No-Cross Protocol

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_Mike Reed
_Emeritus
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Post by _Mike Reed »

Coggins7 wrote:
You got the willies from a cross hanging on a wall? You believed it was an instrument of Satan? Let's see, you couldn't have gotten that idea from anything taught in the Church, so...from whence was it derived?

The Catholic Church was identified as the church of the devil, great abominable, and mother harlots, by more than a few LDS authorities. And MANY more identified the symbol of the cross as a "Catholic" symbol. It followed from these premises quite naturally that the symbol of the cross therefore was a symbol of the devil. And in addition to this, it became no stretch for Bruce R. McConkie to identify the sign of the cross as the Mark of the Beast.
_Sethbag
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Post by _Sethbag »

Thanks, Mike, for saying it better than me. And not only was the Catholic Church the Church of Satan to those of us who'd read some good, old-timey McConkie Doctrine, but all the other churches out there using the cross were an Abomination in the sight of God, as per our very own Joseph Smith's First Vision. Any way you cut it, there was plenty of room in all of that for a couple of 19 or 20 year old, credulous Mormon boys to look upon the cross with suspicion.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

The Catholic Church was identified as the church of the devil, great abominable, and mother harlots, by more than a few LDS authorities. And MANY more identified the symbol of the cross as a "Catholic" symbol. It followed from these premises quite naturally that the symbol of the cross therefore was a symbol of the devil. And in addition to this, it became no stretch for Bruce R. McConkie to identify the sign of the cross as the Mark of the Beast.



And the Roman Catholic Church, in a spiritual sense, should indeed be identified as a major aspect of the great and abominable church of Satan as a system of religion. So is all of Protestantism, every other apostate or unauthorized system of religious belief, and any organization or whatever kind, whether political, religious, or philosophical (following McConkie and others here) that tend to take human beings away from the truth regarding God, the purpose of existence, and the true means of salvation.

But Christ said he brings not peace but a sword, and that he came to divide son against father and daughter agaist mother (Matt 10:34), and in a nutshell, members of families and communities against each other. Or rather, this is the inevitable consequence of the truth being made known. As C.S. Lewis named two of his books, The Great Divorce and The Great Controversy, the truth creates division and strife sense some accept it and some do not. Those that will not accept it on many occasions become visceral and aggressive persecuters of those who do, and hence, as we see here in this thread, the "great divorce".

The Church teaches, of course, that all these other religions and philosophies contain numerous instances of truth, but that, as systems of belief, they contain numerous errors as well and lack authority. Hence, Satan uses them as vehicles draw us away from the Lord's authorized church and Kingdom within which the fullness of the Gospel is found. All nonetheless contain truth and, in many, many cases, do much good in the world through the activities of individual members.

The insistent claim that the church somehow 'attacks" other's religion is disingenuous at the very best. There is no "anti" movement in the Church, as we see within Evangelical Protestantism, no LDS ministries dedicated to impugning and defaming the religious beliefs of others, and we do not call other's religions emotionally loaded names such as "cult" and "morg" and "other such.

We disagree and dissent from many of the doctrines of sectarian Christianity, and of course must, as it is the mandate of the Lord upon us to teach the Gospel and warn our neighbors before the "end cometh", but we do not attack, impugn, and defame others or their beliefs as ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons do here and for which many EVs has become a full time profession and intellectual tradition.

Jesus disagreed with, condemned, and, on many occasions, excoriated the beliefs and cultural practices of those whom he came to save; the House of Israel of the era. He always did it, of course, in love, even when he did it with sternness and passion. We do not, as humans, always do this perfectly. There is hyperbole and intemperate language used on occasion that perhaps would have been better refrained from, but our mandate is to "teach, preach and exhort" and call the world to repentance. To do this, we must, as a matter of course, dissent from and point out the errors in the belief systems with which we contend (as well as cooperate with, on many occasions, as organizations), for the minds and hearts of God's children.

As an aside, there has never been a doctrine in the Church, in any form, that the cross is a symbol of the Devil. This is a figment of someone's fevered bigotry, not a LDS teaching. To the extent that it was ever taught by individuals in the church (I'm almost 50, and although my parents taught me that the Roman Catholic Church was the Church of The Devil (false doctrine by the way. Any belief system that pulls people, or tends to pull them, away from the true Kingdom of God and his true Gospel, is a part of this "church"), I've never heard this extrapolated to the cross until this thread, which indicates to me, as with some other supposed church "doctrines" I've seen bandied about with morally self righteous ferver, that the idea is most likely a highly provincial folk concept that passed through some elements if the the church, in some regions, in the past, and then disappeared).
_Blixa
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Post by _Blixa »

..."This is a figment of someone's fevered bigotry, not a LDS teaching. To the extent that it was ever taught by individuals in the church (I'm almost 50, and although my parents taught me that the Roman Catholic Church was the Church of The Devil (false doctrine by the way. Any belief system that pulls people, or tends to pull them, away from the true Kingdom of God and his true Gospel, is a part of this "church"), I've never heard this extrapolated to the cross until this thread, which indicates to me, as with some other supposed church "doctrines" I've seen bandied about with morally self righteous ferver, that the idea is most likely a highly provincial folk concept that passed through some elements if the the church, in some regions, in the past, and then disappeared)."

Well I'm your age cohort and I heard this in Sunday School, Primary, MIA and seminary (in SLC) the entire time I went to church. It was clear to me that crosses and crucifixes were looked on with alarm and oftimes superstitous fear and were in fact tools of Satan because they were associated with the Catholic Church.

This "highly provincial folk concept" was general enough that I've heard the same thing from people I know, of many different ages, who grew up in California, Texas, Minnesota and upstate New York. I believe it must still be somewhat extent because my Utah neices and nephews regard crosses as a "devil thing."

I do agree that the line between "doctrine" and "folk concept" is a highly permeable one in Mormonism. It always struck me that it was more or less a religion by rumor: I remember friends who grew up in other parts of the SL valley who had been taught entirely different, and contradictory, understandings of many points of beleif: speaking in tongues, the existence of ghosts, the use of folk magic, who is and who isn't "black," and so on...
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

The absence of the cross is quite ironic, as the symbol was used throughout Christian literature, and (by evidence of their literature) we know that it appealed particularly to their increasing regard for ideals of asceticism and martyrdom. The symbol, in fact, took on such a sacred nature, that traditions like Peter refusing to be crucified in the same way as Jesus, developed: “for I am not worthy to be crucified like my Lord,” declares Peter. (3)

Dispite the favorable interpretation of the cross that developed, Christians had significant reservations for depicting the symbol artistically. These reasons include:

1) A desire to worship inconspicuously, in order to avoid persecution.

2) It was a symbol of capital punishment to Jews and Gentiles, and therefore was not an effective tool for evangelizing.

3) Some Christians believed that it was a sin to materially depict an image.

Many Christians worshiped inconspicuously, in hopes that they would avoid drawing the attention of their enemies. Tertullian speaks to these Christians who are afraid to assemble “in large numbers to the Church. You are afraid that we may awaken their anxieties.” (4) Tertullian remarks further elsewhere,



This entire argument has one very serious weakness, and that is that is assumes Christians must have wanted to wear crosses, use them in artwork and sculpture, and depict it upon gravestones and tombs, but couldn't because of persecution and a need to be inconspicuous as to worship and open display of religious belief. If modern Christians did such and such, ancient Christians must have been doing such and such as well (this argument would open up horrendous problems for one making it, however, in other areas).

The problem here is a kind of reverse of the "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" argument. In this case, we have an implicit claim that absence of evidence is positive evidence based in a theoretically pertinent mediating circumstance. If it weren't for the persecution of Christians by the Roman empire (a plausible assumption) they would have been wearing crosses and using them iconically just as modern Protestants and Catholics do.

However, its just as plausible to think that early Christians wouldn't have worn as a symbol the horrendous implement used to crucify their Lord, and this is especially true given the clear implication that the Atonement itself was undergone in the Garden of Gethsemane, an occurrence that would be difficult to symbolize in physical form.

Futher, its also the case that the use of the cross as physical adornment or as an iconic symbol used in art or as funerary symbolism doesn't show up prior to the great Christian persecutions any more than it shows up during them, and its largely absent from the 3rd century, well after Constantine had put an end to such persecution. Whence the cross then? It begins showing up as an item of personal adornment in the 4th century, and thereafter, it proliferates gradually, in art and other venues. The crucifix appears much later.

In other words, the cross as a physical symbol, used iconically and as a personal symbol for individual Christians only becomes prevalent well after the time of the Apostles and well into the eras of substantial Hellenization and paganization the church underwent during the second, third, and fourth centuries.

The wearing of the cross, like the use of sprinkling in baptism, is a post Nicean accretion. This argument has nothing, it should be said, to do with the literary or metaphoric use of the cross in the New Testament as a symbol of the culmination of his mission on earth, in which it played an important if terrible role. No one is claiming that it has no symbolic value to ancient Christians. It certainly did. What the historical record tells us, however, is that its use as a personal symbol of Christian fellowship, and later, as a charm, ward, or amulet somehow channeling divine power (and hence the cross's power over the vampire), is a very late invention and one, indeed, derived not from apostolic teaching or tradition but, as with so many other modifications, from the general Pagan world around the post apostolic church.

It should also be pointed out again, that the fish symbol was used as late as the early 1st century as a Christian symbol, and has been found on some Christians gravestones or tomb inscriptions. Did the Romans not understand that this was a Christian symbol, and would its use in the late 1st century not have drawn the same unwanted attention as if they had used the cross on the same tombs or gravestones?
_Blixa
_Emeritus
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Post by _Blixa »

So, do you wear crosses in your bling or what? I'm guessin' you're iced out in something like a 14 k gold 8" 24 princess-cut diamond-studded cross pendant on a 30" cuban link...
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

"This is a figment of someone's fevered bigotry, not a LDS teaching. To the extent that it was ever taught by individuals in the church

(I'm almost 50, and although my parents taught me that the Roman Catholic Church was the Church of The Devil (false doctrine by the way. Any belief system that pulls people, or tends to pull them, away from the true Kingdom of God and his true Gospel, is a part of this "church"), I've never heard this extrapolated to the cross until this thread, which indicates to me, as with some other supposed church "doctrines" I've seen bandied about with morally self righteous ferver, that the idea is most likely a highly provincial folk concept that passed through some elements if the the church, in some regions, in the past, and then disappeared)."

Well I'm your age cohort and I heard this in Sunday School, Primary, MIA and seminary (in SLC) the entire time I went to church. It was clear to me that crosses and crucifixes were looked on with alarm and oftimes superstitous fear and were in fact tools of Satan because they were associated with the Catholic Church.

This "highly provincial folk concept" was general enough that I've heard the same thing from people I know, of many different ages, who grew up in California, Texas, Minnesota and upstate New York. I believe it must still be somewhat extent because my Utah neices and nephews regard crosses as a "devil thing."

I do agree that the line between "doctrine" and "folk concept" is a highly permeable one in Mormonism. It always struck me that it was more or less a religion by rumor: I remember friends who grew up in other parts of the SL valley who had been taught entirely different, and contradictory, understandings of many points of beleif: speaking in tongues, the existence of ghosts, the use of folk magic, who is and who isn't "black," and so on...



Yeah, uh huh, right. You're on very thin ice here Blixa, very thin. I've been a member all of my life, lived in eight states, spent roughly eight years in San Diego, and virtually all of my relatives are from Utah, Ogden and Cache Valley respectively, and I've never heard any, not one, of the things you are talking about, save that the Catholic Church is the Church of The Devil, in some unique way.

You may, and many have tried, to pull the proverbial wool over my eyes with this kind of thing, but I'm sorry, its a non-starter. The "official doctrines" of the Church is quite clear and settled, and the authorities of the Church have plainly taught the manner in which teachings that are not officially recognized or overtly spelled out as such can be recognized for what they are. The fact that you didn't pay attention to these principles, or had little interest in them in any event, hardly qualifies you as a serious critic. Odd things have and do seep into the Church at the periphery, it is true, and on subjects of little relevance to our salvation (such as evolution, for example), but the fundamental teachings are well understood and easily accessible to all, unless one has not paid attention and given serious thought to them, and lived them.

The Church has no doctrines at all upon the subject of the existence of "ghosts", folk magic, or who is or is not black.
_Blixa
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Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 12:45 pm

Post by _Blixa »

I'm on "thin ice"? huh? Isn't that rather threatening language for what, even by your own logic is a minor argument, if one at all?

So my experiences were different than yours. That's not hard to believe within a church in which there has often been such variance in interpretations: variance over the space of years, or even a few city blocks. I don't find it hard to think that some missionary could be naïve enough to have had "the willies" about seeing a cross. It makes sense given what I observed. That you never encountered the same ideas or beliefs makes sense to me, but NOT TO YOU. Apparently, if anyone experienced anything else they are lying or "not paying attention." That's really, well, quite an over reaction.

Perhaps my Primary teachers, et. al, were not paying attention, perhaps my Bishop wasn't, who knows... I am only reporting on my observations, and not posturing as some kind of "serious" "critic" here.

But frankly, I would state in all serious that odd ideas are not at the periphery, but rather the heart of Mormonism. I thought that was the point, after all: that Joseph Smith brought such correction after the apostacy that true doctrine would be deemed "odd" by "church of satan" standards. Peculiar people. A higher form of knowledge. A reworking of Christianity by way of the Kabbalah. This is what makes it of interest to unbelievers like Harold Bloom---it is a literal Space Oddity.
_Richard Dawkins

Post by _Richard Dawkins »

lu
_Richard Dawkins

Post by _Richard Dawkins »

Edited by myself. One of my Finches is still here...waiting.
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