The Semiotics of the Cross, pt 1
1. In the newly redeveloped Sol Square / Lichfield Lanes entertainment complex in inner Christchurch City stands a puzzling sight. A new bar has been built named only The Yellow Cross. Its signpost, the huge illuminated yellow cross itself, was taken from the decommissioned Assemblies of God church hall in Lichfield Street, now a derelict shell, which itself was formerly a cinema.
The Yellow Cross Bar is homely inside, branded and with Macs Beer (or Monteiths? one of the new trendy niche brands) and decorated in faux farming chic: old peeling wallpaper, bare brick walls, rough and ready sawhorse tables. The urinals in the men's room are fashioned from old washtubs and there is a pull-cord to flush. It exudes a welcoming, good-on-ya-mate, down-home Kiwi aesthetic - a thin skin of branding over a state-of-the-art, purpose-built, hospitality and merchandising operation. It is a machine designed to sell yuppie drinks and fake ideals of camaraderie, but it does so superbly, and provides a warm, safe and functional shelter out of the rain to listen to live music and meet strangers. There are worse things to sell, after all.
But. The question nags at my mind: what does the Cross mean in this context?
What were they thinking, when they built this bar? What was the intention behind salvaging the AoG's old fluorescent cross and hanging it up there - making it the centre and feature of a bar? What is the message that this Cross sends? What is the gospel it preaches?
a: "New Zealand is a Christian nation, we are all Christians here, and we wish to remind everyone in this shopping precinct forcibly of this. Jesus is your Lord, you will bow. Now. Buy our beer as a symbol of your belief."
b: "This is an outspokenly Christian bar in a nation where Christianity was once the dominant faith but has come under increasing criticism recently; come here to hear about Jesus while you drink, you might be surprised. The beer's not really important, but buy it if you want."
c: "Heck no, we're not Christians, in fact we're being deliberately in your face against you, repurposing the symbol of your failed faith in an ironic manner verging on blasphemy. We mount this cross here as a trophy: you lost, and religion-free capitalism won. Buy our beer, sucker."
d: "We're not Christians, this is just a bar, we don't do religion here, but we are aware that Christianity has been a big part of the cultural landscape in New Zealand and many people still have warm associations with it, as they do with farming. Neither are really important to us, it's just a kind of kitschy symbol, representing everything good in life, you know? It's all fake anyway, and you know that and we know that. But the beer's real. Buy our beer."
e: "It's obvious that Christianity (like all religion) is waning in an increasingly secular society, and frankly the sooner the better (those suicide bombers, honestly! and George Bush! Bombs and Texas and God are so bad for the planet!) and we want to make an ironic statement about bars being the new churches: hanging out and being buddies is the new religion, you come here for salvation. It's kind of edgy, but cute. Like Hell Pizza. Maybe some oldies will hate us, but the hip young folks will get it. Buy our beer."
f: "Religion is kinda in the news at the moment, mostly in a bad way, but there's no such thing as bad press, and now that New Zealand is a comfortably secular country where religion doesn't really mean much, it's safe to put up this symbol in a non-religious context. Also, it's kind of cool when you think about it. Christianity was one of those strange ideas from the past that sort of failed, like zeppelins and Communism, but is still fun to look at (from a safe distance) because it's so weird. Buy our beer."
g: "We're not really Christians, but actually when you think about it, New Zealand is or was a Christian nation, and at this point in history, it's sort of interesting to think about how nations have identities, and maybe it's not a bad thing to be associated with a religion after all, it certainly holds people together, so perhaps it's worth reinvestigating this whole religion thing. Shared values, cultural anchor, etc. Not that we're really serious about it, just want to sort of salvage something interesting and unique from our history that might be worth preserving. Oh, and buy our beer."
h: "Dude, it's just a symbol. The Yellow Cross. Absolutely meaningless. No semiotic content whatever. It's just a bunch of atoms aligned in a formation. We saw this thing, it looked pretty, we stuck it up there. Buy our beer and chill out and stop thinking so hard."
Is it some of these, any of these, none of these?
2. What does preaching the Gospel actually mean? Is the Gospel we preach in our churches any more clear than the Yellow Cross?
3. What did the Yellow Cross mean for the people who converted a movie theatre into the Assemblies of God church?
What did they mean by turning a theatre into a church? Did they see it as the power of God saving the lost? Was it just a convenient building? Did they bless the building when they commissioned it as a church? Did they picture demons of unrighteousness fleeing and angels standing guard? Did they picture smiling spirits from the glory of cinema filling their church with warm feelings, and welcome them in the name of Jesus?
What did other churches think of them for making a fluorescent cross? Did they see it as bringing the light of God to the inner city? Did they see it as cheapening a sacred historic symbol by making it a lurid illuminated sign?
What did the Assemblies of God people feel when the church had to close?
What did they feel when their cross was taken away and mounted on a bar? Was it a defeat and a blasphemy? Or was it a quiet victory, their symbol surviving after their building was condemned?
4. If you are a Christian reading this, and you have a dream of a glorious Christian urban revival of the future, do you wish for more movie theatres converted into churches, or more Yellow Cross Bars?
If you are a non-Christian reading this, do you have a nightmare of a glorious Christian urban revival crushing your soul under its God-blessed self-righteous jackbooted feet?
5. Can we summon spiritual forces by making signs, positioning symbols, or speaking words?
When the Gospel is preached or the Bible is read, is God present in the preaching or the reading?
When the Cross is displayed on a church, is God present in the Cross?
When the Yellow Cross is displayed on a bar, is God present in the Cross?
If you have an Ouija board or Tarot cards in your home, are you attracting dark spiritual forces?
If you have a Cross or Bible in your home, are you attracting light spiritual forces?
If I say the word 'Jesus', is Jesus present in this word, or in the speaking or the hearing of it?
If I say your name, are you present in any way in the speaking or the hearing of it?
Is a religious symbol at all different from a non-religious symbol?
Is there a spirit or absolute meaning of any kind present in or attached to the dollar sign? The Golden Arches? The flag of a country?
Is the meaning of any symbol absolutely determined only by the person who writes, performs, or displays it?
Is the meaning of any symbol absolutely determined only by the person who reads, views, or observes it?
Is the meaning of any symbol determined at all by a third party (such as our ancestors, or our children, or Jesus, or angels, or God) not involved directly in this act of communication, but who might somehow have an emotional investment?
If all these different people attach different meanings to the same symbol, can those meanings ever touch?
6. Can any symbol, or any act, actually touch my true being, unless I give it permission to?
Does wearing a symbol on a T-shirt in an ironic manner make that symbol actually mean something different to what everyone else assumes it means?
If I say to a stranger, "you are an idiot", and then I punch him, and then I laugh and say "by 'idiot' of course I mean 'wonderful person', and that was an ironic punch", will he accept my unique meaning?
If I do the same thing to my brother, and he does it back to me, does it mean something different?
7. What is the Gospel that we are to preach? Has it in fact been preached everywhere the symbols of the Cross and the Bible have been prominently displayed and ordinances of public religion have been enacted? Or has something else been preached which is not quite the actual Gospel in the same way that the surface of the Earth is not quite the sky? Or have both been preached together, intertwined?
8. What does the death and resurrection of Jesus mean to you?
Does it mean the same thing to Jesus?
