The Missing Cross

Jeffy3000, a frequent contributer to the comment pages of The Revealer, this story as part of an ongoing conversation about Evangelicals.

My brother attends a big box non-denom, and after they finished building the new big assembly hall there was a call from the congregation for a cross to be installed, since one was not part of the original plan. The pastor/priest told the congregation that if they wanted a cross for worship they could join another church.


One of the ironies of last year's Passion phenomena was that the film had a huge screening, with Gibson present, at Willow Creek, one of the ultimate big boxes--and yet, there's hardly a cross to be found in the building, except maybe in the bookstore. I was at another megachurch recently that prides itself on the preaching of the word, and again, the cross was absent, as if it were some kind of embarrassing relic.

I wonder if the embrace of the cross and cruxifiction by viewers of the Passion film is related to the absence of the cross in so many churches.

The Revealer also recently brought attention to a piece by Brian Mclaren, wondering why so many Evangelicals saw the Passion and so few saw the film Hotel Rwanda.

Here's a few thoughts from McLaren to ponder this Lenten season:

In what sense could Hotel Rwanda actually be entitled The Passion of the Christ?


What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of Rwandans who participated in the 1994 genocides were churchgoers?


What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of the Americans who ignored the 1994 genocides (then and now) were and are churchgoers?


What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of Rwandans who participated in the 1994 genocides were churchgoers?

What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of the Americans who ignored the 1994 genocides (then and now) were and are churchgoers?

What kind of repentance does each film evoke in Christians in the West?

Why might the kind of repentance evoked by Hotel Rwanda be especially needed during these important days in history?

For a wave of compassion to arise, we know there must first be a wave of repentance. How odd that re-thinking (which is what "repentance" means) must precede emotion, but then again, perhaps it is bad thinking that numbs us and steels us, blinds us and distracts us from the sufferings of our neighbors.