Some critics (mainly Evangelicals) tend to critique Latter-day Saints as we do not have crosses in our chapels. This does not mean we negate the efficacy of Christ’s atoning sacrifice in our theology and it is naïve to think such is the case simply for not having the cross or depictions of Jesus’ intense suffering. To see how bogus this charge is, consider the following from the Ensign:
Redeemer
Jesus saved each of us from death and sin. He willingly suffered for our sins in Gethsemane and on Calvary. After dying on the cross, He was resurrected. Through His Atonement, Jesus Christ overcame both spiritual and physical death. Jesus redeems all who believe and “who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (2 Nephi 2:7). (“Saving You is the Plan—He is the Way,” Ensign August 2020, p. 39)
Interestingly, the very same argument could
be turned back onto many Protestants. Catholic Michael Davies noted the following
about the removal of the sign of the cross in early Protestant liturgies:
Signs of the Cross
were regarded by the Reformers as conducive to superstition, and they removed
them from the liturgy. There were twenty-six Signs of the Cross in the Canon of
the Sarum and other pre-reformation English and Welsh Missals. Cranmer reduced
them to two in the 1549 Communion service, in the prayer beginning “O God heauenly
father”, which preceded the Words of Institution. Even this concession to
tradition evoked the wrath of Martin Bucer who, in his Censura,
expressed the hope that “the little black crosses which are printed in the book
at this point might be withdrawn” (E.C. Whitaker, Martin Bucer and the Book
of Common Prayer [Alcuin Club, 1974], p. 60). They were! (Michael Davies, Liturgical
Revolution, Volume 1: Cranmer's Godly Order [2d ed.; Kansas, Miss.: Angelus
Press, 1995, 2015], 204)
Are Protestants, even those from the more
liturgical traditions, “enemies of the cross” (i.e., deny the efficacy thereof)
due to such? If they were to be consistent, they would have to say “yes.”
Further Reading
Michael G. Reed, Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo (John Whitmer Historical (John Whitmer Books, 2012)
John Hilton III and Joshua P. Barringer, The Use of Gethsemane by Church Leaders, 1859-2018
Andrew Skinner on the Cross in Latter-day Saint Theology
Answering Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons
