"In the cross of Christ I glory towering o'er ..." Is the cross today towering over the world? Atlanta is presently boasting of its newest hotel, seventy stories high, the highest hotel in the entire world. Just a couple of blocks from this hotel are a Methodist church and a Catholic church, each with a tower and a cross on top. There was a time when the highest point in a town was the church spire with a cross on its pinnacle. Now city skyscrapers dwarf the church with its cross. The cross is over-towered, but is it over-powered?

This is a paradigm of the cross purposes of world and church. The cross is the center of controversy. There is no middle ground. People are all against the cross or all for it. These two opposing forces are symbolized by the arms of the cross. The perpendicular …