Recent Work
This is the Cross of Lorraine.
It is a double-barred cross with a long history as a symbol of freedom and resistance. It became particularly powerful during the Second World War, when Free French forces and the French Resistance adopted it as a symbol of their struggle against Nazi occupation and the authoritarian regime that collaborated with it. For those who carried it, the cross represented resistance, liberation, and the determination to defend democracy against oppression.
Today, the Cross of Lorraine can be reclaimed as a symbol for our own time—not as a partisan emblem, but as a sign of resistance to the erosion of democratic values, civil liberties, and human dignity in the United States. To display the cross is to declare that authoritarianism, intimidation, and the abuse of power must not become normalized.
The irony of reclaiming a religious symbol for this purpose today is not to be lost or ignored. Unmistakably a cross, its meaning need not belong to any political movement or faction claiming to speak for Christianity. In using it as a symbol of resistance, we can turn that symbolism back toward principles that are often invoked in the name of faith but too easily abandoned in practice: compassion, human dignity, conscience, justice, and care for the vulnerable. The cross can remind us that faith is not the property of a political movement—and that religious conviction can stand against, rather than in service to, authoritarian power.
We can give this old symbol a new American meaning: resistance to oppression, defense of democracy, and solidarity with those who refuse to surrender their freedom. The Cross of Lorraine reminds us that democracy is not something we inherit permanently, but something we must continually defend.
Brad Terhune
August 2026