Abstract
Domestic abuse is a common occurrence for women in the Christian Church. Underlying this dark reality is a long history of patriarchal theological interpretations that have depicted God as a dominant male figure that subjects women to male hierarchy as a subordinate. Often based on an understanding of Jesus as subordinate to God the Father in the Trinity, the correlated praxis of the Church has commonly been to subject women to suffering at the hands of men – even at the cost of their lives – thus mimicking the death of Christ. This deeply flawed androcentric theology and subsequent praxis of women’s subordination has been severely challenged by liberal feminists, and rightly so for the sake of women’s survival and flourishing. This article utilizes the Social Trinity to provide a Christian feminist critique of patriarchal atonement models and theology towards the feminist goal of liberating women from male-perpetrated violence. Ultimately a reframing of God will be presented that includes women as full persons and calls them to resist the suffering of domestic abuse and to reclaim their full personhood as the imago Dei.
Introduction
Given that one-third of women worldwide experience violence from a male intimate partner, the reality of domestic abuse is a grave justice issue facing the local and global Christian Church. 1 Despite this tragic reality, patriarchal interpretations of Scripture that subordinate women to men continue to proliferate throughout the Church, leaving women more likely to experience spousal abuse. 2 Theology, then, has a profound impact on the praxis of the Church and certain interpretations actually endanger the lives of women – as in my own experience as a domestic violence survivor. Indeed, as the Church predominantly perpetuates a notion of a patriarchal male God who subordinates Jesus and women to violence, the issue of violence against women is intrinsically tied to the doctrines of the Trinity and atonement. This article will employ the work of global Christian feminist theologians to explore how an androcentric interpretation of God is a false concept that dehumanizes women and perpetuates their experiences of domestic abuse. An alternative theological vision of a loving triune God who affirms the full personhood and flourishing of women will ultimately be offered.
Beginning by addressing the question of the maleness of God and the use of female language for God, I then confront the misnomer of women’s submission to domestic abuse based on androcentric views of the Trinity and Christ’s submission to the violence of the cross. Subsequently, a presentation of the Social Trinity model will provide an alternative vision of the triune God, followed by a feminist understanding of women’s personhood as it relates to kenosis. This provides the foundation for an in-depth feminist theological understanding and critique of the historical patriarchal models of atonement. In view of women’s prolific experiences of domestic abuse from their male partners, a Christian feminist theological reframing of the salvific work of Jesus will be put forth. Finally, a brief discussion of the implications for pastoral theology and praxis related to female survivors of domestic abuse will call the church to empower women to resist violence and reclaim their God-given personhood. What will be argued for throughout the article is an egalitarian concept of a three-person God who suffers with and for humankind, and lovingly calls forth women to resist the sin of domestic abuse with the aim of flourishing as fully equal imago Dei.
God as Male
While it is commonly accepted that God is not male, Church history – informed mostly by men – has perpetuated the notion of God as decidedly androcentric. Christian feminist theologians such as Elizabeth Johnson and Rosemary Radford Ruether argue that to counteract this dominant patriarchal image of God the Church must utilize a feminist interpretation of the divine emphasizing female imagery. 3 In a radical departure from orthodoxy, both theologians go beyond advocating for equal highlighting of male and female divine imagery portrayed in the Bible toward a matriarchal reconstruction of God. 4 This marks an urgent need for the affirmation of women as created equally as imago Dei; as Asian woman theologian Hye Kyung Heo rightfully proposes, recovery of the feminine imagery of God can orient us to gender equality. 5 Importantly, Johnson and Ruether make the critical point of warning against over-identifying God – especially the Spirit who is often characterized as female – with motherhood as this oppresses women through a marginalized view of feminine roles. 6 In correcting the patriarchy of the Trinity, then, it is important to highlight a diversity of biblical feminine imagery for God while not losing the meaning of God as Father, Son, and Spirit in liberative ways for women.
Female Language for God
Recognizing that any attempt to envision God is limited by metaphor to encapsulate human imagination for this great divine mystery, literal androcentric speech about God has preserved patriarchy in the Church at the expense of women’s lives. 7 With a view to facilitating the flourishing of women as ontologically equal to men as the imago Dei, Johnson aims to emancipate speech about God from androcentric theology by appropriating the Trinity as female, arriving at the title, She Who Is. 8 While the Spirit has often been portrayed as a woman – and is indeed a feminine noun in the Hebrew – Johnson attempts to re-envision the entire Trinity in female language employing a Sophialogical approach. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza similarly contends for a Sophia-God to counteract the male domination of divine language that excludes women. 9 Likewise, Ruether depicts a vision of a divine Goddess to attenuate the vision of male oppressive power with female language to depict a powerful God/ess who curates shalom for all humankind. 10
Expressing the legitimate point that male language for God has depicted the Trinity as literally male and thus dehumanized woman as image bearers, these feminists reply on the hope that female imagery provides a more stable anthropomorphic way of understanding God. This seems problematic given that binary concepts of gender are presently undergoing significant deconstruction in the West; however, theologian Sarah Coakley reminds us that divine naming cannot be void of gendered sexuality as humans attempt to relate to and embody the divine life. 11 A retrieval of feminine imagery and language for God is thus important for women to regain personhood. Here I propose that it should be contextualized to both the biblical text and the social location recognizing how both male and female language for God offer limitations and liberation for women.
The Trinity and Submission to Violence
The historical characterization of God as only male, then, has prolific implications for the construction of women’s personhood, particularly as it relates to submission to violence. The Trinity and Jesus’ submission to the violence of the cross is a crucial point of contention that directly relates to the Church’s precedent of encouraging women to submit to abusive husbands. Many feminist theologians argue that traditional formulations of atonement models have myopically focused on the cross as the act of Jesus the Son suffering at the hands of a wrathful, dominating male Father God who exacts justice for humankind through violence. It is this patriarchal understanding of the cross that Johnson, Schüssler Fiorenza, Ruether and others contend against as this interpretation has been utilized to encourage women’s submission to domestic abuse. 12 Primary to this argument is the notion of hierarchy in the Trinity with the male Son being subordinate to the Father.
Subordination
The Trinitarian vision of the male Godhead has historically been understood throughout Church history to be a non-hierarchical relationship, yet many modern evangelicals have asserted an ontological equality with a functional hierarchy. 13 Such a complementarian theology views the Son as eternally subordinate to the Father, and consequently views women as subordinate to men. 14 The egalitarian position, held by theologians such as Kevin Giles and John Zizioulas, see a voluntary and temporal mutual subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father on earth that upholds their eternal co-equality and authority in the Godhead. 15 The tension between equality and difference in Trinitarian theology is highly disputed and complex, and feminist theologians are likewise divided. Some contend for mutual subordination, others for the Son and Spirit subordinating themselves to the Father; still, many feminists agree that any subordination is not coerced nor eternal. 16 Both egalitarians and feminists unite on the front of holding together the Trinity as one being who cannot be separated and thus suffers as the entire Godhead in the violence on the cross. Such a view opposes the liberal feminist concern of the atonement as divine child abuse where Jesus is subordinated at the will of the Father to the cross. 17
The Social Trinity
To liberate both Jesus and women from subordination to violence, many feminist theologians aim to reclaim women’s full personhood by reframing God utilizing Jürgen Moltmann’s social Trinitarian theology. His reconceptualization of the Trinity depicts the divine being as three persons-in-one who relate to each other and humanity as a community defined by mutuality, equality, and reciprocity. 18 For Johnson and Heo this model counteracts subordination by unifying the Trinity as a community that cannot be separated in theological discourse when accounting for God’s history. In contrast, Zizioulas’ concept of the social Trinity as a ‘being in communion’ is highly disputed by feminists due to his delineation of the Father as the ‘cause’ of the Son and Spirit, ultimately reinforcing hierarchy within the Trinity. 19 Moltmann also differs from Zizioulas’ notion of community, which he believes can render the particularity of the divine persons ineffective. Preserving the unity of the Trinity while maintaining its diversity is inherent to the feminist cause of affirming the full personhood of women as unique beings in relationship with different but unified others. Heo attributes this distinction in Moltmann through his conceptualization of perichoresis, which stresses the differentiation of persons characterized by a liberative relationship of freedom, solidarity, and love. 20 Johnson likewise affirms this Trinitarian vision as one that models what human relationships are created to be: equal flourishing through shared responsibility and empowerment. 21 The social Trinity model, then, equally embraces the role of the Spirit, Son, and Father in a unity of love that benefits the other, thus inviting women – as made in the imago Dei – to a personhood of equality free from the domination and oppression of domestic abuse. 22
Kenosis
While social Trinitarian theology liberates women from disordered relationships through its emphasis on mutuality, equality, and reciprocity, it does not automatically free women from the violence of the cross as the question of kenosis remains. Johnson and Ruether elucidate the cross as a ‘kenosis of patriarchy’ – a subversive act of self-emptying of male authoritarian power to empower a new, equal humanity. 23 Heo adds to this concept by viewing the Trinity as voluntarily surrendering themselves to the cross in different ways but as the equal will of the Godhead to embrace suffering for the sake of liberating humanity. 24 A decidedly different feminist approach is found in Coakley who appropriates kenotic vulnerability in self-effacing terms; a highly problematic notion given that women are already diminished of personhood to sacrifice. 25 This raises the crucial question of patriarchal theologies which purports kenosis as self-renunciation, which Zizioulas’ portrays as the ‘giving up of the self to the other’. 26 Feminist theologians seek to release women from the bondage of dehumanization through patriarchal domination, thus, kenosis for women must be seen quite differently to that of Christ. Unlike the powerful male Jesus who demonstrates a realized new humanity, women’s personhood has been diminished by patriarchy such that her self-sacrifice effectively erases her humanity rather than empowering others as Jesus’ kenosis did. Feminist kenotic theology rightfully locates divine self-giving within the Trinity as well as the entire life of Christ, not merely his death. 27 In this view, suffering sacrifice is not only placed within the context of mutuality, but it also recognizes kenosis as the act of serving others in ways which uphold the work of challenging injustice and affirming love. For women, then, this suffering service is a call not to martyrdom as patriarchy often purports, but an invitation to resist injustice in order to reclaim their personhood as fully imago Dei.
Atonement and the Cross
Traumatic suffering is the crux of women’s experience of domestic abuse, rooting their personhood in shame as they endure ongoing violence from their male partner. The role of suffering in the lives of abused women, then, invites us to move from a feminist reframing of the kenosis of the cross to the more expansive discussion of the doctrine of atonement. As I have argued, the patriarchalization of God is deeply problematic in its neglect of the work of the Trinity on the cross, and the broader view of the whole life of Jesus as salvific. Elaine Storkey asserts that an exclusive image of an authoritarian and punitive Father present in the primary historical atonement models disembodies the three-person God and illustrates divine power as a dominating force. 28 As we have seen, Johnson works to reconstruct the non-gendered, loving view of the Trinity through her Sophia imagery for God, and in so doing she unilaterally rejects these atonement models as violent and subordinating. 29 Similarly, Coakley, Heo, and Storkey stress the importance of the Trinity in atonement theology by reconstructing a relational view of the economic and immanent triune God as a unity of suffering, self-giving, and empowerment. 30 In contrast, Ruether moves away from the cross by centring on Jesus’ life as demonstrating the fullness of liberated humanity by reordering relationships to emancipate personhood. 31 Together, these feminists remind us how imperative it is to consider atonement theories within a Trinitarian framework that holds the entire history of Christ. In this way, a feminist perspective rightfully liberates women into full personhood by delineating a triune God who lovingly suffers with – and dies for – humanity. With this vision of God and personhood before us, I begin this section with a feminist theological reframing of the early Church development of atonement, followed by a brief articulation of the primary historical models of atonement, and then move to a feminist theological critique framed within our context of addressing women’s suffering within domestic abuse.
Jesus and the Early Church
The experience of domestic abuse occurs when one individual exerts power and control over another, thus dehumanizing them; from some feminist readings of the New Testament, correcting such disordered power in human relationships is how Jesus understood his salvific life and mission – not his crucifixion. According to Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s interpretation, ‘the suffering and death of Jesus…are not required in order to atone for the sins of the people in the face of an absolute God, but are the result of violence against the envoys of [the divine] who proclaim God’s unlimited goodness and the equality and election of all her children in Israel.’ 32 Through Jesus’ example of perfect humanity, God reveals to all that wholeness through reconciled relationships with self, others, and God is the ultimate goal of salvation, limns Schüssler Fiorenza, Johnson, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker. By interpreting Jesus and his disciples’ ministry thus, the suffering of the cross is the inevitable outcome of one who has violated the power structures of the Roman and Jewish religious-social order. 33
Viewing the New Testament texts in light of their sociohistorical context as a struggling new religious sect after Jesus’ death, Schüssler Fiorenza, Brock and Parker conclude that the writers of the early church develop their theology of suffering and death from a place of persecution and violence where the cross is meant to symbolize victory over suffering. While this Christ-like equality is limited for apologetic purposes, by calling out the power dominance of relationships in their society, the disciples’ and apostles’ construction of atonement links Jesus’ death with their own suffering as they try to live out a new humanity of love and just relationships. Darby Kathleen Ray seems to agree with these feminist voices thus far, but importantly differs by making note of the ancient Israelite tradition of rooting reconciliation as atonement through blood sacrifice and thus seeks to reclaim the patristic models, as we will later see. 34 Whether feminist interpretations of Jesus and the early church’s understanding of the cross and salvation are accurate is debatable – particularly given the lack of a cohesive model formulated in this time period. However, they do rightly set the early development of atonement theory in a newborn Christian community facing great oppression from a deeply embedded patriarchal context that likely obscured their interpretations. From here, then, we move on to the androcentric context of the Christian movement and its ongoing development of atonement theories from patristic to reformation models.
The Patriarchal Models
After the rudimentary speculations of the New Testament church, robust atonement theories begin to develop during the first two centuries after Christ and once the Christian Church began to be formalized. 35 Despite the numerous ecumenical councils during this era where the Church Fathers formalized many key doctrines, they never clarified a specific atonement theory, thus paving the way for the abundant models that followed during the Patristic and Reformation periods. Interestingly, the lack of ecumenical consensus as to how humans are reconciled to God did not create a massive chasm in orthodox Christian doctrine. Working within the larger sociopolitical context of their time, each theologian is essentially attempting the same goal: to deal with the problem of original sin and its consequences. From this starting point, shared themes such as sin, evil, death, sacrifice, suffering, forgiveness, and propitiation emerge and are utilized in varying ways as each theologian builds on and adapts their predecessor’s theories. What follows is a short description and analysis of each of the four major theories that have largely shaped the Christian church.
Ransom Theory
The Ransom Theory position held by Augustine and developed by Gregory of Nyssa and Origen highlights the role of Christ in freeing humanity from its captivity to Satan because of our sin. Origen’s conception was that Satan demands a ransom for our release and Christ offers himself up in place of humanity as the perfect human. 36 In this view Christ buys us back by paying the ransom to Satan. For Gregory of Nyssa, however, the cross is more than a transaction between Christ and Satan; Christ reveals his divine nature and thus overpowers Satan’s rule and establishes the rule of God on earth. 37
Christus Victor
The Christus Victor model is linked to both Irenaeus’ Recapitulation theory and also to the Ransom Theory of Gregory of Nyssa and Origen; the first emphasizing the incarnation and the latter Christ’s inauguration of the Kingdom of God. Recapitulation is the idea that Christ becomes fully human through the Incarnation and his life on earth – even taking on our state as sinners – but as the righteous second Adam who restores all of humanity to God. 38 Overcoming the powers of darkness, Christ victoriously defeats death and sin, merging the flesh of humanity with the divine nature as only he who is both wholly divine and human could. Solidarity with humankind, then, is central to Irenaeus’ theory and thus the Incarnation is the centre of his Recapitulation model.
There are numerous concerns with the Christus Victor model, particularly as it relates to the concept of sin. The prominence of Satan’s role diminishes the idea that humans intentionally sin causing alienation from God. Thus, this theory fails to address that God must himself deal with our sin – not merely pay a ransom to Satan. 39 Nonetheless, liberation theologians have revived this model due to its powerful imagery of Christ overcoming the powers of oppression and darkness. Additionally, this model rightfully distances itself from violence by speaking to the whole life of Christ in its view of atonement.
Penal Substitutionary Model
In contrast to Christus Victor, Penal Substitution highlights that God’s justice demands a penalty for our sins, thus strongly stressing the cross. Originally developed by St. Anselm, his Satisfaction model envisioned atonement as God requiring Christ’s death as a payment of debt to restore God’s honour from the offense of human sin. 40 Jesus, who is sinless, ‘becomes sin, subject to punishment. And the evil powers who oppose the reign of God by killing Jesus – whether the devil, the mob, or the Romans – are the ones who are actually doing the will of God by killing Jesus to provide the payment that God’s honor of God’s law demands.’ 41 Unlike Anselm, then, the Penal model thus falls short of declaring the full gospel of Christ by not only ignoring the entire salvific work of the life of Jesus, but even more dangerously by narrowly focusing on the violence of the cross as God’s demand for redemption. Feminist theologians often view this model as profoundly problematic in its image of God as a violent father who subjects his own son to the torture of the cross, recognizing that such theology in the Church’s praxis frequently subjects women to the violence of men.
Moral Influence
Reacting to Anselm, Abelard asserted that Christ’s life and death was a demonstration of God’s love to humanity intended to inspire repentance and moral change. 42 This model accentuates God’s forgiveness of sin and his unlimited ability to pardon humanity, advocating that Christ’s perfect humanity and sacrificial death compels humanity’s repentance and transformation to a more loving nature. 43 Union with God through the reconciling love Christ exemplified, then, is illustrated as humans follow Christ’s pattern of moral living. Directly conflicting with the Penal model, then, moral influence contends for a radically different view of atonement by undermining the sin of humanity in favour of their moral change. Abelard disconnects God’s justice with his love, thus minimizing the cross and the gravity of sin. However, it does rightfully counteract a view of God as vengeful and punishing, attempting to appropriate meaningful human transformation of individuals.
None of these models are complete in themselves, and some contemporary theologians contend that by holding the various theories together we can get a holistic view that adequately makes sense of the multiple dimensions of the human condition that need to be reconciled with God. As the majority of feminist theologians exhort, however, these models mistakenly hold Christ’s crucifixion as the apex of salvation and thus perpetuate violence against women. Only when Christology and atonement are expanded to encapsulate the incarnation and the whole life of Jesus can the true power of divine transformation bring the Kingdom reformation of women’s humanity as fully imago Dei and our restoration with the Triune life of God.
Feminist Critiques of Atonement Models
Foundational to the feminist theologians’ critique of traditional atonement models is the premise that their patriarchal misinterpretations have justified violence and oppression of women by distorting concepts such as sacrifice, obedience, submission, forgiveness, and the meaning of suffering. To reclaim and reconstruct a theology of the cross that is emancipatory for women who experience domestic abuse, then, feminist theologians typically rely on a few essential arguments. The first is that the meaning of the cross can only be understood within the context of the incarnation and resurrection. Jesus’ life and ministry of reconciliation is demonstrated in his active resistance to the misuse and abuse of power. The cross thus becomes the natural outcome to his life of pursuing justice for the oppressed, marginalized, and abused, and is perpetrated by humans – not divine intention. This connects with belief that Jesus voluntarily submitted to the suffering of the cross, and that this is a symbol of the Triune God standing in solidarity with the suffering of victims, and deeply identifying with the malformation of the human condition. Additionally, in the resurrection God acts decisively and finally to redeem good from the evil of the cross in bringing life from death; thus no additional sacrifice or suffering can add to the liberative transformation God brings about in redeeming the cross in the resurrection of Christ.
Bringing these feminist interpretations together, Christian women survivors can experience freedom and empowerment as they hold on to the cross as a symbol of hope that Jesus suffers with them in their unjust pain and trauma, while co-labouring with them to resist the sin of domestic abuse. Refusing the post-biblical stance of feminist theologians who reject all redemptive value of the cross, a Christian reconstruction of a theology of the cross recognizes that many survivors look to Christ’s suffering as a source of resiliency and recovery from domestic abuse. Furthermore, given that women of colour disproportionally experience domestic abuse, it is vital to employ the work of womanist, mujerista and other non-Western women feminist theologians who recognize the transformative power of the cross in the lives of suffering and abused women around the globe.
To reconstruct a Christian feminist theology of the cross for women who have experienced domestic abuse it is first necessary to deconstruct the classical atonement theories that have been utilized by the Church to call women to suffer as Christ did on the cross. One of the initial concerns with the models is that they foster gender-based values of women’s subordination to men and the suffering they inflict on them. In critiquing Ransom Theory, Darby Kathleen Ray articulates how this model positions God as instigating the cross in order to free humans from their captivity to the devil, thus venerating sacrificial suffering as redemptive. 44 From her womanist theological perspective, JoAnne Marie Terrell agrees with this conceptualization, emphasizing that this classical model of atonement depicts God as a judge requiring Jesus to die as a ransom for the sin of humankind. 45 Brock and Parker likewise limn this theory as centred on Jesus’ death being a ransom paid to the devil to free us from the captivity of original sin. 46 The cross thus buys back humanity from the devil, again mistakenly locating the crucifixion as God’s best idea to liberate the human race from sin and its ultimate consequence: death.
While Ray, Terrell, Brock and Parker clarify that the Anselmian Satisfaction Theory importantly objects to the notion of redemption involving a transaction between God and the devil, they reiterate its problematic stance of placing Christ’s voluntary obedience to the torture and execution of the cross as the saving act of God. Additionally, this model carries on the patriarchal glorification of punishment, sacrifice, debt, and suffering which have been utilized by the Church to oppress and abuse women. Similarly destructive for women, Ray finds that Abeldard’s Moral Influence Theory ‘interprets the meaning of [Jesus’] life [in] embracing suffering and humiliation as expressions of love for humanity and obedience to God’. 47 Terrell elucidates that this model has also proven impractical throughout history, given that Abelard thought humans would be moved by the selfless act of Christ on the cross to naturally respond with love towards their neighbour and instead the crucifix has traditionally been used to promote violence against women in praxis. While pointing out that most atonement models propagate the damaging image of Jesus as the scapegoat who saves us, Terrell also identifies that it importantly recovers the notion of evil at work – a concept survivors of domestic abuse can certainly attest to. 48
Possibly most controversial for feminist theologians is Penal Substitution Theory, which Terrell describes as emphasizing the nature of sinful humanity as totally depraved and deserving of God’s wrath, the debt for which God places instead on Christ in the crucifixion. 49 This model holds that the legal debt of human’s sin requires God’s punishment and Jesus is our perfect substitute, leading to the feminist critique of God’s nature being depicted as a punitive father, which Ruether, Ray, Schüssler Fiorenza, and others articulate. It is this theory that sparked Rita Nakashima Brock’s rejection of atonement theories as divine child abuse. 50 While many Christian feminist theologians reject this notion, as discussed previously, their shared observation is that this form of atonement theology sanctifies and perpetuates gender-based violence – particularly domestic abuse – and idealizes women’s victimization.
Finally, we see this common thread of Jesus’ voluntary sacrifice on the cross being linked with women’s forced subordination to violence in the Christus Victor atonement model. Similar to the other classical theories, it views atonement for humanity made possible only by means of Jesus’ voluntary submission to the cross. Despite their distorted and life-threatening challenges to the flourishing of women, each of these atonement models are still considered part of orthodox Christian doctrine today, and – as we have seen – they share a number of essential commonalities focused on sin, death, and suffering. It is to these themes that Christian feminist theologians largely respond, based on the belief that they perpetuate the experience of women worldwide being subjected to immense suffering and even death at the hands of men.
Feminist Critiques of Atonement Theology
The primary claim of Christian feminist theologians could be postulated as such: patriarchal interpretations of the Bible have been utilized to develop doctrines and theology that marginalize, oppress, and perpetuate violence against females. In light of the reality that women have been told for centuries by androcentric Christian leadership to submit to male perpetrated violence on the basis of Scripture, a feminist hermeneutic of suspicion rightly questions atonement theories and their connection to violence against women. Though diverse in their cultures and theological perspectives, the voices of global feminist theologians unite to reclaim an image of God that liberates women as full image bearers towards their freedom from male domination and abuse. As we shall see, their approaches are quite different as they reformulate an image of God, human sin, and the suffering of the cross from androcentric misappropriations. Yet the richness of the global voices of feminist theologians can nevertheless be woven together towards their common vision of restoring women’s personhood, free from the bondage of patriarchy.
Reimagining God
As I proposed earlier, one of the primary problems for feminist theologians with the Church’s traditional, historical concept of God is that the divine is anthropomorphized as a dominant, violent father. Given the proclivity of males – and fathers – to usurp female power and the basic human right to not be abused, many Christian feminist theologians question whether a ‘male’ God can save women from their male-subjugated life of suffering. More radical feminists such as Mary Daly, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker essentially conclude that the God depicted in the Bible and by the Church Fathers reinforces abuse of women as God the Father commits divine child abuse in requiring Jesus’ death. They renounce the cross as a means of divine torture not only to Christ, but as a symbol of violence against those who are powerless and oppressed.
In seeking redemption for women without the cross, as well as by engaging texts from other religions as key authorities in deconstructing atonement, these feminist theologians move beyond historical Christianity to redeem women from their extreme suffering. Likewise, Monica Coleman, a womanist theologian, seeks to recover the role of African traditional religions and ancestry to construct a postmodern soteriology that addresses the prolific history of biblically-sanctioned abuse and persecution by calling forth salvation as a communal act. 51 While fellow womanist theologian Joanne Marit Terrell concurs with Coleman that black women benefit from an integration of African heritage sources, she repudiates Coleman’s de-centring of Christology from atonement and salvation by adhering to a more traditional view that Jesus’ blood on the cross is salvific. 52 Even as Chung Hyun Kyung resonates with these womanist contexts of severe suffering and oppression from with her location as an Asian feminist theologian, she securely images the divine as God who suffers with Asian women in Jesus’ choice to endure the cross in order to liberate them from male domination and oppression. 53 In contrast to radical feminists, then, womanist and Asian feminist theologies tend to construct a soteriology that – to varying extents – embraces the cross as Jesus compassionately suffering with women of colour in order to transform the patriarchal domination of women into their liberation as full humanity in the imago Dei.
The range of views from global feminist theological voices is undoubtedly complex and varied, but the question remains as to whether the androcentric language of the Bible and the classical atonement theories actually equate to a male God. Daly, Schüssler Fiorenza and Ruether are the feminist theologians most prominently known for reconstructing Christology from the premise that God is not male. They argue that male-dominated theology and biblical imagery and language for an androcentric God has appropriated salvation for men only, subordinating women to continued oppression and abuse. As Daly aptly puts it: ‘when God is male, the male is God’.
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It is this divine male hierarchy that needs to be crucified, and as they trace the male theologians of the Christian church, they readily find ample support for a male, misogynistic God that needs to be reclaimed from patriarchy. Whereas Daly moves beyond Christianity in her vision of a female antichrist saving women through sisterhood, Schüssler Fiorenza and Ruether intentionally work to reappropriate a feminist Christology rooted in the female imagery of Sophia-God. Locating Jesus as the child of Sophia [Wisdom], they harken back to the early church’s movement towards gender equality and justice for women as initiated by Jesus. As Schüssler Fiorenza limns:
the suffering and death of Jesus, like that of John and all the other prophets sent to Israel before him, are not required in order to atone for the sins of the people in the face of an absolute God, but are the result of violence against the envoys of Sophia who proclaim God’s unlimited goodness and the equality and election of all her children in Israel.
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By claiming an image of God as the feminine Spirit-Sophia, Schüssler Fiorenza and Ruether do away with Jesus’ maleness as bearing theological significance, while also importantly moving away from Brock’s notion of the cross as divine child abuse. These feminist Christologies distance themselves from the classical atonement theories in their depiction of violence and suffering ordained by a male God by reclaiming not only feminine language for God, but a female deity in Sophia – or God/ess, as Ruether ultimately renames the divine. 56
The theology of radical and liberal theologians such as Daly, Brock and Parker, Schüssler Fiorenza, and Ruether, suffer from the significant absence of understanding how the doctrine of the Trinity informs both the classical atonement models as well as the postmodern feminist theologies of the cross. From a feminist Christian trinitarian perspective, Jesus dying on the cross cannot by understood as a male God who sends his son to be tortured and crucified. It is a tri-theistic heresy to claim that only Jesus, the son of God, suffers on the cross. Trinitarian theology upholds the view that God is three-in-one, thus the doctrine of the trinity actually triples God’s suffering because God suffers as the son, the parent who would gladly give Godself for the son who endures the cross, as well as the Holy Spirit who journeys with Christ through crucifixion. Furthermore, orthodox trinitarian doctrine asserts that God creates humans both male and female as imago Dei, thus the triune God cannot be male. It is our anthropomorphic conceptualizations of God from within patriarchal biblical and socio-historical contexts that imaged God from a human understanding of gender. As Christian feminist theologians would rightly claim, then, our image of God needs to be reclaimed, and listening to the voices of oppressed women around the world is a vital component of addressing the biblical sanctioning of women submitting to domestic abuse.
Women and Sin
A fundamental critique of feminist theologians regarding patriarchal Christian interpretations of atonement as perpetuating abuse of women is that the doctrine of sin has been developed from a male-centred context of power and authority. While Brock and Parker reject the notion of original sin altogether, and Daly similarly locates it as an androcentric tool of misogyny, most liberal feminists work to salvage the concept of sin by reading it from the underside of self by recognizing the lack of power most women have. Trelstad, Schüssler Fiorenza, Ruether, Terrell, Hyun and other feminist theologians seek to redefine sin from its traditional individualistic view based on the Fall which makes women’s nature evil, and sin conceptualized as pride or love of power. Their common vision of women’s liberation empowers a feminist expression of sin as social in nature, represented by alienation and distorted and oppressive relationships – particularly in male-perpetrated abuse of women.
As feminists elevate the experiences of women and their suffering, they recognize that male-dominated Christian texts – by equating women with evil and characterizing sin as disobedience and willfulness – require a reverse interpretation whereby women’s sin is distinguished as unique from men. This occurs by reading sin from the underside of women’s personhood as predominantly oppressed; thus, sin is characterized by the brokenness and dehumanization of women’s self, and all that violates their agency to become fully human.
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From a womanist perspective recalling the stories of African American slave women’s experiences, both Coleman and Terrell affirm a social understanding of sin that addresses the systemic structures of evil and sin of black slavery. Calling black women into a community of transformation from their embodied experiences of exploitation and abuse, salvation is realized as black women are empowered towards full personhood and right relationships in community. Hyun concurs with a social view of sin, while differentiating an Asian feminist perspective that more specifically acknowledges women as complicit in sin. As she delineates:
Human sin is not just a personal attitude. It has “collective” and “systemic” character. Human sin, then, is manifested through colonialism, neo-colonialism, capitalism, racism, classism, castism, and sexism. While Asian women are angered by the sin of the oppressors, they also acknowledge the sin of the oppressed. This includes internalized self-hate, horizontal violence, and ignorance.
58
With the broadening of sin beyond the scope of individual notions of pride and abuse of power, Christian feminist theologians importantly reimagine salvation to include not only personhood but liberation from systems and structures of domination and evil that require human agency. For feminists who incorporate Christology in their understanding of atonement and salvation, this necessarily raises the critical question of the role of suffering in the cross as it relates to women’s experience of domestic abuse.
Suffering and Victimization
Can the cross be a means of God’s atoning and saving activity in the lives of oppressed and abused women? This question underlies the prominent feminist theological critique that purports classical atonement theories glorify suffering and support the victimization of women. As we have seen, each of the traditional atonement models utilizes the concept of Jesus’ obedient suffering as salvific. Feminist theologians recall how these theories have historically been employed to propagate ‘biblical’ abuse of women and effectively silence them from resisting their male oppressors. From this foundation then, Christian feminist theologians wrestle with whether the cross and human suffering can ever be redemptive.
In light of their historical and contemporary experience of slavery and gender-based violence, both womanist and Asian feminist Christologies search for meaning in the suffering of the cross. In Coleman’s survey of womanist views on salvation, she clarifies a common theme of black women resonating with Jesus in their shared experiences of extreme suffering. 59 Further, she explicates that Jesus’ ministry to the marginalized and his resurrection includes black women in salvation from their oppression as they participate in the vision of just relationships that Jesus lived. His suffering on the cross, however, can be quite problematic for black women as classical atonement theories can be seen to image Jesus as either a coerced or voluntary scapegoat or surrogate – which has been employed by Christians to enforce slavery and abuse of black women’s bodies. 60 Identifying with Jesus’ suffering, then, can be both a resource as well as a source of harm as black women are persuaded to submit to suffering as Christ did. Asian feminist theology, according to Hyun, likewise recognizes this dichotomy of the suffering of the cross by declaring that the suffering of ‘Jesus is only good for…Asian women when he affirms, respects, and is actively present with them in their long and hard journey for liberation and wholeness.’ 61 By leaning on the classical atonement understanding of Jesus as the suffering servant, the abundant suffering of Asian women can find meaning in the cross as a symbol of God witnessing to – and overcoming – the evil of their male-enforced oppression.
Many feminist theologians construct their Christologies based on an interpretation of Jesus’ suffering as the outcome of his prophetic mission of relational justice and equality. Rather than a divinely ordained crucifix, Jesus’ suffering is not an act of obedience and self-sacrifice that women should model, but an execution designed by Roman and Jewish leaders to maintain their power and domination. 62 God’s role in the cross is to ultimately overcome the powers of evil and human sin that crucified Jesus, subverting their plan by resurrecting Christ as a witness who stands in solidarity with the suffering of women. The Christian call to discipleship must be reframed for survivors as a challenge to survive, resist, and testify to their unjust experiences of suffering in their salvific journey towards full personhood. Importantly, then, feminist theologians acknowledge that God’s redemptive model for humanity – as lived out by Jesus – includes suffering as a liberating factor, while distancing it theologically from atonement as violence required by God. Such a substantial contrast to classical atonement theories thus presents a postmodern Christian feminist constructivist that attempts to honour biblical texts in light of historical androcentric interpretations that subjugate women to victimization by men.
While these Christian feminist theologians have not clarified a doctrine of atonement as to how exactly Jesus’ blood atones, as the classical Church Fathers aimed to, there is a general consensus among feminist critique that the suffering of the cross only victimizes women unless it is reinterpreted as a human act of execution that God redeems through resurrection. Ultimately, as they push back against an image of God as a violent, male perpetrator who scapegoats Jesus and calls women to likewise submit to their abuser, feminist Christologies advocate for an expansive vision of redemption that locates God’s salvific work in the life of Jesus who actively resists oppression and domination, calling women to do the same.
Implications for a Pastoral Theology of Women’s Suffering
As a Caucasian Christian feminist theologian from Canada who survived domestic abuse from an American husband in the US, I struggle from both personal experience of traumatic suffering and my evangelical tradition with the biblical emphasis on the cross and its historical treatment in victimizing millions of women. I concur with feminist Christologies that recognize salvation as more than an individualistic, purely spiritual redemption, and call all disciples to engage in just relationships that actively pursue the model of justice that Jesus lived. However, through our exploration of Christian feminists it has become evident to me that our hermeneutic of suspicion has often denied or overlooked the biblical reality of blood as atonement. It seems to me that in our passion for women’s liberation we have so longed for the coming fullness of the Kingdom that we have founded our theological interpretations on a premise of an absence of suffering. To say it in another way, feminists starting from the experience of women’s unjust suffering have often fallen prey to eliminating anything from the Bible or Christian tradition that acknowledges any value in suffering – Daly, Brock and Parker most explicitly take this problematic stance, which I will now address.
My own Christian feminist pastoral theological critique cautiously asserts that while suffering is not itself redemptive, suffering is a necessary part of God’s salvific plan to redeem us from sin, for which we are all complicit in various ways – even female victims. God’s settled opinion is that suffering is bad and it will not exist in the redeemed earth; however, at present God must work within the framework of human agency and evil that cause sin, suffering, and death, thus he paradoxically utilizes our suffering towards God’s ultimate salvific scheme of ending suffering completely. This includes redeeming women’s unjust experiences of suffering – the result of evil/sin – to transform our personhood more fully in the imago Dei: whole, holy, restored. This process of transformation includes a journey through suffering as women remember, tell the truth, and take action about the violence they have experienced. 63 Importantly, it also includes atonement and salvation through Jesus’ suffering on the cross. Taking the Israelites’ prominent sacrificial system alongside the cross requires Christians to take blood and suffering as a life-giving and redemptive element. In this sense, all classical theories harness God’s redemptive truth to some extent; however, their male-dominated interpretations and praxis have readily disposed women to oppression and abuse. Still, Christian feminist theologians can stand firm on the biblical grounds that while humans crucified Christ, God’s salvific act was to resurrect him, thus interrupting the cycle of human violence in an ultimate move to end suffering forever.
From this pastoral theological understanding, then, we are enabled to compassionately embrace and suffer with women who have been oppressed or abused, as Jesus does, while also providing pastoral care to victims that actively works to alleviate their suffering and empower their full personhood. Atonement and salvation can thus incorporate the suffering of the cross into the broader feminist perspective of redemption transpiring as we embody Jesus’ life through truth-telling, resistance, just relationships, communities and systems of liberating equality, as our feminist theologians have limned. A feminist pastoral theological framework must then decisively conclude that domestic abuse is the antithesis of God’s salvific work imaged in the incarnation, life, cross, and resurrection of Christ.
Conclusion
The multivariate insights of Christian feminist theologians provide imperative critiques of the androcentric Church Fathers’ classical theories of atonement that have a strong history of being utilized by the church to oppress and violate women. Despite the lack of consensus amongst feminists as to whether or how exactly Jesus atones for human sin and evil, the feminist impetus to liberate women from their painful reality of gender-based violence has ample biblical and theological foundations. By refocusing Christology on Jesus’ whole life as a model for equal relationships and sociopolitical justice, feminist theology reclaims women’s full personhood in the imago Dei and advocates for their freedom from gender-based violence. For abused women, then, it is critical that the Church should recognize that the formation of their personhood as the imago Dei requires a radical inversion of patriarchal interpretations of kenosis and suffering. The Church must call abused women to become a full self, in part by incorporating female imagery and language for God, in addition to empowering praxis of Spirit-filled healing and restitution of power for survivors. Furthermore, incorporating a theological anthropology based on a social Trinitarian vision, the Church can help liberate women from the violence of domestic abuse by rehumanizing them as full image bearers and participants in the triune dance of equality, mutuality, and reciprocity.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
1.
Global statistics are available at UN Women, Facts and Figures: Ending Violence against Women, 2013. http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures mirrors US reports on domestic violence in Domestic and Sexual Violence Data Collection: A Report to Congress under the Violence against Women Act. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, n.d. Available at: 
2.
Levitt HM, Horne SG, Wheeler EE, and Wang M-C et al. (2015) Addressing intimate partner violence within a religious context. In: Walker DF, Courtois CA and Aten JD (eds) Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy for Trauma. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 215–16.
3.
Johnson E (2002) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 241–43; Ruether R (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 68–71.
4.
While the majority of Christian theology has historically spoken of and images God as male, there is a strong history of female conceptualizations of God – particularly in the medieval Christian mystics, such as Julian of Norwich who referred to the triune God as ‘Mother’ in her writings.
5.
Heo H (2015) The Liberative Cross: Korean-North American Women and the Self-Giving God. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 47–48.
6.
Johnson E (2002) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 176–77; Ruether R (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 73–74.
7.
Heo H (2015) The Liberative Cross: Korean-North American Women and the Self-Giving God. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 48.
8.
Johnson E (2002) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 13, 38.
9.
Schüssler Fiorenza E (2004) Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 157–61.
10.
Ruether R (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 68–71.
11.
Coakley S (2013) God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 308.
12.
Johnson E (2002) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 152–53; Schüssler Fiorenza E (2004) Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 97–130; Ruether R (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 98–99.
13.
Giles K (2002) The Trinity & Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God & the Contemporary Gender Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 106–17.
14.
Heo H (2015) The Liberative Cross: Korean-North American Women and the Self-Giving God. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 59; Giles K (2002) The Trinity & Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God & the Contemporary Gender Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 114. Ruether asserts that patriarchal anthropologies have been developed from hierarchical doctrines of God since early church history, see Ruether R (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 85, 95–99. This opinion may be supported by writings such as that of Origen who contends that the Son is distinct from the Father – who is the source of divinity – and thus, Jesus is subject to God the Father, although eternally existent with the Trinitarian God, see Plantinga R, Thompson T and Lundberg M (2010) An Introduction to Christian Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 121.
15.
Giles K (2002) The Trinity & Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God & the Contemporary Gender Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 30–31; Zizioulous J (2006) Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church. New York: T&T Clark, 45, 89. Zizioulas, however, understands the Trinity as an indistinguishable communion structured in a hierarchy headed by the Father, which he calls a monarchia.
16.
Coakley S (2013) God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 330; Johnson E (2002) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 196.
17.
Peacore L (2010) The Role of Women’s Experience in Feminist Theologies of Atonement. Eugene, OR: Pickwick 22 Publications, xiii.
18.
Pinnock C (1996) Flame of Love: A Theology of The Holy Spirit. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 35, 39.
19.
Zizioulas J (2006) Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church. New York: T&T Clark, 40–44. Similarly to Zizioulas’ notion of monarchia, Augustine asserts that the Father is the source of the Son and the Spirit, in his On the Trinity, Ch. 4. De Trinitate XV, 25, 47, PL 42, 1094–95.
20.
Heo H (2015) The Liberative Cross: Korean-North American Women and the Self-Giving God. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 126–30. Pinnock also depicts a mutual, reciprocal relationship between Jesus and the Trinity – rather than subordination – promoting the idea that the Spirit as the bond of love between Father and Son in Christ’s redemptive suffering on the cross, similarly makes available God’s healing relationship to humanity in our suffering, in Pinnock C (1996) Flame of Love: A Theology of The Holy Spirit. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 92, 110–11.
21.
Johnson E (2002) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 207–209.
22.
Moltmann objects to the filioque as it subordinates the Spirit in a hierarchical Trinity, as described by Heo H (2015) The Liberative Cross: Korean-North American Women and the Self-Giving God. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 134–35.
23.
Johnson E (2002) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 161; Ruether R (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 137; Heo H (2015) The Liberative Cross: Korean-North American Women and the Self-Giving God. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 63.
24.
Heo H (2015) The Liberative Cross: Korean-North American Women and the Self-Giving God. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 121.
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Coakley S (2013) God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19.
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Zizioulas J (2006) Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church. New York: T&T Clark, 83–84.
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Yenson M (2006) Battered hearts and the Trinity of compassion: women, the cross and kenōsis. The Way 45(1): 51–66.
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Storkey E (1994) Atonement and feminism. Anvil 11(3): 228. Aquinas purports that Jesus is punished for the sins of humanity by God the Father in his Summa Theologica, available at: . Luther, Zwingli and Calvin tangle over the role of Christ in terms of law and grace, in Plantinga R, Thompson T and Lundberg M (2010) An Introduction to Christian Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 482–98, but ultimately agree on penal substitution: that Christ was punished to satisfy the demands of God’s wrath. Also see Kärkkäinen V-M (2013) Christ and Reconciliation: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 299–306.
29.
Johnson E (2002) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 158–59.
30.
Coakley S (2013) God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 14, 330–32; Heo H (2015) The Liberative Cross: Korean-North American Women and the Self-Giving God. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 160–64; Storkey E (1994) Atonement and feminism. Anvil 11(3): 234–35.
31.
Ruether R (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 125, 136–38.
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Schüssler Fiorenza, E (1994) In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 135.
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Schüssler Fiorenza, E (2015) Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology. New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 117–28; Brock RN (2006) The cross of resurrection and communal redemption, in Trelstad M (ed.) Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 249.
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Ray DK (1998) Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1.
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Ruether R (1998) Women and Redemption: A Theological History. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 116–38.
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Ray DK (1998) Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 120.
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Ray DK (1998) Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 123–24.
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Pinnock C (1999) Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 95.
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Ray DK (1998) Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 126.
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Weaver JD (2006) Violence in Christian theology, in Trelstad M (ed.) Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 228.
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Weaver JD (2006) Violence in Christian theology, in Trelstad M (ed.) Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 229.
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Williams DS (2006) Black women’s surrogacy experience and the Christian notion of redemption, in Trelstad M (ed.) Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 29.
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Kärkkäinen V-M (2013) Christ and Reconciliation: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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Ray DK (1998) Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 121.
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Terrell JM (1998) Power in the Blood? The Cross in the African American Experience. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 105–108.
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Brock RN, Parker RA (2008) Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 266–68.
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Ray DK (1998) Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 18.
48.
Terrell JM (1998) Power in the Blood? The Cross in the African American Experience. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 105–107, 142.
49.
Terrell JM (1998) Power in the Blood? The Cross in the African American Experience. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 105.
50.
Peacore L (2010) The Role of Women’s Experience in Feminist Theologies of Atonement. Eugene, OR: Pickwick 22 Publications, 105.
51.
See Coleman M (2008) Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
52.
Exploring black women’s experience of slavery in the US, Terrell aims to reclaim the cross by reframing it as a source of resiliency that God suffers with black women in their horrendous suffering of racism, violence, and abuse.
53.
Kyung CH (1990) Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 54.
54.
Daly M (1985) Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 3.
55.
Schüssler Fiorenza E (1994) In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 135.
56.
Ruether R (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 58, 69–71.
57.
This concept is explained in relation to women survivors of abuse in Dahill LE (2009) Reading from the Underside of Selfhood: Bonhoeffer and Spiritual Formation. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 110–64.
58.
Kyung CH (1990) Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 40.
59.
Coleman M (2008) Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 32.
60.
This is one of the primary arguments throughout Terrell JM (1998) Power in the Blood? The Cross in the African American Experience. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
61.
Kyung CH (1990) Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 56.
62.
Ray DK (1998) Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 131, 138.
63.
I explore in-depth the painful healing process of recovery from domestic abuse from a feminist narrative pastoral theological perspective in my PhD dissertation, Moder A (2019) Free to Heal: Towards a Feminist Narrative Pastoral Theology and Praxis for Christian Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence. PhD diss., Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, CA.