There has been a lot of hubbub in the news lately about crosses. First, there has been the huge debate about the cross on the Indian reserve. More recently, Penn State has received criticism that some t-shirts they are selling to students too closely resemble a cross. Why all of this antagonism towards the simple symbol known as the cross? I think that is because the vast majority of people clearly recognize it as that symbol which represents Christianity. Much like the Yin-Yang is representative of Taoism or the Om is representative of Hinduism and the like. Is this the only meaning the cross has? Absolutely not, the cross has had numerous and varied meanings throughout the centuries; but the fact remains that the cross is almost universally associated with Christianity.

Why is the cross so important in Christianity? It is because the cross is symbolic of the hope that is present in the lives of Christians. The hope Christians have in their lives is that they will join God in heaven for all eternity because of the work that was accomplished by Jesus Christ during the crucifixion on a Roman Cross. Titus 3:4-7 speaks this clearly:

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it—Matthew 16:24-26 (Also see, Mark 8:34-35 and Luke 9”23-24).

The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” “He is worthy of death,” they answered.

There has been a huge growth in the popularity of tribal design in nearly every aspect of our culture. Motorcycle enthusiasts incorporate tribal designs in things as simple as the mirrors on the handle bars to the paint job. Likewise, tribal designs are popular on many clothing designs from t-shirts, to hats, shoes, wallets, etc. This design is also extremely prevalent among tattoo designs. There simply seems to be no area where “tribal” is not affecting. One question no one seems to really be asking is what is tribal design?

These tribal designs were used for what the name implies, to designate a person as belonging to a certain community or tribe and they were almost always in the form of a tattoo. I suppose you could compare it to the gang colors of today, which mark someone as belonging to a particular gang. Unlike today, for many hundreds of years tattoos were not a fashion statement and people didn’t get them “just because.” Traditional tattooing was an extremely painful and long process; as pointed out in an excellent article on PBS.org, this process could last up to three months. Tattooing in the United States is performed in almost every city and with modern equipment that makes the tattooing process much more efficient and much less painful than the more traditional methods. These methods employed the use a single needle that was often manually tapped into the subject being tattooed and then applying the ink followed by more needle tapping. These designs were often earned and were sometimes the final rite of passage to be considered a man. They were often indications of “social rank and affiliation.” In other cultures, such as the Egyptians, once a person was initiated into a temple’s service, a person would often receive a particular tattoo to indicate his/her temple affiliation.

It is for these reasons that the Bible opposes tattoos: Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD (Leviticus 19:28). The PBS article mentioned above also addresses that tattoos were often used as a sign of mourning. Because tribal designs have become so popular in American society, many of the designs today are completely devoid of any symbolic meaning. Therefore, caution needs to be used and the question needs to be asked if the design does have a meaning before one wears it on a t-shirt, etc. There may be some who will decide to avoid tribal designs all together, that is a decision you as an individual will have to make on your own.

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The anarchy symbol is a very popular symbol among students today. The problem, however, is that most of these students have no idea what the symbol means. Webster defines anarchy as: (1a) absence of government (1b) a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority (2a) absence or denial of any authority or established order.

At its base, this symbol represents a belief or ideal that there be no government involving itself in the affairs of the general public. Those who truly believe in anarchy (in my experience at least) are usually actively involved in rebelling against the government. This is a natural reaction when you think about it. They believe that there should not be any form of government, yet there is. The natural thing for them to do is to take steps toward removing government so that things move more in-line with their belief system.

There is a fundamental problem with this belief system though. There can never truly exist anarchy. There will never be a community where there exists no “governmental figure.” Even in the smallest community of all—the family unit—there will invariably exist one who is the head-honcho. The parents will always exert control over their children, patriarchs will always exert control over the “tribe,” there will always exists rules in small community that must be enforced somehow, etc. There can never truly be a state of anarchy. Can there be a state where there is no formal government, absolutely. And to be fair, it is this goal I think many anarchists would like to see achieved.

From a biblical point of view, there is also never the possibility of anarchy. This is because the universe is under the control of the Creator. Creation itself answers to God (Hebrews 4:13, Revelation 3:14). The Bible also makes it clear that in the grand scheme of things, God is the only real authority in the life of a Christian: “For you granted him [Jesus] authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him” John 17:2, NIV (cf. John 5:27, Daniel 7:13-14).

The fact that God is the ultimate authority in the life of Christian does not mean that we should actively be rebelling against the government. In fact, the Bible makes it clear that Christians are to submit to the authority of the ruling government (Romans 13:1-2, 1 Peter 2:13, Titus 3:1). On the other hand, we are not to continue to submit to the rule of the government to the point of breaking the commands of God. God does not honor rebellion that is unwarranted (1 Samuel 15:22-23). The rebellion that God honors is when the government would require us to be disobedient to the commands of Scripture—such as Daniel (Daniel 1:8, 6:6-10) or Mordecai (Esther 3:1-3). At this point, it would echo the sentiment of the apostles when they proclaimed in Acts 5:29 “We must obey God rather than men!”

So this symbol runs counter to the very core of Christianity. We do not believe that there should be the absence of any governmental authority, much less the absence of all authority. We believe that God is the highest authority in our lives, but that there are also many other authorities that we must submit to as well. And as long as the government that rules over us is not asking us to submit to rules and regulations that are counter to the Word of God, we should be submissive. Can we disagree with our government? Absolutely. Can we try to change the laws (in America anyways)? Absolutely. But we should go about doing so in a lawful manner and in a manner that displays the love of Christ to the world around us.

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The Yin-Yang symbol is the next to cover in the "Symbols" series. I’m going to be honest up front about this one—I am not going to be able to cover every aspect of what this symbol represents on this blog. The Yin-Yang could be compared to the cross of Christianity. It is almost emblematic of Taoism the way a cross is emblematic of Christianity. Therefore, I will summarize (in the greatest amount of detail possible) what this symbol represents.

At its core, the Yin-Yang represents the dualistic nature of the universe as understood in Taoism. There is light and dark, male and female, good and evil, positive and negative, warm and cold. Yin is representative of the dark side of the symbol—female, cold, negative, earth, etc. On the other hand, Yang is representative of the light side of the symbol—male, warm, positive, heaven, etc.

The two shapes come together to form a perfect circle. There are some other interesting geometrical relationships in the symbol. The dividing wavy line is exactly half of the outside circumference of the circle. This means that the total perimeter of each individual half equals the circumference of the entire circle. There is also a dark dot on the light side and a light dot on the dark side. These two small dots represent the understanding that the seed of the other is contained in each side.

This symbol comes to represent what could be called the balancing natural law. Shih-Toa’s poem “The identity of relative and absolute” expresses this understanding rather beautifully.

This symbol is almost universally associated with piracy. It has had other meanings over the centuries, but there is always one meaning that comes to mind when one sees this emblematic symbol. Therefore, in this post I am only going to focus on the meaning of this symbol in the context of piracy.

The skull and crossbones is also known as “the Jolly Roger.” No one seems to really know for sure where this nickname originated, so I will not join in the speculation. The purpose of flying a flag with the skull and crossbones was to strike fear into the hearts of those aboard the ship, which the pirates were attacking. There is some historical information that also seems to indicate that this flag (or some variation) was flown in order to make it expressly clear that they were pirates and not simply some hired mariners running a privateer. This was important because those sailing under the authority of a government (i.e. privateers, buccaneers, etc.) were not allowed to execute those whom they were attacking if captured. Pirates, on the other hand, had no such restriction and often times would not offer quarter (capture without execution) once met with resistance.

The flag was a visual way to communicate their threat to the other ship—surrender or die. Pirates plundered ships, and even towns, in order to steal whatever they wanted. It wasn’t always gold or some form of treasure like that. There is historical evidence that records Edward Teach (Blackbeard) once capturing a ship sailing out of Charleston, South Carolina with several wealthy passengers on board. After taking the passengers prisoner, he demanded as ransom a chest containing medical supplies. Also, it is highly unlikely they would be able to gain supplies such as ammunition through any reputable source; therefore, they would have had to capture merchant vessels containing these supplies in order to restock.

With all this in mind, there is an important question to ask—does this have a place in the life of a Christian? The way-of-life this symbol conveys has absolutely no place in the life of a Christian. The very essence of a pirate’s livelihood was stealing, a concept that is directly opposed by God in the 10 Commandments.

Symbolism permeates every area of our lives as human beings. It doesn’t matter what neck of the global woods you live in you encounter symbols every day. Businesses adopt logos—symbols to represent their companies. Roadsides abound with traffic signs and signals—symbols to communicate traffic laws.

All it takes is a stroll through your local mall to realize just how much symbols permeate life. Because of this, I have decided to begin an indefinite series of posts to address some of the more commonly encountered symbols.

This post will become “Grand Central Station” where I will list all links to the symbols discussed. Therefore, this may be a post to revisit as more symbols are discussed and links are added here. If you have a symbol you would like to suggest, please feel free to leave it in the comments section or email it to me at MrHydesBlog@gmail.com (email also availble on my profile).

Index of Symbols:

• Anarchy
• The Skull and Crossbones
• The Yin-Yang
• Tribal Designs
• The Cross