Ground Zero cross

That Beleaguered Cross Again

JUDGING FROM EMAIL RESPONSES, the accidental cross-shaped form left standing at Ground Zero rouses great ire. All my mail has been sympathetic to the lawsuit against it on the grounds that the cross is not a secular symbol. (I never said it was. I said it resonated beyond sectarian distinctions. Quite a different thought.) It was erected “by CHRISTIANS,” one reader screeched. Some of the mail considers wariness toward Islam “defamatory” and, in the main, just plain not nice. For clarity’s sake, let me take these one at a time, beginning with the (Christian) origins of America’s enthusiastic sectarian religiosity. Continue Reading