Cross or Crucifix?

When I was a Presbyterian, the church I attended had a large cross at the center of the back wall. Since becoming a Catholic, I have never attended a church (except those of Protestant friends) which did not have at least one crucifix. Some are comparatively restrained; others are dramatic, not to say gaudy, assertions of the crucified humanity of Christ. And one of the objections launched against Catholicism by me and my theological compatriots was precisely that We had crosses and They had crucifixes.

This is of course an oversimplification: Orthodox and Lutherans, as well as most Anglicans, have crucifixes too. But there is a difference in mindset which this both results from and illustrates -- on the one hand, the strikingly simple, reductionist affect of the Calvinist or anti-confessional traditions (Baptist, non-denominational, Pentecostal); on the other, the richness and beauty of traditionalist communions.

Many of the reasons the two streams have been separated are historical and cultural, as that Protestantism flourished chiefly in Germanic nations and was therefore impacted by its mores and aesthetics, as the Catholic Church was by those of the Mediterranean and the Slavs. But are there deeper roots to the difference between the cross and the crucifix?

One possible is theology. Some Protestant Christians are Iconoclasts in the formal sense -- i.e., they reject religious art as such. This position has become rather unfashionable of late, but it had its European heyday during the Reformation (having been tried already in the Christian Levant). The weakness of Iconoclasm lies chiefly in the fact that the Old Testament prohibition of images is not reiterated in the New -- and, since there were exceptions to that prohibition even in the Mosaic Covenant, it cannot be supposed that the ban was intended to be absolute and permanent.

But there is a real spiritual difference. The cross-only setting, as averred by many of its devotees, emphasizes the resurrection, because a crucifix depicts, well, the crucifixion. The crucifix is therefore said to be a thing of gloom, negativity, and excessive focus on the suffering Christ instead of the victor.

A wag might point out that, technically, one could just as well say that the empty cross is a symbol of the burial of Jesus, but makes no explicit reference to the resurrection. Meanwhile the Eastern Orthodox would promptly reply that, in their spirituality, the crucifixion is precisely a moment of victory. A Catholic would say the same. And so would, for instance, St Paul: Disarming principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross. Nor, to a Catholic, does a crucifix represent merely the crucifixion: we associate that symbol with the whole mystery of the Christian faith, from Incarnation to Resurrection to Ascension, and everything thereafter. After all, since resurrection is resurrection from death, the crucifixion is a precondition of every exaltation.

Moreover, the resurrection may display Divine power; but it is Jesus' death that displays Divine love.

The refusal to depict the crucifixion, or a desire at least not to emphasize it, is alien to the mindset of the New Testament; St Paul said, too, I have resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If we think that that is too gloomy, it may be time to rethink our spiritual outlook. There are plenty of promises that we will have joy in God, but there are no promises that we will escape suffering. Or, to quote a classic film: "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."