New Era, ‘Questions and Answers,’ September 1996; “…the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship”…
President Hinckley further explained, “On Calvary he was the dying Jesus. From the tomb he emerged the living Christ. … Because our Savior lives, we do not use the symbol of his death as the symbol of our faith. But what shall we use? No sign, no work of art, no representation of form is adequate to express the glory and the wonder of the Living Christ … We focus on the great atonement of our Savior, his sacrifice for us that makes eternal life possible. We think of his life and sacrifice every Sunday during the sacrament …”
1 Corinthians 1:18; “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”
The lives of the people…
Before I begin let me preface my comment on this by saying I do not believe every Christian must wear a cross necklace or display crosses on their churches or in their homes. Displaying crosses all around isn’t what saves you.
My concern about the Mormon Church’s protocol is if the lives of the people are a symbol of the faith, how do you distinguish them from every other person wandering on the face of the earth? What sets you apart?
Mormons don’t use a cross, nor do they talk about it.
They don’t use the word sacrifice very often when referring to Jesus being the Paschal Lamb, and instead overuse the word ‘atonement’.
They rarely use the name Jesus in and of itself, rather, they overuse the word ‘Christ’.
So, if you’re not using the word cross or its symbol, you’re not talking about the cross and you don’t use the name Jesus, I ask again…what sets you apart? How will people know you’re a Christian?
Tomorrow we’ll be looking at Hinckley’s statement about the Mormon sacrament.
You ever get the feeling that Hinkley was just winging it? Make something up on the fly, “yeah, that sounds good.”
Because it seems like there was more conflicts with what he taught vs. Christianty than any other LDS president that I’ve seen.
Or is it just me and my novice research?
Actually, your summation is spot on! There have been a # of issues w/ past prophets and their public behavior, but this guy would just flat out lie to the press during interviews.
Mike Wallace once asked him if Mormons believed they’d become gods someday and he even denied that. Oh brother…
There are numerous other examples and it’s one of the many things on my unending list of ‘to-do’s’. I have files and files of his comments that were so utterly outrageous, it’d make your skin crawl.