I have never understood why Christ is shown as risen on a Cross.
It’s to show triumph over the cross, or triumph over death.
Some of our separated brethren seem to be ashamed of the cross, and Christ crucified. But perhaps they are simply being contrarian: Rome has the figure of Christ on the cross, so they they’re against it. When Rome zigs, they zag.
Perhaps some avoid the crucifix in favor of the naked cross to be contrary - I’m sure they all did in the beginning (St. Francis de Sales put up a Crucifix outside Geneva with a note telling Calvinists that we don’t worship the image but rather allow it to point us to the Man/God it represents, and he had many, many Calvinists tell him that they were shocked by this because their leaders had lied to them and said that we worshiped the graven image) - but, speaking as a former Protestant, I can tell you that many are simply never exposed to a crucifix anymore. They’ve forgotten that their ancestors came from the Catholic Church where the crucifix was everywhere and instead think that the naked cross is normative throughout Christianity. As I said, that’s clearly not true of all Protestants - the rabid anti-Catholic sects come to mind - but the Catechism (pg 880, I think) does remind us that the sin of schism is not on those who were born into it and don’t know any better. As G.K. Chesterton says, “Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough
