Why don’t Protestants like the Crucifix, and some the cross

MMXX said:

What's a waxhead? When I looked up the word I just got adds for sunscreen.

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Waxhead is another name for surfer, because they are constantly waxing their surfboards so their feet don't slip. You misspelt "suffering" as "surfing", in case you were wondering.

prodromos said:

Waxhead is another name for surfer, because they are constantly waxing their surfboards so their feet don't slip. You misspelt "suffering" as "surfing", in case you were wondering.

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That would explain the sunblock adds. Probably my "smart" phone decided what I really wanted to write. Like when it kept changing waxheads to warheads. Sometimes I catch an auto correct error, sometimes I don't.

GenemZ said:

That is why we do not keep him hanging there. Satan enjoys seeing him that way.

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I'm thinkin' the victory of the victim which defeated Satan; i.e., Jesus' death, is not something Satan takes pleasure in.

GenemZ said:

In this case? .... Icons were being used for promoting false doctrine in a visual medium.

Where is reality? Does not matter? Keep the falsehood going... to keep the public opinion happy with itself.

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What false doctrine is being promoted?

-CryptoLutheran

MMXX said:

The empty cross represents victory over suffering and death.

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On the contrary, it represents denial of suffering and death and the fact that Jesus embraced suffering and death just as we all must embrace it in union with him to enter into His kingdom. He continued to embrace it with each of us.

Akita Suggagaki said:

On the contrary, it represents denial of suffering and death and the fact that Jesus embraced suffering and death just as we all must embrace it in union with him to enter into His kingdom.

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Are you saying that those who aren't into crucifixes (that are worn as jewelry or hung on a wall) aren't going enter into His kingdom?

MMXX said:

I should have said that's a Protestant view that I'm familiar with. And are you saying that those who aren't into crucifixes aren't going enter into His kingdom?

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Not saying that at all. It is a matter of appreciating the ongoing, timeless solidarity of Christ with his followers in their suffering.

Akita Suggagaki said:

Not saying that at all. It is a matter of appreciating the ongoing, timeless solidarity of Christ with his followers in their suffering.

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I didn't think you were. I just wanted it to be clear. I've seen plenty of depictions of the crucifixion in Protestant churches in the form of paintings and stained glass.

MMXX said:

I didn't think you were. I just wanted it to be clear. I've seen plenty of depictions of the crucifixion in Protestant churches in the form of paintings and stained glass.

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I think it brings us to what might be important views of the suffering of Christ. A well articulated Catholic view was made by Pope JPII. For those interested here are a few points that at least intrigued me:

"Christ gives the answer to the question about suffering and the meaning of suffering not only by his teaching, that is by the Good News, but most of all by his own suffering, which is integrated with this teaching of the Good News in an organic and indissoluble way. And this is the final, definitive word of this teaching: "the word of the Cross", as Saint Paul one day will say.

"In the Cross of Christ not only is the Redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed,. Christ, - without any fault of his own - took on himself "the total evil of sin". The experience of this evil determined the incomparable extent of Christ's suffering, which became the price of the Redemption. The Song of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah speaks of this. In later times, the witnesses of the New Covenant, sealed in the Blood of Christ, will speak of this.

"The Redeemer suffered in place of man and for man. Every man has his own share in the Redemption. Each one is also called to share in that suffering through which the Redemption was accomplished. He is called to share in that suffering through which all human suffering has also been redeemed. In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.

"Does this mean that the Redemption achieved by Christ is not complete? No. It only means that the Redemption, accomplished through satisfactory love, remains always open to all love expressed in human suffering. In this dimension—the dimension of love—the Redemption which has already been completely accomplished is, in a certain sense, constantly being accomplished. Christ achieved the Redemption completely and to the very limits but at the same time he did not bring it to a close. In this redemptive suffering, through which the Redemption of the world was accomplished, Christ opened himself from the beginning to every human suffering and constantly does so. Yes, it seems to be part of the very essence of Christ's redemptive suffering that this suffering requires to be unceasingly completed.

Down through the centuries and generations it has been seen that in suffering there is concealed a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace. To this grace many saints, such as Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Ignatius of Loyola and others, owe their profound conversion. A result of such a conversion is not only that the individual discovers the salvific meaning of suffering but above all that he becomes a completely new person. He discovers a new dimension, as it were, of his entire life and vocation.

For suffering cannot be transformed and changed by a grace from outside, but from within. And Christ through his own salvific suffering is very much present in every human suffering, and can act from within that suffering by the powers of his Spirit of truth, his consoling Spirit.

Salvifici Doloris (February 11, 1984) | John Paul II


"And Christ through his own salvific suffering is very much present in every human suffering," I think this justifies the presence of the crucifix. We see a representation of the reality of Christ with us in our own suffering. The crucifixion may be historically over but theologically it is ongoing and concurrent with the resurrection and ascension. Time no longer has its restriction to these timeless truths.

I also wanted to add that at one of the protestant churches I attended they had a passion play which depicted the crucifixion, with an actual player being crucified and hanging from the cross. I think that happens in quite a lot of churches.

GenemZ said:

In this case? .... Icons were being used for promoting false doctrine in a visual medium.

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How do you figure?

Where is reality? Does not matter? Keep the falsehood going... to keep the public opinion happy with itself.

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Icons depict the spiritual reality. The icon I use in my profile, for example, is intended to convey the idea of the Trinity in a spiritual manner, but it does this by depicting three angels, because of the persons of the Trinity, the appearance of the Father is not certain, if indeed He is visible, and it is uncanonical to paint Him, and the appearance of the Holy Spirit is variable, since He appeared in just the New Testament in at least two forms, a dove and tongues of fire. So the way to convey conceptually the coequality of the three divine persons is to show three angels sharing in conversation, as a metaphor.

MMXX said:

I also wanted to add that at one of the protestant churches I attended they had a passion play which depicted the crucifixion, with an actual player being crucified and hanging from the cross. I think that happens in quite a lot of churches.

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Indeed. I myself respect that, but I think a better way for Protestant churches to fully realize the impact of the Crucifixion would be to base their Holy Week liturgies on those of the Byzantine Rite, which capture so much intense imagery from Holy Week. This is also true of the other historic liturgical rites; I particularly like the way the Byzantine Rite (Eastern Orthodox, Ukrainian Greek Catholic, etc) do it, however.

On Holy Saturday, however, the traditional liturgy of the Roman Rite and the Byzantine Rite was remarkably similar until 1955, when Pope Pius XII radically altered the services in a way many people feel was for the worse.

The Liturgist said:

Indeed. I myself respect that, but I think a better way for Protestant churches to fully realize the impact of the Crucifixion would be to base their Holy Week liturgies on those of the Byzantine Rite, which capture so much intense imagery from Holy Week. This is also true of the other historic liturgical rites; I particularly like the way the Byzantine Rite (Eastern Orthodox, Ukrainian Greek Catholic, etc) do it, however.

On Holy Saturday, however, the traditional liturgy of the Roman Rite and the Byzantine Rite was remarkably similar until 1955, when Pope Pius XII radically altered the services in a way many people feel was for the worse.

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I was just pointing out, in a thinking out loud way, that Protestant denominations I'm familiar with don't do away with imagery of the crucifix altogether.

prodromos said:

No he doesn't, it reminds him of his most humiliating defeat.

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Not while he was watching it happen....

Jesus said that it was Satan's desire.

Though Germany lost WWll? When Jew haters see movies of the Jews in concentration camps, they take pleasure in seeing what they want to see!

Clare73 said:

I'm thinkin' the victory of the victim which defeated Satan; i.e., Jesus' death, is not something Satan takes pleasure in.

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During the Tribulation Satan's man will attempt to kill off all Jews. He is not yet feeling his defeat. We know it. He denies it, and takes pleasure in his denials.

For if all Jews could be destroyed? Jesus would not be able to fulfill His promise to return to Israel and set up His kingdom. If that could be done? The Lord would be proven a liar, and Satan will get off from his sentence to the Lake of Fire.

Satan takes great pleasure in the thought of killing not only Jesus, but all Jews as well. Its one reason Islam wants to drive the Jews into the sea......

Delusional ego mania reigns in Satan. He does not see his defeat. He still sees the death of all Jews as his salvation. Idf he could succeed? Jesus being crucified would then become a day of celebration for Satan...

That is why delusional people confound the sane. Satan is the father of delusion.

GenemZ said:

Not while he was watching it happen....

Jesus said that it was Satan's desire.

Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.
He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth
in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44
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Though Germany lost WWll? When Jew haters see movies of the Jews in concentration camps, they take pleasure in seeing what they want to see!

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The difference between the Passion of our Lord and the Holocaust was that Jesus Christ went willingly to the Cross in order to defeat the powers of sin and death and make it possible for humans to be Resurrected just as He was, and thus what the devil at the time may have thought was a victory turned out to be his greatest defeat, especially since our Lord proceeded to despoil Hades and facilitate salvation for those who had reposed before His Gospel was preached. The crucifixion was a triumph of our Lord.

In contrast, the Holocaust was a victory of the devil in that through a mix of occult spiritual delusion and pure hatred, an entire bureaucracy succumbed to the temptation to engage in the mass murder of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Freemasons, disabled people, and Christian dissenters who rejected National Socialism, like St. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the leaders of the Confessing Church which resisted the neo-Marcionite anti-Semitic “Positive Christianity” the Nazis tried to force on Protestant Germans after consolidating all of the old regional churches of Lutheran and Reformed faith (which had been the state churches of the Protestant lands like he kingdoms of Prussia and Saxony which united with Catholic lands like the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1871) into the Reichskirche, and suppressing the rest.

Now if an anti-Semite gets pleasure from watching a film like Schindler’s List and seeing the torture and killing of Jews, they are truly revolting, but that has nothing to do with the Crucifix and the willing victory of Christ over death.

GenemZ said:

During the Tribulation Satan's man will attempt to kill off all Jews. He is not yet feeling his defeat. We know it. He denies it, and takes pleasure in his denials.

For if all Jews could be destroyed? Jesus would not be able to fulfill His promise to return to Israel and set up His kingdom. If that could be done? The Lord would be proven a liar, and Satan will get off from his sentence to the Lake of Fire.

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On the contrary, the Kingdom of Christ which has no end is unstoppable, since our Lord triumphed over death, any who have perished will rise from the dead. For the devil there is no possibility of escape, and the devil knows this.

Satan takes great pleasure in the thought of killing not only Jesus, but all Jews as well. Its one reason Islam wants to drive the Jews into the sea......

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Indeed, but on the other hand, he failed to kill Jesus Christ, not realizing our Lord was God Incarnate, which is why Jesus willingly went to the Cross: as the Gospel according to St. John the Beloved Disciple makes clear, the crucifixion of our Lord was His appointed passion, His imperative, which He had to undertake in order to prevent it, and had it been otherwise, he could easily have said one word differently and Pontius Pilate, who was not comfortable with the crucifixion happening, would have put a stop to it.

Delusional ego mania reigns in Satan. He does not see his defeat. He still sees the death of all Jews as his salvation.

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On the contrary, I believe based on what is written in Scripture, that the devil is chiefly concerned with leading astray the elect in Christ, as St. Peter warns in 1 Peter 5:8-9

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time; casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you. Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom withstand stedfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in your brethren who are in the world.”

Idf he could succeed?

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Of course not, God is omnipotent.

Jesus being crucified would then become a day of celebration for Satan...

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The devil is aware he was defeated on that day more than any other day, so no.

That is why delusional people confound the sane. Satan is the father of delusion.

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On this point we can agree.

The art of missing the point. Some should write a book about. They are so gifted in that area.

GenemZ said:

The art of missing the point. Some should write a book about. They are so gifted in that area.

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How do you figure I am missing the point?

GenemZ said:

Not while he was watching it happen....

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So what? We're not talking about what Satan felt at the time of the crucifixion, we are talking about what it reminds him of now, which was his own 'nature' being used against him

GenemZ said:

Jesus said that it was Satan's desire

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Yep, and God used it against him, a humiliating and crushing defeat. He must love having that brought to mind every time he sees a crucifix.