_The Political Surf_ (http://blogs.standard.net/the-political-surf/)
Standard-Examiner
_Baptisms for health were once more common than baptisms for the dead_
(http://blogs.standard.net/the-political-surf/2013/06/10/baptisms-for-health-wer
e-once-more-common-than-baptisms-for-the-dead/)
Book deals with that ‘Mormon Taboo’ … the cross
Posted on _June 19, 2013_
(http://blogs.standard.net/the-political-surf/2013/06/19/book-deals-with-that-mormon-taboo-the-cross/)
by _Doug Gibson_
(http://blogs.standard.net/the-political-surf/author/doug-gibson/)
(http://blogs.standard.net/the-political-surf/2013/06/19/book-deals-with-that-mormon-taboo-the-cross/banishcross/)
The Mormon Church has an ambivalent
history with Christianity’s most iconic symbol, the cross. For about 70
years, the cross was generally tolerated within the church’s cultural fabric.
However, the first decades of the 20th century initiated a slow but steady
expression of disapproval of the cross; a criticism influenced by LDS
leaders’ willingness to publicly declare the Roman Catholic Church as the “
church of the devil” described in LDS scripture.
“Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo,” (John Whitmer
Books) by Michael G. Reed, is a slim but valuable volume on the history of the
Mormons’ relationship with the cross. As Reed notes, the Mormon Church was
founded during an era of widespread Protestant hostility to the cross, a
hostility that was due to that era’s wariness of Catholicism.
As Reed notes, Mormons were generally no fans of Catholicism, but they were
more responsive to the cross as a religious symbol. There are two reasons
for this. The first was that Mormonism was founded during a time of
spiritual awakening in the early United States. While “organized religion” was
criticized, individualistic spirituality flourished. Within these “rebel
theologies,” spiritual manifestations were not uncommon. The symbol of the
cross often played a role. Another reason the cross was tolerated by early
Mormons, according to Reed, was due to founder Joseph Smith’s interest in
Freemasonry. In fact, Nauvoo in the early 1840s was a hotbed of Freemasonry
interest.
That interest is a key reason that the symbol of the cross traveled with
the saints to Utah. Reed presents many photographs, both central to Mormonism
and 19th century Utah, in which the cross is prominent.
However, as Reed notes, criticism of the cross started to creep more into
the Mormon culture as a the 20th century began. Reed cites statements from
leading Mormons, including then-apostle Moses Thatcher, that connected the
cross to anti-Catholicism. Around 1915, a proposal in the Salt Lake area to
put a cross on Ensign Peak received significant opposition, one that
initially surprised LDS supporters. The eventual failure to place a memorial
cross at Ensign Peak is cast — correctly by Reed — as a dispute between church
leaders. The author writes that younger church leaders, such as David O.
McKay and Joseph Fielding Smith, had not grown up in the early era of the
LDS Church and therefore had not been influenced by the more liberal, anti
institutional, even anti-government thought of the 1840s to 1860s LDS
leadership. Also, they had not been influenced by Freemasonry.
In my opinion, it’s important to note that in the first 30 years of the
20th century the LDS Church leadership had what might best be referred to as a
“second Mormon reformation.” Leaders such as McKay, Fielding Smith, and
later J. Reuben Clark, Mark E. Peterson and Bruce R. McConkie, successfully
moved the church to extremely conservative ideology, including a renewal of
harsh rhetoric against Catholicism.
As Reed notes, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote, “To bow down before a cross or
to look upon it as an emblem to be revered because of the fact that our
Savior died upon a cross is repugnant …”
The more blunt McConkie described the Roman Catholic Church as “being ‘
most abominable above all other churches,’” writes Reed.
What I describe as a conservative era eventually endured about as long as
the early Mormon Church’s initial tolerance of the cross. In the 21st it has
waned. As Reed notes, it would be shocking to hear an LDS leader denounce
Catholicism as McConkie once did. However, Reed still sees an institutional
taboo against the cross in the LDS Church. To still use the term “taboo”
though is too harsh.
While it’s true that an anti-Catholic diatribe by an LDS leader would be
greeted with shock today, it’s also true that a talk about the symbolic
spiritual value of the cross would mostly be greeted with non-surprised
acceptance by most Latter-day Saints.
-------------------------------------------------------------
This _article_
(http://www.lds.org/ensign/2011/07/the-meaning-of-the-cross-for-latter-day-saints?lang=eng)
, from the LDS publication The Ensign, is
evidence of a stance on the cross that would have been at odds with the
rhetoric of church leaders of the past. A specific condemnation of the cross
may
be an occasionally tactless utterance from some church members, but most
others would find such beliefs offensive. Today, Latter-day Saints define
the cross as a responsibility to live a righteous life. That seems a pretty
ecumenical position.
--
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
