At Cross Purposes

I couldn’t help but agree with part of Giles Coren’s comment in Fridays edition of the Times. Speaking about the Cross debate (Nadia Eweida has been in ‘negotiations’ with her employer BA over whether she can display a cross and chain whilst at work) he writes, ‘Jesus, I think it is safe to say, would not have worn one. He might, at a pinch, have worn a wooden one and given the silver to the poor. But when was the last time you saw someone wearing a wooden cross?’ Well, actually I did attend the funeral only last week of a young man who was recently shot and killed in our city and the Vicar suggested we all go home and make crosses out of wood as symbols of our intention to bring peace to our communities. So some people still do! And actually, I was given a wooden cross by a lovely American lady whom I met with my wife, Lesley, a few years back in Minsk, Belarus. So, there you have it. But granted, wooden crosses are not really in vogue.

My concern with the cross thing is the distortion. Do we really believe we live in a society where every person who wears a cross is a Christian? Where’s that idea come from? I remember as a child my mother buying me a St Christopher from Johnson’s Jewellers to wear round my neck in the hope that when I travelled on my next bus to Hanley Shops I’d have travelling mercies. Well, perhaps it worked, but it didn’t make me no saint!

The way I see it, the cross is there to bring a greater scandal than whether its left to hang sparkling above the cleavage of a woman’s chest and we’re in danger of missing that fact.

Is the cross important to Christian faith? Absolutely. Should it be worn as a symbol of that faith? That’s entirely down to personal choice. But one things for certain, if the greatest debate we can muster over the cross is whether we can or cannot wear one then we’ve missed the point – and a very bloody point at that. As for the BA executives, perhaps someone ought to suggest they go and get a life, because they’ve obviously got too much time on their hands at the moment.