The Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Giving Cross

Lifted high upon the Cross, O Master, with Thyself Thou hast raised up Adam and the whole of fallen nature. Therefore, exalting Thine undefiled Cross, O Thou who lovest mankind, we ask Thee for Thy strength from above, crying: O God Most High, in Thy mercy save those who honor the sacred, light-giving and divine Exaltation of Thy Cross.

This is the Son of the carpenter, Who skillfully made His cross a bridge over Sheol that swallows up all, and brought over mankind into the dwelling of life. And because it was through the tree that mankind had fallen into Sheol, so upon the tree they passed over into the dwelling of life. Through the tree then wherein bitterness was tasted, through it also sweetness was tasted; that we might learn of Him that amongst the creatures nothing resists Him. Glory be to Thee, Who didst lay Thy cross as a bridge over death, that souls might pass over upon it from the dwelling of the dead to the dwelling of life!

What began as a collector’s fascination with an old altar cross in an European cathedral became this simple and direct history of the cross and the legends, facts, myths, and customs connected with it throughout history. Originally published in 1934 in a limited edition and reprinted here, The Cross: Its History and Symbolism weaves illustration with fact and legend with custom to create a by no means inexhaustible yet by all means accessible and handy introductory guide to the cross through the ages.

Your law has been my vehicle,

 revealing to me something of Paradise,

Your Cross has been to me the key 

 which opened up this Paradise.

From the Garden of Delights did I gather

 and carry back with me from Paradise

roses and other eloquent blooms

 which are here scattered about for Your feast

amid songs [as they flutter down] on humanity.

 Blessed is He who both gave and received the crown!

It seems to me that we continue to celebrate the Elevation of the Cross and repeat ancient words of victory not simply to commemorate an old battle that was won, or to recall a past that no longer exists, but in order to reflect more deeply on the meaning of the word “victory” for Christian faith. It may be that only now, stripped as we are of outward power and glory, government support, untold wealth, and of all apparent symbols of victory, are we capable of understanding that all of this was, perhaps, not genuine victory. Yes, the cross raised above the crowds was in those days covered with gold and silver and adorned with precious stones. Yet neither gold, nor silver, nor precious stones can erase the original meaning of the Cross as an instrument of humiliation, torture, and execution on which a man was nailed, a man rejected by all, gasping from pain and thirst. Do we have the courage to ask ourselves: if all those Christian kingdoms and cultures died, if victory was replaced by defeat, was it not because we Christians became blind to the ultimate meaning and genuine content of Christianity’s most important symbol?

Looking at the cross apart from what the Lord has said of that cross, what will we see other than another dead man? No, even the cross only makes sense when the Heavenly Council is revealed, that is, when the prophets and the apostles—and those ordained into that Office—are given to preach the cross, as the self-donation of God for man.

In this way it’s easy to see Job as a type of Christ. He is the righteous and innocent One who suffers. And it’s His prayers and sacrifices that cover the sins of His children and His friends. His vindication comes only once His mouth is stopped—indeed, it’s at that point Job himself is closest to death.

When we look at Job, we see God’s love masked in suffering. We see faith clinging to the promise of what God has said, and not the circumstances of this life.

And for us? What are we to make of our suffering, sorrow, sickness, and strife? 

When Jesus is on the cross and cries out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” this is not Jesus questioning God. Jesus remains fully God. Still, He is fully man and participates in that despair of man abandoned and defeated. He is reciting Psalm 21. He is joining His people in chanting this psalm of His people, Israel.

In His agony on the cross, Jesus does not speak out of His own personal imagination. Instead, He speaks out of the historical story of His spiritual community. He calls the world by reciting the words of an exiled people. While dying, He is singing a song—like a martyr about to be shot for his faith who begins to recite the LORD’s prayer. He embraces love by calling His mystical community in exile, agony, and impending death.

While she definitely had mental health issues, these seem to have been exasperated first and foremost by the lack of any internal moral order. Yet her own agency in the tragic story of her life is discounted entirely, and, more worryingly, never seems to have been included as a part of attempts to help her restore order to her life.

A society that will not defend itself from its Alice Carters, or defend its Alice Carters from themselves, is not a stable one. A society in which no one can speak the truth about this is doomed.

Some of you think I’m exaggerating when, citing the testimony of Soviet-bloc emigres, I say that life in the US is starting to resemble life under Soviet totalitarianism. Here is the connection: under the Soviet system, all it took was an accusation of disloyalty—including telling a joke that offended the Party—to lose your job and even be sent to prison or into exile. This happened over and over. Last year, I visited Rudolf Dobias, an 84-year-old Slovak former political prisoner, sentenced to 18 years of hard labor in a uranium mine on a false accusation that he had drawn a cartoon making fun of Stalin and Czechoslovak communist leader Klement Gottwald. After release from prison, Dobias and his family lived a life of internal exile; he couldn’t get a decent job, his kids suffered from their father’s punishment, and so forth. All because of a single joke, one that he didn’t even tell! After our interview, Dobias mentioned to my Slovak translator that he was in constant pain now, the result of all the beatings he took in prison as a young man.

Obviously—obviously—Jim Spiegel is not Rudolf Dobias. But he’s on a spectrum. As more than a few Rudolf Dobiases told me for Live Not By Lies, free people have to resist this stuff the moment it starts. Jim Spiegel was absolutely right to refuse to take down his satirical song. 

Back when the Covid lockdowns started, I told a Southern Baptist friend that this crisis was going to be devastating for the churches, which would probably see a lot of people in their congregations not coming back, having gotten out of the habit of church on Sunday. I also predicted that a number of Evangelical churches, lacking a strong sacrament-based ecclesiology, would embrace online church as a normative model. Why not? After all, if you see the individual believer’s relationship to the church as primarily about the reception of information, what’s the argument against it?

Before the pandemic, Long Hollow’s in-person attendance was significantly larger than viewership for its online services. The church, which ranks among the largest in the Southern Baptist Convention, has resumed in-person meetings. But its online participation is now three times larger than in-person attendance.

The shift is not unique to Long Hollow. Some expect decreased in-person attendance to be permanent.

In recognition of the new reality, Long Hollow has begun the process of creating an intentional, permanent online church ministry—which includes hiring an online-specific pastor, finding ways to facilitate membership remotely, as well as conducting the ordinances and small groups in cities hours or even states away.

“The churches that are predominantly dependent upon a building are going to have a hard time transitioning into the future,” Gallaty said. “People say, ‘I just want to go back to the way things were before COVID,’ but I really don’t think that we will ever get back to that, particularly in the area of numbers … as far as in-person attendance anytime soon.”

The online approach for Long Hollow is not just a livestream of the in-person worship gathering, according Collin Wood, operations pastor at Long Hollow. Instead, in a general sense, it functions as its own “campus.” Wood said individuals and small groups of people are participating online from multiple cities as close as Chattanooga, Tenn., and as far as Portland, Ore.

The church is not the Disembodied Brain of Christ; we are the Body of Christ. Online church as a substitute for the gathering of the body forms Christian gnostics, whose minds are free from the prison of the body, from the “prison” of talking to their neighbors, from the “prison” of making an effort to get to church on Sunday morning, from the “prison” of coffee hour. Just you and Jesus, there on your sofa, with your coffee, and in your sweatpants. Download the sermon and listen to it in the afternoon, after you’ve gone golfing on Sunday morning. Optimize your consumer church experience.

The Non-POC (People of Color) Café is a space for students that do not identify as persons of color to gather and to discuss their experience as students on campus and as non-POC in the world. Hosted by The Center for Social Justice & Inclusion.

You got that right: a whites-only space, established by the campus social justice commissariat, to encourage people to think of themselves in terms of racial difference. What a sick, self-destructive world these identity politics progressives are building for us. Can you think of a single historical example of a successful society that encouraged its members to think constantly about racial identity? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the social-justice left is calling up demons that it will not be able to control.

I never imagined that Hollywood would voluntarily return to a moralistic Motion Picture Code imposed on its filmmakers, but here we are. They’re Puritans, but Puritans for the left, so it’s okay, I guess.

I have had threats, harassment, vandalism, people coming after my wife and kids, you name it. But doesn’t principled dissent require great risk? 

That’s a key thing that anti-communist dissidents told me about their experiences: that if you’re not prepared to suffer losses, you will never prevail. I think the chapter about the importance of suffering as a dissident is the most important one in my new book.

In the Soviet Union you risked losing your life. We don’t face that, but it’s not nothing. I feel sometime—and I especially did when I was living in Seattle—physical danger, physical threats. I had people doxing my house and where my kids go to school. People were putting threatening posters in my neighborhood with my face on it, encouraging others to attack me. Those things got no media coverage, had no politicians speaking out against them. This is tolerated by the ruling class. These activists work as foot soldiers of the dominant ideology.

I hear from people all the time who tell me, “I would love to speak out, but I can’t.” Let’s say you’re a 55-year-old civil servant, two years away from retirement, and feel like you can’t take the risk. I tell them to take the risk that you can. Be an ally of the people who step forward.

Last month, a Department of Education-funded organization hosted a conference on “abolishing the United States.” I’ve obtained shocking leaked documents from the keynote session, which encourages teachers to “create disruption,” “abolish” capitalism, and “tear down” America.