Cross: Difference between revisions
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===Controversy=== | ===Controversy=== | ||
Most churches in the world have crosses attached to their pulpits or steeples. However, it is not well-known to lay members that there were controversies for and against the installation of the cross | Most churches in the world have crosses attached to their pulpits or steeples. However, it is not well-known to lay members that there were controversies for and against the installation of the cross in the Christian world. | ||
Reformers in the 16th century severely criticized the worship of the cross and urged a restoration of faith based on the teachings of the Bible. Jean Calvin, a French religious reformer in the 16th century, forbade the worship of the cross idol in his book, ''Institutes of the Christian Religion'', by saying that as soon as we made God into a visible image, we cannot help but worship it. | |||
{{quote |7. Let Papists, then, if they have any sense of shame, henceforth desist from the futile plea, that images are the books of the unlearned—a plea so plainly refuted by innumerable passages of Scripture. . . . Paul declares, that by the true preaching of the gospel Christ is portrayed and in a manner crucified before our eyes (Gal. 3:1). Of what use, then, were the erection in churches of so many crosses of wood and stone, silver and gold, if this doctrine were faithfully and honestly preached—viz. Christ died that he might bear our curse upon the tree, that he might expiate our sins by the sacrifice of his body, wash them in his blood, and, in short, reconcile us to God the Father? From this one doctrine the people would learn more than from a thousand crosses of wood and stone.}} | {{quote |7. Let Papists, then, if they have any sense of shame, henceforth desist from the futile plea, that images are the books of the unlearned—a plea so plainly refuted by innumerable passages of Scripture. . . . Paul declares, that by the true preaching of the gospel Christ is portrayed and in a manner crucified before our eyes (Gal. 3:1). Of what use, then, were the erection in churches of so many crosses of wood and stone, silver and gold, if this doctrine were faithfully and honestly preached—viz. Christ died that he might bear our curse upon the tree, that he might expiate our sins by the sacrifice of his body, wash them in his blood, and, in short, reconcile us to God the Father? From this one doctrine the people would learn more than from a thousand crosses of wood and stone.}} | ||