I was asked recently if I preferred the use of a cross
or that of a crucifix. The way the question was asked led me to believe the answer
was needed more to confirm someone’s position than to really find out what I
preferred and why.
The cross is an upright post with a crossbeam in the
shape of a “T”. A crucifix is an image of Jesus on the cross, as distinct from
a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself attached to the cross is
referred to as the corpus (Latin for "body").
At
the time of the Reformation, there was a movement that believed the ‘moderate
reforms” of Martin Luther and the Evangelicals (later commonly called ‘Lutherans’),
did not go far enough in distancing themselves from the Catholic Church.
Rather, they wanted to throw off the “yoke of Rome” and jettison anything that
reminded them of the Catholic Church. Lead by Andreas Karlstadt and Ulrich
Zwingli, and known later as the Radical Reformation, those reformers believed
that since the Catholic Church used images and objects to foster superstitious
religious beliefs among the people, they needed to be suspicious of all images
and religious objects—they were iconoclasts of varying degree. Many of the
radical reformers thought this was related to the way the Catholic Church
understood and emphasized the visible and material parts of the Church. So, for
example, they could be suspicious of statues and paintings, holy water, relics,
crossing oneself, genuflecting and so on. You will recognize that some of these
abuses were also done away with in the Lutheran churches. However, as an
example of how the radical reformers, and later John Calvin among others, could
(and would) take things too far, many of them also saw the doctrine of the Real
Presence as part of the superstitious belief of the Catholic Church.
While
the Lutherans retained the use of the crucifix, many of the abuses surrounding
it were reformed. For example, the Catholic Church’s mandated devotion and
prayer before the crucifix (which is seen as sacramental) is abolished.
Crucifixes, not plain crosses, are seen everywhere in Lutheran churches
throughout the world. Only in America, where Lutheranism came under the
influence of Calvinism, is the plain cross seen as preferred.
American Protestants object
to the crucifix because it is Roman Catholic and to condone or display the
crucifix is to make a statement in favor of Catholicism. For many, the issue of
cross vs. crucifix now simply distinguishes between Catholic and
Protestant. No American Protestant would want to be identified as a Catholic. I
think most Lutherans have historical amnesia and don’t know why they do or
don’t many things, this issue among them.
The reality is that historically, the use of the empty cross alone is simply not part of Lutheran practice.
