I intend to write a few blogs from our recent experience at the National Staff Gathering of The Navigators, held in Irving, Texas. But I have to share something we saw on the way down and back. We drove so that we could visit relatives and friends, and I noticed for the first time that Clarendon, Texas, not far from Amarillo, on US 287, is home to over 50 crosses:

The top two pictures are mine. The bottom one is from a news report in 2014 describing “the ongoing cross controversy.” It’s more than 10 years later, and the crosses are still there so I guess the town has come to terms with them.

I asked a fellow at a gas station, and he said that about 10 years ago, a resident had a near-death experience and felt the need (or a “call”) to make these crosses available to those who wanted them.

Clarendon resident Jim Griffin is putting up signs with different messages like the end is near and there are worse things coming than the 9/11 tragedy. He says he’s putting up 10-foot-tall crosses as well to remind people of their faith and inform others about Jesus.

There are about 50 crosses around Clarendon on Highway 287, and in residents’ yards and businesses who ask for them. Cross Controversy in Clarendon, September 12, 2012.

What’s interesting is that they’ve been up since 2012. I drove through Clarendon going to and coming from conferences in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and this is the first time I’ve seen them. And they are everywhere!

I don’t know what the lesson is. Has anyone come to faith because of them? I don’t know. They certainly have generated controversy and mixed reactions. Many Christians love ’em and are encouraged; others hate ’em. One mother (from out-of-town) was afraid of them.

So I guess that since the time of the Apostle Paul, nothing has changed:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1.18 – 24, NKJV)