Yip Yap Times

Wren Cross Restored?

As of last weekend, the Millington Cross has been put back on display in the historic Wren Chapel of the College of William and Mary. Is this a victory for the Cross and its supporters? It depends on your point of view.

The “Committee on Religion at a Public University,” University president Gene Nichol’s bureaucratic escape from the red-hot furor he created, developed a compromise that they hoped would quell the dissenters and save face for Mr. Nichol. The cross now sits in a discreet corner of the Chapel entombed in a glass case with a headstone describing the chapel’s Anglican roots.

Now that the Cross has been reduced to an inoffensive museum piece safely sealed behind glass, no prospective student will ever need to flee in horror to enroll elsewhere. The Cross and its conscience-touching aura that had been a source of death rays to the perpetually offended, is now relegated as a symbol of the past. But at least the cross gets permanent exposure to the chapel’s air space and for some, this is victory.

For me, nothing short of a return to the original policy prior to October 2006 is a victory. It is now clear that the battle over the cross was not just about the accurate portrayal of the College’s history and our First Amendment rights, but also about the spiritual symbolism of the cross’ placement. The cross was unacceptably offensive while it sat on the altar of a historic Christian chapel, yet in its new case it is deemed inoffensive despite now being on constant display. Its new display is inoffensive precisely because it makes the Cross a museum relic; a display that symbolizes the secularist shunting aside of God and makes clear to us social Luddites that the College and the country have moved on. I am saddened by this policy, not for myself, Christianity or God but for the misguided few who thought this was the right solution.

posted by Lisa @ 9:27 AM