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About Us Hidden Cross originally started in July of 2007
strictly as a print newsletter. It has a current subscription of about 15
people. The first issue published for distribution was August 2007 (the July
issue of that year was a dummy issue that was used to test formatting and
such. All articles contained in the July 2007 test issue have been or are
planned to be recycled in the regular publications, so the July Issue itself
is not available in Archives. Later, Brock, the founder and current
writer/editor/publisher of HCN, decided to expand his ministry activities,
and used the title of the newsletter, Hidden Cross, as his ministry name. Why
Hidden Cross, you ask? That is explained below. For more information about
HCN, click on the link in the table above. Why Hidden Cross? The name Hidden Cross refers to the experience that
Brock had in high school. He was one of the most vocal of the students in his
class, and was always ready to answer questions. And teachers were almost
always willing to allow him to speak (since often other people didn’t want
to). That is, until they found out that he was a conservative fundamentalist
Christian. He found a similar treatment in college, only to a far higher degree.
Brock came to the conclusion that people accepted him as very intelligent,
even brilliant, until he expressed his belief in the Bible as a literal book. A person’s true state, like the soul itself, resides
within a person, hidden away. The Christian Handbook, a small book meant to
be funny and informative, demonstrated this point by having two pictures on
one page, one labeled Christian and one labeled non-Christian. The picture
was the same, and the book explained below that you can’t tell by looking at
someone if they are or are not saved. And so while thinking on this, the idea that this was
hidden inside of the person, as well as the picture of the cross as
Christianity, the phrase “hidden cross” seemed to stick. At the same time, he
began to publish a monthly print newsletter (which since has transitioned to
completely e-mail based except for a few of the first readers) and decided to
call it Hidden Cross Newsletter. This name is not meant to mean that one should keep
their religion a secret, but to point out that it is a secret to others who
don’t know you. It is kind of ironic, because to label something “Hidden
Cross” makes it neither hidden nor secret, and so the name is as much an
irony as it is a label. Besides this, it allowed a great deal of flexibility,
as Brock didn’t know exactly what kind of ministry he wanted. In the end,
Hidden Cross became the core if you will, the base on which his smaller
ministries were built on or aided by. |