Richard Kauffman says: "The cross has become a piece of jewellery, a beautiful decoration in a church, a symbol of faith. It is difficult for us to pass back through the centuries of tradition to see crucifixion as a form of capital punishment so horrible that polite people would not so much as mention it¡ If the idea of crucifixion was abhorrent to decent people in the ancient world, imagine the difficulty of trying to convince them that a god; indeed, the God; had willingly endured such a punishment." (Richard A. Kauffman) http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2003/april/26.94.html