The Old Cross Versus The New Cross
The old cross slew men;
The new cross entertains them.
The old cross condemned;
The new cross amuses.
The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh;
The new cross encourages it.
The old cross brought tears and blood; the new cross brings laughter.
The flesh, smiling and confident, preaches and sings about the cross;
Before that cross it bows and toward that cross it points with carefully
staged histrionics-
But upon that cross it will not die, and the reproach of that cross
it stubbornly refuses to bear.
I well know how many smooth arguments can be marshaled in support of
the new cross.
Does not the new cross win converts and make many followers, and so
carry the advantage of numerical success?
Should we not just adjust ourselves to the changing times?
Have we not heard the slogan, "New Days, new ways"?
And who, but someone very old and the conservative would insist upon
death as the appointed way to life?
And who, today, is interested in a gloomy mysticism that would sentence
its flesh to a cross,
and recommend self-effacing humility as a virtue actually to be practiced
by modern Christians?
There are arguments, along with many flippant still,
which are brought forward to give an appearance of wisdom
to the hollow and meaningless cross of popular Christianity.