Removing the Cross from a Church in Order to be Less Offensive…Hey, that Makes Sense! It’s just not a Church.
Sorry about the long title. I was channeling my inner John Owen.
I saw this FoxNews video and had a strange response. On the one hand I wanted to reach through the screen and shake the sell-out pastor and on the other hand I wanted to give a fist bump to the other guy who called him out, exposed his scam, and was thankful for the honesty.
It is troubling all around. But it is a snapshot of American Evangelicalism.
Watch the video below (if you receive via feed you may have to click through to the site)
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14 Responses to “Removing the Cross from a Church in Order to be Less Offensive…Hey, that Makes Sense! It’s just not a Church.”
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erik.
So…I don’t agree with either side. The whole church building thing is weird as a whole if someone is trying to fight for a building to bear a cross as some sort of “have to”…which seems as though the second guy is saying that the cross on the church equals saying the church speaks about the truth. I personally find no reason for a building to “have to” bear a cross to be Christian…we have zero crosses on our building and it is because we are being missional with our building for our community and try to preach the fact that people are the church and building of the Spirit, not some stagnant building.
On the other side though, this building (or “church” in the video) doesn’t represent anything Christian if they are inclusive, by saying that all love God no matter where their faith is directed.
So…both sides are wrong here in my estimation from what they said.
We need to get away from this understanding that a building should be called church…it never is in the Bible…
“Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”
Sad this man takes the Cross down. The world hates what the Cross represents and encompasses. Many in the Church today don’t like the Cross.
I love when we hold up the Cross, and are able to share the truth of Christ’s death.
I am crucified with Christ. He took all my sins to Calvary, and bore them in His pierced and broken body. Jesus poured out His precious blood for my sins, and the sins of all who love Christ, and His death.
Thanks for the video. It makes me mad, and sad. It also makes me rejoice in my own salvation.
I skipped over the first verse from Issac Watts. Shame on me.
“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.”
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Seth, I should clarify…they are not a church because they do not preach, love, serve, honor Christ not because they don’t have a cross on their building/facility. I should have been more clear; I honestly missed that when I typed it up.
If you google their leader Ian Lawton, and read a bit on the history of that particular congregation, it’s as if you can almost see just when the lampstand was removed. It is telling that John Shelby Spong recruited Lawton for this particular congregation, which threw off the oversight of their affiliation with the RCA back in 1995 after the pastor there at the time (Not Lawton) was censured for making a statement suggesting that unbelievers may be saved as well. After he retired, Lawton came in. He’s the guy who started the separate “Spiritual but not Religious” movement and his personal website is filled with eastern religion-type stuff including reincarnation. Nothing Christian about this guy or his congregation, and I make no bones about saying that. I am just glad that what they’ve been doing is, in their case at least, no longer being done under the name and cross of Christ. For that I am ever-so-grateful.
Yes, the Church becoming like society is exactly what is needed. Contrast that to churches that are splitting over an issue like homosexuality because some still care about truth even if other “Christians” like Tony Jones and Brian McLaren want to change God’s Word.
Wow, I agree with the international aid guy. They started denying Christ, I’m glad they remove the cross.
Unfortunately for them, their message is no message at all, and a group designed to spread that message will soon go the way of their liberal fellows.
It is funny though that guys like this seem unable to plant their own congregations, and instead essentially run off existing churches.
Thanks for posting this! I loved the international aid guy’s comment about totally supporting this “pastor’s” choice to remove the cross. A physical cross certainly doesn’t make a church (especially obvious if you meet in a high school!), but Christ and His work DO make a church.
Exactly Paige…I was happy to see that they had him on there. Interesting other side of the story, so to speak.
It was nice to see a Christian on television state it plainly that there is no way to the Father but through the Son. May his tribe increase!
But the removal of the cross from the church, while quite fitting given the fact that this community has abandoned the gospel, is emblematic of our society as a whole. Increasingly our society is moving away from the triune God and embracing alternative spiritualities that are really just old idolatries. These “new” spiritualities can tolerate anything except the message that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to eternal life except through faith in Him. In this situation, we should follow what this brave Christian did on TV, and not back down from the truth for fear of being hated by the world. The temptation is to back away from the cross in order to avoid unpopularity. But Jesus promised that we would be hated for the gospel: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19). Let’s follow Him knowing that to lose our life in this world for Him is truly to find it.
I e-mailed “Rev. Lawton” about why they removed the cross from their church. This is how he responded:
“I love Jesus, and love the life he lived. But I don’t need a savior as I don’t believe in an angry God who needs to be appeased. I believe in a God of love and grace.”
I am quite certain he does not understand divine love nor divine grace.
The last guy who spoke hit the the nail on the head.
“If youre not going to hold to Christian truth and practise, pulling down the cross helps those who are real Christians to remain ‘other’ than you”. Im all for it, as a matter of fact pull down a whole lot more crosses where the false religionist, the ungodly and the cults band together and call themselves a ‘church’.
Those the recognize what that cross means honor its meaning and hold it forth to the world as a statement about what Jesus did for us. C3 did us a favor in the long run.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Definitely time for that building to remove any symbolic representation of the the one Lord of the universe whom they are denying.