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The Mount Soledad Cross

The Mt. Soledad Veteran's Memorial in San Diego is located upon a hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Built with private funds but located on city property, it is topped by a forty-three foot cross, visible for miles. In 1989, the city was sued by an atheist Vietnam veteran to have the cross removed on the grounds that a Christian symbol on public land violates the principle of separation of church and state. The courts have agreed that this is the case and the cross must be removed by Aug. 1, 2006, or the city will face severe fines for each subsequent day that it remains. As a Vietnam veteran, I am strongly inclined to keep the cross in place. But, though this cause has a very powerful emotional appeal, as a Christian I realize that it may be spiritually destructive. I believe that this current local issue points to a much larger and more pervasive problem in American Christianity.

Responding to a request, I offer the following reflection on the issue of the Mt. Soledad cross. The guiding biblical text is Philippians 2: 5-11. This is the earliest Christian hymn a fundamentally important New Testament passage. Being a summary of Christian teaching, it establishes a pattern for all subsequent Christian doctrine. It is a prism through which moral theology and ethics should be interpreted and lived out in practice.

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (NRSV)

Reflection: Because it states that Christ Jesus "emptied himself," it is called the "kenosis" passage, from the Greek "ekenesen" (he "emptied" himself). It binds Christians to imitate this kind of self-emptying in our attitudes and actions toward others: "Let that same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." This is a paradigmatic statement, a shortcut and a vantage point from which to view the entire New Testament: the beatitudes, the parable of the Good Samaritan, the mandate to love others as he has loved us, the admonition to seek the lower place, to lay down our lives for our friends, to turn the other cheek and many other texts. This text, Phil 2:5-11, is a summary of Christian teaching.

The lowest point in the self-emptying of Jesus is in verse eight. Jesus becomes obedient even to death on a cross. The kenosis/emptying of Jesus reaches all the way from equality with God to the most abject death on a cross. The cross is thus central to the redemptive activity of God in Christ. Kenosis for Jesus means leaving aside the form of God ("morphe theou") in order to assume the form of a slave ("morphe doulou"). This is more than mere poetry. The power of God is absolute while the power of a slave is non-existent. By voluntary subjection to absolute powerlessness, to suffering and death and to all the effects of human sinfulness, Jesus undergoes the fate of a slave and does so precisely on the cross. The transition is, as one author put it: "from the light of God to the darkness of death." The "way of the cross" for the followers of Jesus is in this way forever decisively defined.

Jesus dies. He can do no more. It is over. But then comes the "therefore." The vindication of Jesus is brought about by God. The upward movement in the hymn beginning at verse nine, is exclusively the work of God the Father. The transition upward is from slave to Lord. The One who was found in the form of a slave is now given the Name and the status that was his by right, but which he did not exploit. God has reversed the order of things. Jesus has undergone descent into suffering and death and through this ("dia kai") he is now brought into exaltation and is given his rightful Name. The exaltation/resurrection is entirely the work of God. This kenosis hymn encapsulates Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection while at the same time binding Christians for all time to have that same mind in them.

Any attempt on the part of Christians to bring about any kind of exaltation of Christ, of the Church or of cultural Christianity directly through political action contravenes this text. Though history is replete with attempts to do just this, each instance represents a capitulation of the basic Christian faith to prevailing cultural and political currents. This central New Testament passage precludes at the outset any form of Christian "dominionism" or political "exceptionalism" at that time or in any age to come.

What has this to do with the cross on Mt. Soledad? The cross, though not the earliest Christian symbol, quite rightly became the preeminent one. But it is a symbol that requires kenosis/self-emptying on the part of its adherents. To the extent that we do not have that same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus, we subvert the meaning of the cross. We are called to empty ourselves and follow the way of the cross. If we use the cross as a tool to aggress upon others or to rally people for a political end, then we have turned the symbol into its opposite and have publicly distorted its meaning. This is true even if we suppose we are doing so for religious reasons. The cross has no legitimate Christian meaning save that of self-emptying given it by Jesus.

Christian history is relevant to the issue at hand. The earliest Christians had no power. They were periodically persecuted. They attracted adherents, not only by their preaching and writing and by the witness of the martyrs, but by their lives of service. One of the Roman emperors declared that the Christians cared more about the poor of Rome than he did. But when Constantine freed the church and established it, the public meaning of the cross became altered. "In this sign you shall conquer" is a slogan not derived from Philippians 2: 5-11, and is in direct contradiction to all that is embodied in that kenosis hymn.

By the end of the first Christian millennium, followers of Jesus were wearing the cross over suits of armor and were killing both Muslims and fellow Christians in "crusades." This was in violation of even the "just war tradition." This distortion continued through the Reformation and the wars of religion.

Constantine's unfortunate legacy of Christianity as the normative religion of the state passed into European and American history and was transplanted to the American colonies, becoming enshrined as a very persistent form of "civil religion." However much it might use Christian language and symbols, American civil religion bears little resemblance to the "kenotic" root of the Christian faith. Civil religion is now used blatantly and aggressively to impose political attitudes and policies both globally and domestically. As such, it has taken an idolatrous turn.

The preparation for a long, costly and aggressive "in your face" struggle to retain the cross on Mt. Soledad involves buying into this civil religion. They are prepared to further subvert the true meaning of the cross. The decision to fight this in court, to use taxpayer money to pay whatever fines are levied against the city is to subvert the true meaning of the cross. This is a city which cannot or will not adequately fund its police or fire departments, a city where public infrastructure is falling apart and the pension fund is in serious jeopardy. Those who would "save the cross" propose a misuse of public funds for a campaign that paradoxically subverts the true meaning of the cross. A waste of resources of such magnitude flies in the face of the Gospel requirement to insure justice, to feed the hungry, and the like. That this would be done in the name of the cross borders on blasphemy.

We need to remember that the "separation of church and state" enshrined in the Constitution, has worked very well for the church as well as for the state. We also need to remember that this principle was enshrined precisely because the bloody history of the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in the years after the Reformation was transported to the colonies. Separation of church and state was absolutely necessary to ensure that this kind of violence could not occur in the fledgling nation. It seems that many among us have forgotten this history. With this fight over the cross, we move one more step away, not only from the Constitution, but from the very kenosis demanded by the Gospel.

If we are confident in our faith, we need not resort to the use of any Christian imagery for any political or national purpose. This use of Christian symbols can lead to physical violence.

A final comment for veterans. Much has been made of the fact that the Mt. Soledad cross is a sacred shrine for veterans. But the rhetoric used to retain it is aimed at veterans to protect "their" space. First of all, to those veterans who are Christians. We may be veterans, but we are Christians first. There are no true sacred spaces or shrines in Christianity. There are places that have historical significance for us as for anyone else. But our shrine is the risen Christ and his presence among us and in the world. The cross and our scriptures and our sacraments are all portable. They go with us wherever we are gathered together. Our sole task is to love and serve the world in his Name.

Remember. For those of us who have been there, combat experience makes it very easy to enlist us in just one more battle, even if it is only cultural. There is something about aggression that is addictive. It's like an alcoholic needing just one more little drink to face the day. If we can't sign up for a real war, we'll substitute whatever is at hand. This is very seductive, especially for anyone with even a touch of posttraumatic stress disorder. We don't get over PTSD by doing a little more aggression for whatever cause, even one that sounds as good as this one, We heal the spiritual wounds of war by becoming agents and instruments of peace. Don't get sucked in if you want to continue healing the wounds of war in your own soul. The only real antidote to the violence of war is for the combat soldier to do a smart "about face" and march in the other direction.

William P. Mahedy