The Cross and the Electric Chair: If Christ had died in an electric chair, would Christians go around wearing little electric chairs around their necks?
Are there any similarities to these forms of execution? If not, what are the differences? According to Glenn T. Stanton (article from the Federalist),
The analogy between the cross and an electric chair is intended to show that, while the cross has become a common and even sentimental symbol of Christianity today, in Christ’s day it was a harsh symbol of execution. Like an electric chair is today. But the comparison is also deeply flawed and reflects a total lack of understanding of what death on a cross actually was.
This comparison between the cross and “old sparky” was first made by an important theologian of the 1960s – Lenny Bruce. In a series of articles he authored in “Playboy,” later published in his 1967 posthumous book, “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People,” Bruce observed, “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”
But the truth is, an electric chair and a cross are similar in only one way: each is designed to kill the worst of criminals. Otherwise, they are nothing alike…keep reading
While the Wretched video linked below is titled “So about those sideways cross necklaces…“, Todd Friel takes strong issue with the often thoughtless use of crosses as fashion accessories. There are vast differences between dying on the cross and dying in an electric chair. There are incomparable differences between a criminal’s execution via an electric chair versus the reasons for, and suffering of, Jesus Christ on the cross.
Throughout the video, Todd Friel engages Glenn Stanton’s observations. He notes that that even Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ didn’t come close to portraying what Christ actually suffered.
I think it’s a good idea to constantly remind ourselves of what our gracious Lord did for us. In The Shameful Sufferer, Charles Spurgeon noted,
Oh! I do not wonder that the martyrs died for such a Christ as this! When the love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts, then we feel that if the stake were present we would stand firmly in the fire to suffer for him who died for us.
See also Jesus Didn’t die on the Cross for Our Sins?
Maranatha!
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