The Cross

The cover of Newsweek magazine is a strange place to see a cross, especially since it’s surrounded by blackness and emblazoned with irregular red letters across and down that read "The Decline and Fall of Christian America."

Just in time for Good Friday, the article sounds the statistical retreat of American Christianity. While the cover is media overkill, the article does trace the loss in the culture wars by conservative evangelicals and the shifting views on faith and religious practice in our country.

Perhaps the dismal picture is an unintended affirmation of the words of at old hymn, "The Old Rugged Cross." As George Bennard put it, "O that old rugged cross so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction for me; For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above to bear it to dark Calvary."

Calvary appeared to be a dismal failure, but now crosses are sometimes cast in gold and silver, placed upon church steeples and worn on chains around the neck. A current TV commercial offers an ornate silver cross with a tiny eyepiece imbedded in the center through which the viewer may observe Bible verses.

But the "old rugged cross" is a death instrument, and the Newsweek cover background in black recalls its morbidity and distress. According to Paul’s review of the cross, it also represents an introductory death experience in entering the born-again life.

Galatians 6:14 says, "But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." The cross signifies a death separation from one sphere to another.

When a person was crucified, he was not coming back; he faced forward and had no future plans. It was an excruciating transition from life to death and from time to eternity. The cross of Christ similarly is a marvelous transition to life since Christ rose from the dead. Romans 6:6-10 spells this out. "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him." (emphasis mine)

The risen Christ and the empty tomb insure a new enduring life dimension. "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20-21).

The term "accepting Christ" means more than mere casual mental assent. It is the unreserved acceptance of God’s viewing us as have been crucified with Christ and risen with Christ by receiving Him personally into our lives.

At the very least, I’m glad Newsweek published a word-formed cross on its cover. When Christ suffered and died on that old rugged cross, he was the Word become flesh and dwelling among us as John 1:14 says. As the ultimately victorious "King of kings and Lord of lords" (Rev. 1:4), He is portrayed as "clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God."

Statistics may show fewer of us Christians in America, but when the last chapter is written, we win.

Dave Virkler