Original title: The Cross: Repugnant and Taboo, or Definitive Symbol?

In this episode, Brendon and Skyler discuss the twenty-sixth lesson in the LDS Come, Follow Me sunday school manual. This week (June 19-25) is titled "It Is Finished" and covers Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19.

We invite you to worship with us on any Sunday - either at First Baptist Church of Provo or Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna. We welcome visitors!

Brendon's sermon series can be found here; and here's one on Ezra 4.

Sources:

D&C 19, D&C 93, D&C 132

Sunday School: here, here and here

Gospel Principles; True To the Faith

King Follett Discourse; Sermon in the Grove (Joseph Smith)

Mediation and the Atonement by John Taylor

New Testament Made Easier by David Ridges

Answers to Gospel Questions by Joseph Fielding Smith

A Rational Theology by John Widtsoe

Jesus the Christ; The Great Apostasy by James Talmage

First 2,000 Years; The Gospel Trilogy by Cleon Skousen

The Symbol of Our Faith (Gordon Hinckley)

Mormon Doctrine; The Purifying Power of Gethsemane (Bruce R. McConkie)

The Mormon Jesus by John Turner; wherein, the author documents that for some "'since the law of procreation [is] just as binding' as that of baptism or marriage, Jesus must have had children, which helps explain his agony in Gethsemane." (pp. 241-242)

Banishing the Cross by Michael Reed

Mormonism and the Magic World View by D. Michael Quinn

"A Gauge of the Times: Ensign Peak in the Twentieth Century" by Ronald Walker

"Park At Ensign Peak Dedicated" by R. Scott Lloyd; notice Hinckley stated that he's "glad that none of that has ever happened."

"The Garden Atonement and the Mormon Cross Taboo" by Jeremy Christiansen

"The Use of Gethsemane by Church leaders, 1859-2018" by John Hilton III and Joshua Barringer

One example of an early Mormon leader teaching not only that Jesus was a polygamist - but that he was crucified for polygamy is: "The grand reason of the burst of public sentiment in anathemas upon Christ and his disciples, causing his crucifixion, was evidently based upon polygamy, according to the testimony of the philosophers who rose in that age. A belief in the doctrine of a plurality of wives caused the persecution of Jesus and his followers. We might almost think they were 'Mormons.'" (Jedediah Grant, JD 1:346 )

Brigham Young also claimed that the Lord was a polygamist. (JD 13:309)

Compare President Wilford Woodruff and Elder Bruce R. McConkie on the question of eternal progression:

• "If there was a point where man in his progression could not proceed any further, the very idea would throw a gloom over every intelligent and reflecting mind. God himself is increasing and progressing in knowledge, power, and dominion, and will do so, worlds without end. It is just so with us. We are in a probation, which is a school of experience." (Wilford Woodruff, JD 6.120)
• "Now may I suggest the list of heresies. Heresy one: There are those who say that God is progressing in knowledge and is learning new truths. This is false - utterly, totally, and completely. There is not one sliver of truth in it." (Bruce R. McConkie; Seven Deadly Heresies; Notice the condemnation of earlier men of higher church-rank then himself - including but not limited to Presidents/Prophets Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff.)

Joseph Smith told Alexander Neibaur that he saw Jesus with a light complexion (white skin) and blue eyes (A.N. Journal, May 24,1844). Yes, Jesus is a white man, according to the founding Mormon/LDS prophet. This is related to some racial issues in LDS history and has clearly impacted LDS art to this day, as should be obvious throughout any official sources. (Whiteness is also true of Mary in 1 Nephi 11.13-15, who is even claimed by some LDS to actually be from England, based on legend.) Also see Mormonism - Shadow or Reality by Jerald and Sandra Tanner, ch. 21.

Christianity and Liberalism; Things Unseen; The Person of Jesus by J. Gresham Machen

• Christianity and Liberalism podcast
• Reformed Forum series

Core Christianity; Christless Christianity by Michael Horton (also here and here)

Crucifixion by Martin Hengel

Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus by D.A. Carson

The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross by Leon Morris

American Gospel: Christ Crucified

What is the Gospel? (Voddie Baucham)

"The Power and Message of the Cross" by Alistair Begg

The Cross Before Constantine; The Crosses of Pompeii by Bruce Longenecker

• On pp. 106-110 of the first book listed, Longnecker shows that there are even 5 uses of the staurogram on just one section of John 19 (the very chapter of this lesson) in P.66 - an early manuscript dating from, perhaps, even as early as the middle to late second century. That's long before Constantine was even born.

Destroyer of the Gods by Larry Hurtado (also here)

Gothic Arches, Latin Crosses: Anti-Catholicism and American Church Designs in the Nineteenth Century; also "The Cross: Church Symbol and Contest in Nineteenth-Century America" by Ryan K. Smith

• Michael Reed (cited above, based largely on the work of Ryan Smith) includes examples of Protestant churches being violated because of the public display of the cross: "Protestants were unwilling to risk the threat of mob violence and internal dissent, and so they generally avoided crosses that would have otherwise made their churches appear Catholic...For example, the St. Augustine's Church was destroyed in the Philadelphia riots of 1844, and the Boston chapel was attacked by mobs in 1854, having its cross pulled down from the steeple and set ablaze." (pp. 28-29)