I've been a frequent visitor to the website, churchmarketingsucks.com - a website which contains a good amount of blogs ranging from church marketing, branding, worship, etc.
I was perusing through the site today and came across this rather terribly made and not well thought out church banner ...
I don't know where to begin ...
The cross stabbing the poor lamb...
The blood pouring onto the globe...
I like the commentary included on the website:
Quote:
Matthew Paul Turner, the recovering churched boy, wrote a post earlier this week about an imaginary conversation between mother and child as they both gaze upon this picture.
"Mommy, what is that?"
"Oh, Sweetie, that's a picture of how much God loves the world! He loved the world so much that he took a cross made of 4X4s and penetrated the vital organs of a sheep-looking creature just for you, Baby. Doesn't seeing it make you feel loved and hope-filled?"
"Mommy, is that the same sheep that Jesus left the other 99 to go find?"
Not sure they intended for it look like it was stabbed, but to show Christ was the lamb sacrfificed at the cross. I think it's best to leave symbols alone in the first place.
__________________
Today pull up the little weeds,
The sinful thoughts subdue,
Or they will take the reins themselves
And someday master you. --Anon.
The most deadly sins do not leap upon us, they creep up on us.
I have pondered how we ended up making the cross the symbol of Christianity.
The cross was a cruel instrument of death.
If Christ had been beheaed would we wear a Gilotine on a chain or a Roman soldier swinging an axe on a medalion around our neck?
Would we put a hangmans noose on the wall behind our pulpits?
If Christ had been executed in an Electric chair would we set one of those on our platform?
We sing of the cross? We should be singing of and to the savior that was willing to be executed in our stead.
Yeah I hear you, but it's too late to change that one - even Paul spoke of affectionately of the work of the cross.
__________________ "It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity." Dave Barry 2005
I am a firm believer in the Old Paths
Articles on such subjects as "The New Birth," will be accepted, whether they teach that the new birth takes place before baptism in water and Spirit, or that the new birth consists of baptism of water and Spirit. - THE PENTECOSTAL HERALD Dec. 1945
"It is doubtful if any Trinitarian Pentecostals have ever professed to believe in three gods, and Oneness Pentecostals should not claim that they do." - Daniel Segraves
Yeah I hear you, but it's too late to change that one - even Paul spoke of affectionately of the work of the cross.
Exactly. The cross is what Paul said he gloried in. The cross is an indication of the entire concept of why Christ died and what His death accomplished. It's not the criss-cross beams we are supposed to consider, but the meaning behind what His death accomplished. I do not believe crosses are supernatural and good-luck charms made into religious talismans, but the idea of the "cross" in the Bible is very prominent and the salvation work of God is often encapsulated simply by referring to "the cross".
Quote:
Originally Posted by freeatlast
Anyone know the history of how he cross became our symbol of Christianity?
It is because of the words Paul used in the New Testament. He spoke of the cross all the time. Same principle. He never meant wear a cross, but the principle in why he said it is repeated in why people wear them. Just like yourself asking why it became a symbol, people lost the meaning of what the reference to the cross stands for in the Bible, and they look at it as jewelry Christians wear.
__________________ ...MY THOUGHTS, ANYWAY.
"Many Christians do not try to understand what was written in a verse in the Bible. Instead they approach the passage to prove what they already believe."
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