Christ in the Center of Society

While cleaning today we found this:

I simply argue that the cross be raised again
at the center of the market place
as well as on the steeple of the church.

I am recovering the claim that
Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral
between two candles:

But on a cross between two thieves;
on a town garbage heap;
At a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan
that they had to write his title
in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek...

And at the kind of place
where cynics talk smut,
and thieves curse and soldiers gamble.

But that is where he died,
and that is what He died about.
And that is where Christ's men out to be,
and what church people ought to be about.

—George MacLeod

I did not dig into who this fellow is or what his theology is. But the way I understand his text, it expresses a good thought: the cross of Christ must be pressed in the center of society; in the market place of ideas; in the academy; to scientists and engineers and stay-at-home moms and lawyers and politicians and CEOs and janitors. The need is vast. Those willing to set up a cross again in the center of the market place are few.

Pray that God will raise some more bold witnesses in our day.