Doing this for 20 years now.
REALLY? This is the first time I've
ever heard that!
I've literally heard, during that time, a rather incredible number of people make that actual argument.
Shocking. What else have you experienced during your many, many, many years on the internet? People being mean?
Where I live, one can readily find crosses, votive candles with images of Roman Catholic saints on them, "Jesus loves you" knick-knacks, and the like, even at secular retail chain stores.
So what? Where I live (in northern California; not the southwest or south Texas or whatever), the grocery store I shop at has an entire isle where one side is entirely devoted to votive candles. It literally says on the sign above the isle "Hispanic foods/Candles". Is this supposed to prove something about something? Mexicans love those candles, therefore...something.
We even had an "everything's $1 and up" store that had an entire wall of trinkets and knick-knacks with the word "Jesus" on them, accompanied by an image or some sort of catch phrase, as if somehow that makes a Frisbee religious in nature.
So basically, the long and short of it is...
you went to a dollar store once? I'm sorry, this is another one where I have to wonder what the point is. I've never been in one of those kinds of stores anywhere (and I've been to I think every contiguous US state except for a few in New England and Florida) that didn't have some chintzy religious objects in it. How else is everyone's grandmother supposed to fill up all the space in their house?
I think it was 15 years ago that the local Family Christian bookstore had a "Victory in Jesus" toy monster truck for sale, with a red plastic body, gold chrome for the metallic bits, and the words "Victory In Jesus" on the hood.
Wow. Take that, Truckosaurus. That's awesome. I hope you bought one.
That's how common symbols are where I live... and how questionable some of the applications are.
It sounds like you have a problem with
religion in commerce. I don't know anyone who doesn't, so again, I don't know what you're meaning to prove by any of these examples. To imply that this says something about the Christian veneration of the cross or its use as a Christian symbol (if this is what you mean to imply) really makes no sense. Do Mormon religious items being for sale across the world say anything untoward about Mormonism? You can buy a
"Proud to be Mormon" mousepad on Amazon.com right now for $11.99. Guess you better get your religion in order, then (?)...or start making mousepads... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh, and hey, wasn't there that time when the early Mormons were told, after Joseph Smith asked the Lord about it, that they should try to
sell the copyright to the Book of Mormon in Canada? What was
that all about? Does it somehow make it better or substantially different than your examples that they didn't try to do it in the 19th century Canadian version of a dollar store? (Maybe they should have,
since the attempt that was made ultimately failed.)
Speaking personally, this has made me want to see the people themselves, to know the people who call upon Christ's name, and to see what they as individuals actually believe.
That's a good instinct.
I remember explaining that the symbology used is... that of the empty tomb, such that most meetinghouses have an open, hollow area behind the pulpit meant to represent that.
Yeah, I've heard that, too. Maybe on here. Maybe from you. I honestly don't remember. That's a fine Christian symbol. You can find it in some of the rock-hewn scenes at the monastic complex of St. Simon the Tanner in Egypt (below).
And if you ever have the blessing to go to the Holy Land and visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, you will find many Christian people there venerating that very place. The important point to make in this, however, is that the empty tomb is a symbol
because of the earlier victory over death on the cross. It is proof that this victory has indeed happened (as was the initial appearance to Mary Magdalene, Christ's wounds to St. Thomas, etc.), but that victory was still accomplished by His willing death upon the cross. This is why Christians don't exchange one symbol for the other, as Mormons have.
It's okay to have more than one symbol (assuming the theology behind them is sound, of course; this is why even Protestants who hold to the "four bare walls and a sermon" very low-church style of Protestantism will still have problems with Mormonism), but the point when we're talking about Christian symbology is that basically everyone who is Christian will at least affirm the cross as the preeminent symbol of the Christian faith (if not always openly display it themselves; I don't own any wearable cross items, though do own several crosses for use in private or corporate prayer). There are plenty of others, but as I've explained in the past, a lot of them don't necessarily work cross-linguistically/cross-culturally, because they rely on the viewer's knowledge of Greek, Syriac, Coptic, etc. (things like the
Ichthys, the
Chi Rho, etc.), whereas the cross is understood by everyone for what it represents according to Christian theology (eternal life in Christ via His defeat of death upon it).