QUESTION:
Do crosses or crucifixes have any place on or in 
a church building, or is this simply a form of 
idolatry? 

ANSWER:
 The sign of the cross is one of the most important symbols of the Roman Catholic 
Church. It is displayed on roof tops and towers. It is also seen on alters, 
furnishings, and ecclesiastical garments. The floor plan of many Catholic churches 
is laid out in the shape of the cross. Catholic hospitals and schools have the cross 
adorning the walls. When infants are sprinkled by a Catholic priest he makes the 
sign of the cross on its forehead saying “Receive the sign of the cross upon thy 
forehead.” During confirmation, the candidate is signed with the cross. On Ash 
Wednesday, ashes are used to make a cross on the forehead. When Catholics enter the 
church building, they dip the forefinger of the right hand in holy water; touch the 
forehead, the chest, the left and right shoulder, thus tracing the figure of the 
cross. During Mass the priest makes the sign of the cross 16 times and blesses the 
altar with the cross sign 30 times. No such practices were known or practiced by the 
New Testament church. In fact the cross was a symbol of shame. It was “the accursed 
tree” a device of death, “looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, 
who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and 
has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2. Their faith was 
in what the cross accomplished, not in the “old rugged cross” itself. These early 
Christians trusted in the full and complete forgiveness that had come to them when 
Christ died for their sins. It was in this sense that Paul preached the cross 
lCor.l:17-18 “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not 
with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the 
message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are 
being saved it is the power of God. Note: it is the “message of the cross,” not the 
wooden frame itself, that saves us. The use of the cross as a symbol pre-dates 
Christianity according to W. E.Vine. In his Expository Dictionary of New Testaments 
words on page 248, under cross, he writes: “The shape of the latter (two beamed 
cross) had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god 
Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that 
country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt.
By the middle of the 3rd century A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had 
travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the 
prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the 
churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain 
their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with 
the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Christ.” In almost 
any book on Egypt one can see on the walls of ancient temples the use of the Tau 
cross. The cross has been a sacred symbol in India for centuries among non-Christian 
people. It has been used to mark the jars of holy water taken from the Ganges, also 
as an emblem of disembodied Jaina saints. The Buddhists, and numerous other sects of 
India, marked their followers on the head with the sign of the cross. It is likely 
that the cross upon which our Lord died was only an upright pale or stake, however, 
whatever its shape it was nothing more than the article upon which He was crucified 
for our sins. We have no higher authority for using the cross as a symbol of our 
salvation than paganism and/or Roman Catholicism. In the view of this writer such 
symbols do not belong in or on our buildings. They are pagan and not Christian.