My Northeastern Seminary colleague Elizabeth Gerhardt has written a very interesting new book called The Cross and Gendercide: A Theological Response to Global Violence Against Women and Girls (IVP, 2014). Beth is a very capable social ethicist and has lots of hands-on experience working with women and girls who have suffered from abuse of all kinds. This book is a fantastic effort to provide a theological rationale for resisting this kind of violence and taking this problem seriously, especially as a concern of the global church. In the book, she especially draws from the cross-theology of Luther and Bonhoeffer. Here is a quote that captures the spirit of her work:
The power of the cross crushes the idolatry of power that leads to the denigration of women and girls and crushes the ideologies that keep women and girls from realizing their full potential as human beings with dignity. The language of the cross is freedom and promise that has real meaning for working to end systems that enslave mind-numbing numbers of women and children (111).
I hope this book receives a wide reading and helps to bring this topic to the table of discussion for churches and that many are impacted by her cogent reading of the implications of a proper Theologia Crucis.
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