What is the reason for the absence of the Cross as a symbol in the LDS Church?

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Accepted answer

This question was answered directly by Gordon B. Hinckley, who was the most recent president of the church before the current one. In an article in 2005, he wrote:

“I do not wish to give offense to any of my Christian colleagues who use the cross on the steeples of their cathedrals and at the altars of their chapels, who wear it on their vestments, and imprint it on their books and other literature. But for us, the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the Living Christ.”

An when asked what then is the symbol of the LDS, he said:

the lives of our people must become the most meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship.

I know this site prefers explanations over quotations, but there really isn't much more that can be added to that.

Upvote:12

From the True to the Faith entry for "Cross":

The cross is used in many Christian churches as a symbol of the Savior’s death and Resurrection and as a sincere expression of faith. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we also remember with reverence the suffering of the Savior. But because the Savior lives, we do not use the symbol of His death as the symbol of our faith.

Essentially, Mormonism attempts to emphasize the life and ressurrection of Jesus Christ. It is believed that the cross doesn't adequately portray this perspective and gives too much weight on death, which was conquered by Him.

Upvote:14

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Mormon disdain for the symbol was more of a late development in Church history, emerging at the grassroots around the turn of the 20th century, and was institutionalized in the 1950s under the direction of President David O. McKay, on grounds that it was a Catholic symbol. Prior to this time, many Latter-day Saints (including Church authorities), embraced and promoted the symbol of the cross.

My book, Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo (John Whitmer Books, 2012) traces the development of LDS attitudes toward the symbol, and shows that the aversion to the cross in Mormon culture actually began as a means to disassociate the Church from Catholicism. The book includes many 19th-century photos of the cross being worn as jewelry, stitched it into quilts, framed and hung on walls, incorporated into funeral floral arrangements, etc. Perhaps most interesting of all, I explore in detail the LDS Church's 1916 Ensign Peak cross monument proposal—-a proposal to the Salt Lake City Council that stirred great controversy within and outside the Church.

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