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(Read this series from the beginning at Part 1 and Part 2.)
Bettenhausen challenges her readers with an exercise she once shared with her students. Note: this account involves intimate abuse. Feel free to skip it if doing so is better for you.
“Several years ago I asked a group of seminarians to choose New Testament stories about Jesus and rewrite them imagining that Jesus had been female. The following recreation of the passion story of Luke 22:54-65 was one woman’s knowing by heart. ‘They arrested the Christ woman and led her away to the Council for questioning. Some of her followers straggled along to find out what was to become of her. There were seven women and two men followers. (The men followers were there mainly to keep watch over their sisters.) Someone from among the crowd asked a question of a man follower, ‘Haven’t I seen you with this woman? Who is she, and what is your relationship with her?’ He replied defensively, ‘She is a prostitute, she has had many men. I have seen her with many!’ The men who were guarding the Christ [woman] slapped her around and made fun of her. They told her to use magic powers to stop them. They blindfolded her and each them in turn raped her and afterward jeered, ‘Now, prophetess, who was in you? Which one of us? Tell us that!’ They continued to insult her. (Kandice Joyce) After this story was read aloud, a silence surrounded the class and made us shiver. Ever since, I have wondered would women ever imagine forming a religion around the rape of a woman? Would we ever conjure gang-rape as a salvific event for other women? What sort of god would such an event reveal?” (in Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse, p. xi-xii)
That is a question worth asking. Would women have formed a religion around a woman being victimized this way? To be clear, strong arguments can be made that early Jesus communities were led by women (see In Memory of Her by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza). Interpreting Jesus’ death as somehow salvific or redemptive was also a later development in the Jesus movement.
As Jesus followers, we are shaped by how we interpret the story elements of the Jesus story, including Jesus’ death. If we aren’t careful in what we say about Jesus’ death, we might tell those being harmed to be patient, that something good will come of their suffering, rather than to stand up for themselves and what is right.
Redemptive suffering theology has devastated the lives of those who suffer abuse, oppression, and injustice. Abuse, oppression and injustice can lead to a lifetime of pain if they’re not refused or stood up to. They can destroy a person’s sense of worth, dignity, meaning, and value. And some people die because of this. When we interpret Jesus’ death as redemptive suffering and then ask abuse survivors to follow that example, we slander those standing up to abuse and injustice and we trivialize the suffering, abuse and injustice of those who are choosing to patiently endure.
How can we reconstruct an understanding of Jesus’ death that is life-giving? First, let’s understand that this has been a question within Christianity from its very beginning, we aren’t alone, and there is also a long history of answers to this question. I want to close this week by amplifying the answer that Brown and Parker offer, and I’ll link to the essay these selected statements are gleaned from:
“Jesus did not choose the cross. He chose to live a life in opposition to unjust, oppressive cultures…. Jesus chose integrity and faithfulness, refusing to change course because of threat.”
“Suffering is never redemptive, and suffering cannot be redeemed. The cross is a sign of tragedy. God’s grief is revealed there and everywhere and every time life is thwarted by violence. God’s grief is as ultimate as God’s love. Every tragedy eternally remains and is eternally mourned. Eternally the murdered scream, Betrayal. Eternally God sings kaddish for the world. To be a Christian means keeping faith with those who have heard and lived God’s call for justice, radical love, and liberation; who have challenged unjust systems both political and ecclesiastical; and who in that struggle have refused to be victims and have refused to cower under the threat of violence, suffering, and death. Fullness of life is attained in moments of decision for such faithfulness and integrity. When the threat of death is refused and the choice is made for justice, radical love, and liberation, the power of death is overthrown. Resurrection is radical courage. Resurrection means that death is overcome in those precise instances when human beings choose life, refusing the threat of death. Jesus climbed out of the grave in the Garden of Gethsemane when he refused to abandon his commitment to the truth even though his enemies threatened him with death. On Good Friday, the Resurrected One was Crucified.” (For God So Loved the World?)
“It is not the acceptance of suffering that gives life; it is commitment to life that gives life. The question, moreover, is not Am I willing to suffer? but Do I desire fully to live? This distinction is subtle and, to some, specious, but in the end it makes a great difference in how people interpret and respond to suffering.”
For the entire essay see, For God So Loved the World?
Herb’s new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is now available at Renewed Heart Ministries.
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