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The Cross and Violence · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the Central Schwenfelder Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we're very glad today to have Reverend Dr.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: David McKinley join us to talk about the cross and violence.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Pastor McKinley has been in the ministry for 28 years preaching on the cross, and he's been the senior pastor at Central Schwankfelder Church for now 18 years.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: And here we are at the Easter time, and Dr.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: McKinley's going to have an opportunity to preach about it again.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: So David, welcome to the show.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: We're glad to have you.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Drake.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's a pleasure.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Talk about the cross and the Christian faith in general.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Why is the cross of Christ so important as you see it in the Christian faith?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: And how is it different from other events?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's a great question, Drake.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um the cross is central because it is the fulfillment, it's the very center of biblical revelation.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: If you look at the Old Testament and God's system of sacrifice in the Old Testament uh religion of the Hebrews, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so the whole sacrificial system was predicated on the fact that the people needed forgiveness, and so sacrifices were made in order to do that.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: And this can even be traced back to the garden in Adam and Eve, that for them to be covered over, for them to be new standing with God, they had to receive loincloths, and so the whole idea that an animal sacrifice had to be made in order for that to happen.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then, of course, if you see Jesus and his ministry as the very center of the scriptures and the gospel narratives, then the rest of the New Testament explaining, reflecting on Jesus, reflecting upon his ministry and what he did on the cross, as Jesus said, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: The cross stands at the center of biblical revelation.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so that speaks of the importance of forgiveness, atonement.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: But that's not the only picture that the cross gives.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: The cross also gives a picture of incredible devotion.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus mentions the cross when he calls his early disciples to follow him, when he says, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: So the cross is also a picture of devotion and self-sacrifice.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so just as the cross is symbolic of Jesus' life and what he came for, so the cross becomes symbolic for our lives as well as followers of Jesus.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Which would then make it different than, let's say, some other stories that we love about Jesus, such as the feeding of the 5,000 or him walking on water.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody's called to break loaves and fish, and it doesn't make sense within the Old Testament, everything pointing to things like that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and all those other events have their own importance.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: They all point to who Jesus is as the Messiah, the Son of God, uh, the feeding of the 5,000, the feeding of the 4,000, walking on water, raising Lazarus, healing the blind.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: All of that points to Jesus' identity as the Messiah, but the cross is special in that it's the ending of his earthly ministry, but also in some ways the beginning of the kingdom of God.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: Because then after the cross, you have Jesus being raised from the dead, then ascending into heaven, and then the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the book of Acts is written, which is the expansion of the church.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: Death on a Roman cross was really violent in the time of the first century.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell our listeners what actually took place on the cross?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was the premier example of authority over a person that the Romans had.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: The Romans, of course, did not invent crucifixion.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: Mary Fairchild writes a great article on the history of crucifixion.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: Persians invented crucifixion.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was borrowed through the centuries by other regimes and civilizations as a means of public execution.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: The Greeks had it, in addition to the Persians invented it, the Greeks, people of Carthage adopted it, and then ultimately the Romans did, and many others.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it was a symbol of disgrace.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: It was reserved, at least in Rome, among the Romans, it was reserved for slaves.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: If you were a Roman citizen, you could not be crucified because it was reserved for Rome's enemies, those who were also guilty of the vilest of crimes.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: And what happens on a Roman cross, of course, a person is nailed.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's a single post, or maybe there is a cross beam.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: We oftentimes automatically think that the cross involves a cross beam.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it would not, and a person is impaled there at the joints, both wrist joints and in the ankle joints, the spike going just above those places.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so a person was impaled there, and a person died by asphyxiation.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: They suffocated to death over several hours, or in some instances, a couple of days.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: Their body would, of course, writhe in pain and then eventually give out, and the person would not be able to breathe anymore.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: So it was the worst type of death.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: It was excruciating pain, but also was a very public death.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: For instance, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, history says that they lined the road leading into Jerusalem with people that were crucified.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: And there are other stories of crucifixion being used to humiliate the enemies of a person or a regime.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was an awful way to die, lots of pain, lots of public disgrace.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's why the Apostle Paul history teaches that he was beheaded because he was a Roman citizen.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so he could not be crucified.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: Peter, though, was crucified, Andrew was crucified, and of course Jesus was crucified.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's a very violent type of death.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Why did Jesus have to die in this way?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: Great question.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think one, it teaches us that Jesus identifies with the worst of the worst, that there's no segment of the human race that Christ cannot speak into and identify with.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus died the worst death so as to identify with the worst of us.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: In addition to that, it also is the premier example of love.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: 1 John 4 10.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: And this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son as a propitiation for our sins.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: So Jesus was God's demonstration of love, and that when he died on the cross, he took our sins upon himself.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: And that's of course part of the gospel message.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: Whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus, in speaking those words in John 3, just one verse before that, he talks about just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: And this was a reference to the death that Jesus was to die.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: The cross, of course, is mentioned in Paul's writings, in Peter's epistles, and so the cross becomes, you know, a symbol of God's love.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's a violent symbol, but it is also a symbol of God's love and the gift of his son.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's certainly a violent death, but lately I think people have been paying attention to how the cross has been used for violence in society.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: And there have been writers as well as people in the press and the media who've drawn attention to the cross being with, let's say, the KKK, which uh burnt crosses the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda that wears crosses uh in their military operations.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then also in the January 6th riot, there were several crosses.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, one very large one that was being carried around among those who were rioting.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Is the cross a sign of societal violence or are these aberrations of the Christian faith as you see them?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that that's a good question.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think that historically that we can embrace the idea that it was a sign of violence.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know, many people wear crosses around their neck today.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: In the first century, that would be unheard of.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: It would be like if I was to wear an electric chair or a hangman's gallows around my neck.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's what it would be in the first century.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: The cross was a symbol of public execution.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: Given that, the other uses of the cross are avaritions, they're mistakes, they're great false representations of what the cross means.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: And in many of these cases, uh violence is perpetuated because people think the perpetrators of this think that they are God's instrument of expanding his representation, which is the furthest thing from the truth.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: It is incredibly horrible for a cross to be burned on the lawn of someone that happens to be a minority, or for a cross to be carried in association with violence.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: The cross in the first century setting, yes, its meaning is perpetuated by the Roman government, but now it should be seen as a symbol of devotion, devotion to Christ.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: And so the cross now, as we look at it, the violence is to be taken away from it, except for the understanding that the penalty of sin is offered up through the cross, through Jesus' cross.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: The fact that Jesus was the God man, God incarnate, that he gave his life on Calvary for you and for me, so that we could be reconciled to God, that is the definition of the cross for me and for the church today.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: But these other manifestations of the cross, they are examples of how human misunderstanding and promotion of a certain agenda that includes violence is an aberration of the true meaning of the cross and it's a horrible misrepresentation.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and of course, uh many have co-opted ideas for Christianity and misused them in many ways.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: For followers, some who wear crosses as jewelry, as necklaces, or maybe as bracelets are some of the most peacemaking people that I that I know.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Many who might be considering Christianity right now don't understand that there's a peacemaking tradition or a pacifist tradition in the Christian faith.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Can you share something about that?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: There are probably pacifists in every Christian denomination that there is.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: Those that believe that war should never be practiced and certainly never be promoted.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: There are those of us that believe that that war is a last result, but there are other brothers and sisters in Christ that believe that it shouldn't be even seen as even a last resort, that a Christian cannot participate in any war effort.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so peace should be sought to all extents, to all measures, because of what God says in the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not murder.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: Some would say that murder and war, that there is a difference there.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: One implies premeditation and the other does not.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: One would be in an effort for justice to be served and the other is not.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: But without getting into the weeds of those arguments, there are probably pacifists in all denominations, but predominantly the denominations that promote pacifism exclusively are the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Quakers.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: Those are probably the three biggest examples of pacifists in the Christian tradition.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: So violence is contrary to the Christian faith.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: And they look at, for instance, when Jesus was betrayed by Judas in the garden, one of the disciples, and some believe that it was Peter, drew the sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest in John's gospel.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: That servant is named Malchus.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then in Luke chapter 22, verse 51, Jesus heals the ear of that servant.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: And Jesus admonishes his disciples not to use violence.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: Those who live by the sword die by the sword.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the pacifist tradition, that vein within the Christian faith, is understood.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: Whether you agree with it or not under certain applications is another matter, but it is certainly there.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: And even in our own tradition, in the Schwankfelders, we have a mixed tradition.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: There are those that participated in, especially the Second World War.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: Our Fellowship Hollit Central is dedicated to Andrew Bean, as well as two other gentlemen that gave their life in the Second World War.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so we have those that have proudly served our country and in wartime.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then there are those historically that would embrace a more pacifist understanding.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: For instance, when the Schwenkfelders first came here to America, they pledged loyalty to the King of England.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: They would help the revolutionary soldiers by maybe providing shelter, but they would not necessarily participate in the revolutionary effort.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's a mixed tradition and a mixed understanding, pacifism is, I think, within any denomination.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Very few are paying attention to pacifist traditions right now in the news, as much of the attention is being placed on violence in Christianity rather than the other way around.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Although Christianity hasn't so much peacemakers and peacemaking tradition.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess now as we come to Easter, Good Friday, Holy Thursday, 2023, and with some of the confusion that's out there about the cross as a symbol, how would you encourage people to think of the cross as they come to worship uh during Holy Week?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think that the cross should be seen as a symbol of peace and of love, but it does not exclude the violence that was involved in Jesus going to the cross.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: In its historical context, it was seen as a symbol of violence.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus went to the cross, died, gave his life for our sins.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: And we even within the idea of the atonement, there are different understandings of what that meant, Jesus conquering Satan and his armies, or satisfying God's penalty for sin, or the view of the atonement that uh a propitiation, which I mentioned 1 John 4 10, that he received God's wrath on our behalf.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: Another idea is one of identification or devotion, that it is one of example, that Jesus set an example, how we should give our lives to God as living sacrifices.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: But of all those things, I think that what shines the most is the symbol of peace and of love, that the cross is a symbol of God's way, providing reconciliation to whoever would come to faith, whoever would come to Christ, whosoever will may come.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so the cross is a great invitation.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: And the only way that we can receive rest from God is with the knowledge that our sins have been forgiven, that our lives can be transformed, and we can move from being an enemy of God to being his friend and his child.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that the symbol that I would want to promote as Easter is upon us is one of peace, is one of love, especially as we see so much death and so much violence around us.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: In Ukraine, there's a war that's going on.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: We just heard of the terrible tragedy in the Covenant Presbyterian Christian School in Nashville, other examples of ongoing violence.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so Jesus is that answer of peace and love in a world that knows so much violence.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for coming and uh sharing your perspective on the cross and violence today.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Would you like to invite people to our services?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, Drake.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone is invited to our services at Central Schwenkfelder Church, 2111 South Valley Forge Road in Lansdale.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: We're the church across the street from Mary Mead.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: We'd love to have everyone come to our services.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: It starts this Sunday with Palm Sunday.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: We have a cantata at our traditional service at 9 a.m.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: in the sanctuary, and then a contemporary worship service at 1045 in our fellowship hall.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: Then on Thursday evening at 7.30, we have a tenebrae service.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: This is a service of shadows highlighting Jesus' passion, what he went through as he was betrayed and went to the cross, prayed in the garden, and then went to the cross and gave his life.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: That is a very unique service and something that's unusual to experience from any tradition.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: We encourage folks to come out to that.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then on Friday at noon in our sanctuary, we have a prayer service.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: Then on Resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, 7 o'clock dawn service.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: Weather permitting, it will be in the front of our church.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: If it's too cold or it's rainy, we'll have to be in the sanctuary.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: But 7 a.m.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: is our dawn service.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: 9 o'clock is our traditional service in our sanctuary.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then at 10 45 is our contemporary service in Fellowship Hall.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: We would love to have you and your families come and participate in any of our services.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Very good.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: And no doubt the cross will feature in some ways in all of these.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: Certainly.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much, Dr.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: McKinley.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Drake.