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.
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This article,
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.
