Why are there crosses in churches

Churches, both Catholic and Protestant have crosses placed, carved, or drawn on the doors, windows, tops, and walls of their church buildings. Many Christians all over the world wear the cross on their necklaces, bracelets, rings, items of clothing, and key chains. Besides, many Christians, especially Catholics, make the sign of the cross during worship. When making the sign, the people touch their forehead, chest, and then each shoulder.

Many believe that the sign of the cross is effective in protecting them from harm and driving away evil spirits. The cross is used in Christian churches as a symbol of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Sundra Chelsea Atitwa February 8 in Society. All About the "Stan" Countries.

Pro Tip: Remember that regardless of your actions, Jesus still loves you. Nothing you can do is bad enough to change that. The meaning of this statement, and by extension the cross, is twofold. First, the immediate earthly life of Jesus was over. He would show Himself briefly after the resurrection, but the cross marked a turning point in His relationship to other people. Second, the ultimate punishment for sin was and is complete.

No amount of prayers or good deeds could ever make us more fit for Heaven than what Jesus did and completed on His own. The cross represents that our punishment has been taken, and Jesus stands ready to accept and forgive us if we only ask.

It was a film about someone being flailed and battered and flagellated and abused and tortured and then turned over and had it all done on the other side.

And then, you know, incredibly graphically nailed to a cross and then hung in what I have to say was glorious, gory revelling. Now, I personally don't find that particularly spiritual beyond the experience of extreme cinema. If one indication of a living symbol is that it arouses strong emotions, then the cross clearly retains some of its ancient power.

Those emotions can still surface when a filmmaker or a singer or a painter writhes around with it, or casts it in chocolate. But what happens when religious symbols become so much a part of the wallpaper that we no longer see them at all?

Throughout history, the cross has been re-imagined, as a fishbone, a wishbone, an anchor, a hook on which Christ hangs as bait for the devil, a wooden bridge connecting God with humanity. We're always finding ways of making it new again.

I've noticed that the decorations that are the highest fashion at the moment after the Mel Gibson film are nails that you wear round your neck - crucifixion nails, three inches long. That's a pretty nasty idea when you think about it. But again, I think that's an attempt to recoup the power of the cross, realising that the symbol has probably lost the power to shock.

But the nails have not lost the power so now you have the nails. What's happened with the Gibson film is that people, because they have to think about it again, are not just simply shocked by the astonishing level of abuse prior to death. Had Christ been shot by a firing squad I don't know that we would've chosen the symbol of the gun. It was very handy that it was that shape. Is the cross becoming the cruciform - just a geometric shape like a rectangle or square?

Are we witnessing the death of one of the world's richest and most potent symbols? Well, I don't think so. Not yet anyway. Not while there are still people who believe it can change the world. At the height of the Second World War, the city of Coventry suffered very heavy bombing raids, and its medieval Cathedral was brought to its knees.

One November morning in , after a particularly damaging attack, a young clergyman - Philip Wales - was picking over the mountain of rubble where once a great cathedral stood. Philip's daughter Mary takes up the story. It was later exploring the ruins by himself that he found lying on the ground, under the burnt out beams, the enormous medieval nails which had held these beams in place - they are extraordinary - they are so large.

I would say the ones I'm looking at the moment are about 18" long and some are bigger than that. They are beautiful in their own right, as if a craftsman had made them.

My father brought a handful of them home. Moving these nails around on the kitchen table, they seemed to move easily into place as a cross. My father found a firm in Coventry who were able to weld these nails together and another firm who put a coat of silver to cover them.

When the designs were made for the new cathedral, it was decided right from the very beginning that these nails must have a special place in the new cathedral. The Coventry cross of nails came to symbolise not just the suffering of war, but also the hope of survival, of resurrection.

Now, the Cross of Nails community at the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral takes its distinctive symbol to war-zones around the world, to inspire peace and reconciliation.

Canon Justin Welby is a leader in that community. In that sense, the cross within Christian thinking marks the end of disruption of a relationship, and of a new future. And we see, in the work we do now in the Community of the Cross of Nails and in our reconciliation world-wide, that the cross is a powerful way of demonstrating hope.

Because it speaks of the possibility of new harmonious and peaceful relationships. First with God and then with others. I work very often in areas of conflict. And you take people round the cross, or you talk about the cross of nails or allow them to hold the small cross of nails that we wear round our necks, you begin immediately to find a transforming of attitudes. There is a power within the cross which reaches deep into the human heart and into the human emotions, that challenges hatred and challenges unforgiveness, and challenges a commitment to violence.

It's such a rich symbol - a symbol of healing, sacrifice, reconciliation, hope, love - but how much of that is still held after two thousand years, in the pure, clear shape of the crosses we wear? Mother Claudia of Tyburn Convent believes there's a whole world of meaning in even the simplest cross. The physical symbol of the cross - there's a vertical coming down from heaven, entering into the earth, implanted in the earth. There's the horizontal, the human, crossing the vertical, crossing the divine.

If you take away one of those parts, the vertical - there's no cross. If you take away the horizontal - there's no cross. So it's the fusion, the union of those two aspects - the divine and the human - that gives the cross its power and its significance and its meaning; that God is always with us and He's particularly with us in our sufferings, in our cross.

And he cannot and will not separate Himself from us in our sufferings - he's always there to help us and console us, give us the strength to go on. So it is a great symbol of hope in that way.

You can look up at the cross and see the vertical, and keep going up to God, to Heaven. Of course, the cross is not the only sign of Christianity. When modern believers display fish-shaped lapel badges or car stickers, they're connecting with a tradition going right back to the earliest Christians. But there's something about the cross that still holds us in its sway. The poet RS Thomas put the survival of the cross down to its great simplicity, its perfect geometry.

But for me it has more than that. It has everything. Such worship is of another spirit entirely — and God will have nothing to do with it. Without the Cross, all that is left is chaff — a perverted Gospel, something from the pits of hell. This inspired me to ask the this question: What if you showed up to the church on Sunday morning and the power was out. On that morning there will be no slides, no orchestra, no microphones, no overheads, no computerized videos, no coffee, no nothing.

Nothing but a preacher and his message. Would there still be Church that morning? Could there still be Church that morning? I pray the answer is yes. I fear there would be such disappointment in some folks. After all, the production they have come to expect will not be performed today. Would they stay? I hope they hear about the redemption of their eternal soul.

I hope they hear about the redeeming work of Jesus.