The latest furor doing the rounds here (and from what I can see, in a lot of other institutions and churches) is the situation surrounding the British government’s refusal to oppose a ban on the wearing of crosses in the workplace for Christians. Most of what I have seen and heard in terms of evangelical backlash has involved the ‘right to express my faith’ and has, on a couple of occasions meant people threatening to buy and wear a cross pendant solely to rebel against this potential ruling. This attitude smacks of idolatry and, as one Twitter commentator put it, suggests quite a persecution complex.
The wearing of a cross is not a requirement of every christian, sure it is an expression of what you believe (I mean, only practicing christians wear crosses right?) but it is not a necessary expression. I have doubts anyway surrounding the reasoning behind the government’s refusal as anti-religious (could it be more to do with health and safety than anything else?) but honestly, why do people care so much? Your religious rights are not being removed and your civil liberties are not at stake here, the way a lot of people have been talking suggests that this is the first step in the move towards an evil totalitarian regime in which anyone who utters the name of Jesus will be put to death. That isn’t what is happening here. Did Jesus instruct us to wear identifying jewelry or did he instruct us to be a light on a hill, the salt of the earth? We are to live the cross, not wear it round our necks.
I urge the Christians who are riling up against the government on this one to stop, you are doing yourselves no favours. There is a trend going round at the moment which suggests that evangelicals in the UK are moving into a period of persecution or even that we are already being persecuted. We are not being persecuted, for a long time the church has looked down with vehemence upon the LGBT community, anti-Roman Catholic diatribes are becoming more regularly spread with little to no understanding bar conspiracy theories and assumptions yet there is a call to arms about nothing more than a piece of expressive jewelry?
If it is the cross around your neck that identifies you as a disciple of Jesus Christ then your focus is entirely wrong, it should be the life that you have surrendered fully to Christ that identifies you as a disciple of Him. Stop the idolatry and focus on Christ, not a piece of gold around your neck.
God bless,
Glen Leach
Confessions of a Skeptical Evangelical 