Recently, a close friend and I were discussing the peace sign; is it evil, good, satanic, holy…? I did a little research and came up with some pretty interesting facts that I didn’t know before:
History:
The peace sign is remembered to have been designed as a symbol for the British disarmament of nuclear weapons. It was designed by Gerald Holtom, a British artist, on February 21, 1958 for the march planned by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, by the request of lord Bertrand Russel, head of the campaign. He fiddled with the design a while, and wanted to incorporate the cross into the symbol, and he eventually came up with this:
This also worked well for another reason; it resembled the letters N and D (Nuclear Disarmament) of the semaphore system, the navy code flag signaling system.
So this symbol was created as a logo for nuclear disarmament. However, there are other ways to tell the story…….
Alternative History
While Gerald Holtom is the one who designed the logo for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, it is said that the symbol first appeared in a tome by Rudolph Koch called The Book of Signs several years before that. Here it is a symbol of death and despair. Supposedly, that was a result of Nero crucifying the Apostle Peter on an upside-down cross. Nero despised Christians, and this symbol, which looked like a broken cross, became a well known pagan insignia of that time. It came to stand for the hatred of all Christians.
Alternate Alternate History
In contrast to the alternate history, a peace sign facing upward like this:
is supposed to mean hope, eternity, and overall positive things. Also, it resembles the semaphore letters U and D of the navy code flag signaling system, which could stand for “Universal Disarmament” (PEACE). And Peter hanging upside down on the cross? This actually looks like a person standing with their hands raised upward toward the sky.
Watchman Nee said that wearing a cross or hanging a picture of Jesus on your wall was a form of idolatry. I suppose any object, even a cross, can be used as a relic or symbol of power.
Still I think about the early Christians who drew the ICHTUS in the sand to display their allegiance to Christ without using words. The symbol communicated a belief and that was important. The peace sign is used improperly and sometimes it’s used to communicate a belief…and that’s important.
Anyway, good history lesson.
Great Post “Jimmy”! For those that don’t know, “Jimmy” is my oldest daughter. She has always been a fan of the peace sign but my wife and I have always given her a hard time about displaying the peace sign because of the negative connotations. However, after reading her post, I can see that, like so many other symbols, there can be multiple meanings, both “good” and “bad” assigned to the same symbol. In fact, what just came to mind is the cross. The cross used to represent the worse form of death to everyone that viewed it…now, it represents the most abundant life. Anyway, my daughter’s post has made me more open to the peace sign and I will not give her such a hard time about it anymore….as long as it’s facing upward
BoB
What do you mean upward? Like the first picture or the second picture? It doesn’t matter whether it’s up or down does it?
Like the last picture……down is a negative, up is a positive.
This is an awesome article………the person who wrote this is thinking in the right direction
You know, all this reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend Markus in Germany. He told me that after Hitler was finally dismissed, all the Lutheran and Catholic church hymnals had to change the word “Heil” to some other word to describe praise to God. There was such an evil influence displayed by Hitler, that even a mere word that was used previously to honor God now had to be removed from the church.
The peace sign has some horrible historical associations with it much like the word “Heil”, what I do like about the peace symbol is the new “redemptive” quality that it has seemed to take on over recent years. Symbols and words only have power if we give them power. It seems that most people have no idea of the very evil and negative representation that the peace symbol has had in the past and they wear the symbol cluelessly with thoughts of love and peace (specifically in American culture). To the pure all things are pure…
Thanks Jimmy. I really appreciate the research and info. Well Done!