you will not see a cross on or in a church or a Temple. There may be many explanations for this. My personal explanation is simply that the cross predated Jesus' life on earth by untold millennia. It appears in ancient rock art, carved there by persons who never heard of Jesus Christ. It is familiar to us as the Egyptian Ankh. We see it in so many places, indicating so many different things, that I don't just automatically think of Jesus Christ when I see one -- on an ambulance or a national flag, for example.

Finally, nothing in the New Testament indicates that the cross was used, or was expected to be used as a symbol of the Atonement. The taking of bread and water or wine is what the Lord commanded should be done in remembrance of his sacrifice.

According to L.D. Hammons (sorry; I'm not familiar with him or his credentials, except that he is obviously Christian, but he certainly shares my viewpoint in this matter):

To say that an object-shape contributes to Christianity is to attribute religious power to the object. Believing that religious objects have spiritual power is false worship and false dependence on a physical object. . . .The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is basic to Biblical Christianity, and believers remember Jesus Christ's sacrificial death when they participate in the Lord's Supper. Religious symbols, such as the cross, have no spiritual power, and such symbols are neither needed nor appropriate as aids to the worship of God.

For a illustrations and further explanations, see the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross
or  The Cross: an emblem of Christianity

God-fearing Christians believe that Jesus accepted crucifixion on a cross for the benefit of us all. The message from this is at the heart of all true Gospel preaching and consequently the cross symbol is used by two billion Christians all over the world.

This has not always been the case however. Christians didn’t use the sign of the cross as their religious symbol for many generations after Christ was crucified. Rather than being a Christian symbol of hope and love, it only had the negative association as an execution apparatus for criminals.

So initially, Christians adopted the fish symbol or the trident symbol to identify their religion. Then, early in the 4th century, when Emperor Constantine publicly declared that Christianity should be tolerated¹, execution by crucifixion was abolished and the cross became the emblem for Christians.

The cross is now carried by more people than any other religious talisman and is considered by a few to be sacred to the extent that it becomes icon of adoration in its own right. However, such idolatry is certainly not the norm in Christendom, particularly Protestant Christianity. 

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