Mormons and the cross

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I think sometimes we underestimate the Mormon view of the cross. While the Mormons don’t use the cross as a symbol, they do believe Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross was important in our salvation. Several hymns found in the Mormon hymnal demonstrate this. This is one of those hymns:

I Stand All Amazed
lyrics by Charles H. Gabriel

"I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,
Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.
I tremble to know that for me he was crucified,
That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died.

Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me
Enough to die for me!
Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine
To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine,
That he should extend his great love unto such as I,
Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.

Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me
Enough to die for me!
Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

I think of his hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt!
Such mercy, such love, and devotion can I forget?
No, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy seat,
Until at the glorified throne I kneel at his feet.

Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me
Enough to die for me!
Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!"

I don’t think any Mormon can sing this hymn without reflecting upon Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. This hymn is one of the most commonly sung hymns prior to the Lord’s Supper in a Mormon Church. During what Mormons refer to as the sacrament, Mormons are called upon to reflect upon the sacrifice of Christ which began with his agony in the garden and extends through his death on the cross.

Mormons followed strict Puritanism in rejecting many of the symbols of Christian worship such as the cross. That does not mean they rejected the meaning of the cross.
 
I always found the Mormon treatment of the cross rather peculiar in light of their other traditions.
The appearance of the Angel Moroni on the most holiest of structures in the faith (temples) yet LDS don’t worship Moroni.
The iconic significance of temples themselves. One only need to walk into an LDS bookstore near a temple and one can find everything from tie-tacs to full color oil paintings of the building.
This is a reflection of the significance of the ordinances and rituals performed within, but unless you are an LDS they hold no meaning.
Enter a devout LDS home and you will find pictures on the wall of temples especially family members in wedding atire, the current Prophet and President of the church maybe with the first Presidency or all the Apostles. Pictures of Christ, rarely on the cross, also adorn the walls as well stacks of scriptures in full view. And many young members will be sporting the infamous ‘CTR’ (chose the right) rings or ‘RWH’ (return with honour) for missionaries.
Notice all this iconography. LDS fill their homes and chapels with reminders of their faith much like Catholics do with one outstanding difference.
There are no crosses in an LDS home. Why is all this other imagary permitted, but not the one thing that allowed all the others to happen - the suffering, DEATH and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
 
jw2lds2catholic said:
I always found the Mormon treatment of the cross rather peculiar in light of their other traditions.
The appearance of the Angel Moroni on the most holiest of structures in the faith (temples) yet LDS don’t worship Moroni.
The iconic significance of temples themselves. One only need to walk into an LDS bookstore near a temple and one can find everything from tie-tacs to full color oil paintings of the building.
This is a reflection of the significance of the ordinances and rituals performed within, but unless you are an LDS they hold no meaning.
Enter a devout LDS home and you will find pictures on the wall of temples especially family members in wedding atire, the current Prophet and President of the church maybe with the first Presidency or all the Apostles. Pictures of Christ, rarely on the cross, also adorn the walls as well stacks of scriptures in full view. And many young members will be sporting the infamous ‘CTR’ (chose the right) rings or ‘RWH’ (return with honour) for missionaries.
Notice all this iconography. LDS fill their homes and chapels with reminders of their faith much like Catholics do with one outstanding difference.
There are no crosses in an LDS home. Why is all this other imagary permitted, but not the one thing that allowed all the others to happen - the suffering, DEATH and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Perhaps the Mormons see the cross as too sacred to use as an image – it’s the same reason they often avoid actually using the name of Jesus and prefer to refer to him as the Savior. For example, they use the hymn “How Firm a Foundation.” The hymn originally said:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled.

In their latest hymnal they changed the hymn to say, “Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled.”

There seems to be a tradition gathering among Mormons to use Savior instead of Jesus – I imagine this is a reaction to the common use of Jesus’ name as a swear word in modern society and a wish to see his name reserved for reverent use. I think they have gone a little too far in this, but I can at least understand what they are thinking. They may see the symbol of the cross as equally sacred and thus not to be trivialized as it often is today.

One of the reasons I like the way Catholics use the cross is that we actually show Christ being crucified on the cross. I think taking Christ off of the cross often makes it easier to forget what happened there. Perhaps a Mormon would actually feel more comfortable with our Catholic use of the cross as they often have depictions of Christ on the cross in their Sunday School manuals, etc. I would suggest taking Christ off of the cross is a step towards trivializing what happened there. As a Mormon missionary we had flip charts and I well remember that one of the flip chart pages actually did depict the crucifixion of Jesus.
 
BartBurk said:
Perhaps the Mormons see the cross as too sacred to use as an image
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That’s not the way it was always explained to me. They said that it was because the cross was an instrument of murder. They would say “If Jesus was shot to death, would you put a rifle on top of the church?”

But Jesus was not shot to death, he was crucified. The bible says that Jesus was “slain from the foundation of the world”. I have always taken that to mean that His death was carefully planned from the very beginning.

It was not by chance that Jesus was crucified and not knifed, hanged or guillotined. The cross was also foreordained from the foundation of the world, and it was chosen as His symbol.
 
PaulDupre said:
That’s not the way it was always explained to me. They said that it was because the cross was an instrument of murder. They would say “If Jesus was shot to death, would you put a rifle on top of the church?”

But Jesus was not shot to death, he was crucified. The bible says that Jesus was “slain from the foundation of the world”. I have always taken that to mean that His death was carefully planned from the very beginning.

It was not by chance that Jesus was crucified and not knifed, hanged or guillotined. The cross was also foreordained from the foundation of the world, and it was chosen as His symbol.
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I don’t remember any official Mormon explanation that condemned the cross as an instrument of murder. That was usually used by lower level Mormons floundering around for an excuse. The official explanation I remember hearing in General Conference was they worshiped the resurrected Christ. At the same time there was always emphasis on Christ’s sacrificial atonement – Mormons are strong believers in the Anselm theory of atonement. That reflects their Western understanding of the gospel. The Eastern Church doesn’t seem to emphasize that so much.

The decision to deemphasize the cross seems to me to simply be a reflection of their New England Puritan roots rather than a decision to deemphasize Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Would they ever embrace the cross as a symbol? I think there already are individual Mormons doing so and that may eventually spread to the entire LDS Church, but probably not in our lifetime. In any event, using the cross as a physical symbol seems to me to be less important than spiritually embracing Christ’s atonement on the cross as reflected in hymns Mormons sing.
 
The cross represents a dying Christ. For mormons, Christ is very much alive and so, no cross symbols in lds homes. They celebrate a living Christ.

The angel moroni is proclaiming the everlasting gospel which would include the book of mormon to the world, as he blows his trumpet on top of Mormon temples.
 
All Christians celebrate THE living Christ, because He is victorious over death.
 
why_me said:
The cross represents a dying Christ. For mormons, Christ is very much alive and so, no cross symbols in lds homes. They celebrate a living Christ.

The angel moroni is proclaiming the everlasting gospel which would include the book of mormon to the world, as he blows his trumpet on top of Mormon temples.
Click to expand...
The cross represents Christ’s atonement. It is unfortunate that Mormons don’t catch the importance of the cross as a symbol in that regard. It represents the place where Christ died for our sins.

Having said that, it is much more important to me that Mormons agree with the principles of the atonement which the cross represents than it is that they use the physical symbol. I do think, however, that the Mormons impoverish their own worship by rejecting the physical symbol of the cross.

The angel Moroni is a fictional character created out of whole cloth by Solomon Spalding/Sidney Rigdon/Oliver Cowdrey/Joseph Smith.
 
BartBurk said:
The cross represents Christ’s atonement. It is unfortunate that Mormons don’t catch the importance of the cross as a symbol in that regard. It represents the place where Christ died for our sins.

Having said that, it is much more important to me that Mormons agree with the principles of the atonement which the cross represents than it is that they use the physical symbol. I do think, however, that the Mormons impoverish their own worship by rejecting the physical symbol of the cross.

The angel Moroni is a fictional character created out of whole cloth by Solomon Spalding/Sidney Rigdon/Oliver Cowdrey/Joseph Smith.
Click to expand...
Nothing in the entire plan of salvation compares in any way in importance with that most transcendent of all events, the atoning sacrifice of our Lord . It is the most important single thing that has ever occoured in the entire history of created things; it is the rock foundation upon which the gospel and all other things rest.

“Behold I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me.
And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; …” (3 Ne 27:13-14)

My understanding is that the atonement incompasses Gethsemane - the Cross - and the Resurrection.
 
ronald_g_w said:
Nothing in the entire plan of salvation compares in any way in importance with that most transcendent of all events, the atoning sacrifice of our Lord . It is the most important single thing that has ever occoured in the entire history of created things; it is the rock foundation upon which the gospel and all other things rest.

“Behold I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me.
And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; …” (3 Ne 27:13-14)

My understanding is that the atonement incompasses Gethsemane - the Cross - and the Resurrection.
Click to expand...
I think it could also be said that all of the suffering that Christ endured throughout his entire life was in some sense related to the atonement. My understanding is that he took upon himself our sins in the Garden and then finished his atonement on the cross. So it some sense I agree with what you say except I would not include the resurrection in the atonement.
 
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