Michael Gorman

A Cruciform Christian Feminist Credo

~ Jessica Parks ~ 11 Comments

For my systematic and biblical theology class last semester, I got to write up a personal credo as well as a catechism.  The intention of both the credo and the catechism was for me to develop material from which I would be able to teach others about a particular topic in theology.  I chose to focus on questions of gender as it relates to theology (since I was working on other projects on a related topic) and came up with this credo which I have dubbed ‘A Cruciform Christian Feminist Credo’.

It’s a work in progress, and much of it needs to be refined and/or flushed out, but I think it’s a good start.  I really enjoyed this project because it forced me to begin refining my own thinking, especially when it came to the catechism and proposing specific questions and crafting specific answers.

I based the structure of my credo off of the Nicene Creed.  I sat down to write this without any sources, except for the Nicene Creed for reference, but as you can tell I’m largely influenced by the work of Michael Gorman, particularly with reference to his work on cruciformity.[1]  While this credo reflects my own personal beliefs (hence, “I believe…”), I am thankfully indebted to others who have shaped my own thinking.  In addition to my own reading of Scripture, this credo represents years of thinking influenced by a number of teachers, authors, bloggers, etc.  Additional influences (as it pertains to the topic of this credo) include Elsa Tamez, Sarah Coakley, Rachel Held Evans, Philip B. Payne, Beverly Gaventa, Carolyn Custis James, Christians for Biblical Equality, N.T. Wright, Richard Hays, my fellow Cataclysmic bloggers and friends, a number of other bloggers, and more… and of course my extremely gifted and learned HBU profs, past and present!

A CRUCIFORM CHRISTIAN FEMINIST CREDO

I believe in the triune God of Scripture, three in one and one in three.
I believe in one God, maker of all creation,
whom we call Father and who is also to us like a mother;
God is our heavenly parent.
God made humankind in his image, both male and female God made them,
to be equal bearers of God’s image and equal caretakers of God’s creation.

I believe that man and woman are equally responsible for Sin,
and both experience the corruption of the Fall.
Woman is no more prone to sin than man, nor man than woman.
The Fall resulted in broken relationships between God and humanity,
woman and man.
Patriarchy is a reflection of a fallen world and
not Godʼs original design for creation.
All of creation is in need of redemption.

I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Humankind,
who for men and women came down from heaven
to bring salvation, redemption, reconciliation, and restoration.
I believe both genders, male and female, are fully represented in the Incarnation.[2]

I believe Jesus is the revelation of God, and in him all the fullness of deity dwells.
God is like Jesus, for when we see Jesus we are seeing God.
Jesus demonstrated the character of God
in his cruciform living, cruciform loving, and cruciform dying.
God vindicated Jesus, our cruciform Lord,
by raising him from the dead–we now await the resurrection to come.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, who gives life to all
and power to those who are ʻin Christʼ
to live life ʻin Christʼ which is to live as he lived–
cruciformly, cross-shaped, self-denying, radically-loving, God-glorifying.

I believe that Godʼs new creation– inaugurated by the Son and activated by the Spirit–reestablishes the equality of all women and men.
Within this new creation, Godʼs people, the church, actively seek out justice
for the oppressed and reconciliation for all
through the proclamation of and participation in
the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
I believe that cruciformity, that is, living and dying like Christ,[3]
can and will transform this world through the power of the Holy Spirit.

1.  See also my earlier post Kenosis, Cruciformity, and Feminism.
2.  This idea comes from Thomas C. Oden’s discussion on “Was the Incarnation Sexist?” in his Systematic Theology.  See my earlier post Gender and the Incarnation.
3. Michael Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (p.48).

Cataclysmic’s Favorite Books of 2013

~ Mike Skinner ~ 1 Comment

Here are some of our top reads from 2013:

Chad Chambers (@ChambersChad)

Favorite Book – T.F. Torrance, Incarnation – not just my favorite book of this year but my favorite book in many years. Hope to read Atonement soon.

Favorite New Book – E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes

Better the Second Time – Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner, The Spirit of Adoption

For the Fun of It – Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

Jessica Parks (@mrsjessparks)

Favorite Book – Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross

Favorite New Book – T. Michael Law, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible

Favorite Patristic Writing – Melito of Sardis, On Pascha

Favorite OT Book – Ellen F. Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament

Mike Skinner (@mike_skinner)

Favorite Book – William C. Placher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture

Favorite Theological Book – Jeff McSwain, Movements of Grace: The Dynamic Christo-Realism of Barth, Bonhoeffer, and the Torrances

Favorite “Sermon-Fodder” Book – Lee C. Camp, Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World

Favorite Patristic Writing – Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ

Michelle Mikeska (@M_Mikeska)

Favorite Book – Ed. Dallas Lee, The Substance of Faith and other Cotton Patch Sermons by Clarence Jordan

Favorite Book on Revelation – Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into New Creation

Favorite Book on Pedagogy – Ed. David S. Cunningham, To Teach, To Delight, and To Move: Theological Education in a Post-Christian World (Seeks to use rhetoric as a meaningful way to teach theology in a postmodern context)

Favorite NT Intro Book – Ben Witherington III, Invitation to the New Testament: First Things

What were your favorite reads of 2013?

love-is-a-book-210x300

Love and Liberation in the Cross of Christ

~ Jessica Parks ~ Leave a comment

I’m continuing to work my way through Gorman’s Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross as well as some feminist responses to theologies of the cross.  It’s been a great benefit to have some really great comments on my last post (Kenosis, Cruciformity, and Feminism) so thank you all for joining in the conversation!

I wanted to share an excerpt from Cruciformity in which Gorman argues that we cannot and need not “liberate the cross from Paul” (p. 376n.21) as some theologians have sought to do. Gorman writes,

Paul’s understanding of the cross does not focus on substitution demanded by a vindictive God but on the love and freedom of both God and Christ that liberates humans from oppressive powers. While it is true that Paul inherits and accepts a sacrificial and even substitutionary understanding of the death of Christ, he places his own emphasis elsewhere. In particular, Paul is concerned to show that Christ’s death is an act of God’s love and of Christ’s love, and that Christ accepted his death voluntarily–even if obediently. He was not the passive recipient of punishment but the initiator of an act of love… God’s sending of Christ was not experienced by Paul fundamentally as an act of violence but as a gift of love for enemies and willful sinners who were simultaneously victims of the evil they embraced.

Paul, then, is not concerned about the details of how atonement occurs, but about the motivation of love behind and in the death, and about the effects of the act of love. It reconciles people to God as it defeats the powers of sin and death, thereby inaugurating a new age–the new age–in which hate and violence have no place. (p. 376)

Gorman notes that his intention is not to downplay “the function of the cross as God’s mans of atonement” but rather his “concern is to stress that Paul does no know a vindictive God but a loving one.” (p. 376n.21) Amen to that!

This focus on motivation and effect is vividly evident in 2 Corinthians 5 in which Paul emphasizes how God demonstrates the initiatory nature of love by willingly taking the first step towards reconciliation–in this the love of God is magnified. The God of Paul’s gospel is the God who loves his creation and is eager to reconcile creation to himself. This passage stands as a loving and necessary rebuke to those who mantra is ‘God hates you’.

I’ve been reading on the atonement (namely, violence and the atonement) for another class and it’s interesting (and helpful!) to see some overlap between my topics of study.  It just goes to show how interconnected and interdependent the different topics and -ologies of the Christian faith are. How we think abut one things affects how we think about another… and so on. And yet, there is so much mystery!

Stay tuned for more thoughts on cruciformity and feminism. My paper is due in two weeks!

Kenosis, Cruciformity, and Feminism

~ Jessica Parks ~ 29 Comments

When I think about feminism, I refer back to the simplest definition of the movement that I know.  Feminism, as I understand it, is primarily about establishing and defending equal rights for women in the social, economic, and political spheres which in turn leads to the empowerment of women.  There is certainly a lot more that goes into feminism, a rather kaleidoscopic movement with a complex history.  However, at its most basic level, feminism is about affirming the equality of women and men and thus advocating for women and women’s rights so that this equality is actually lived out.

Today, many see feminism as an enemy of the Christian faith, or vice-versa.  In many ways this is downright odd considering many of those involved with the early feminist movement were Christians.  And yet there certainly are variations within feminism that are ardently opposed to the Christian faith and message, as well as those within the Church who are zealous for the eradication of even the mere whisper of the word feminism.  In terms of theology and biblical studies, traditional theologies of the cross and suffering have been found lacking or to be destructive to the lives of the oppressed, women being an historically oppressed people group.

While feminism is largely about empowering women, the Christian life is described by Paul as Christlike suffering and self-denial.  To borrow a term from Michael J. Gorman, the Christian life is one of cruciformity.  Gorman describes cruciformity (as demonstrated in the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ) as “the rejection of selfish exploitation of status in favor of self-giving action” (Michael Gorman, “Paul and the Cruciform Way,” Journal of Moral Theology 2:1, [2013], p. 69)  This cruciformity should then characterize the believer’s participatory life ‘in Christ’.  To be Christ-like is to be “radically self-giving.” (p. 70)  This idea of cruciformity is most evident in Philippians 2.1-11 in which Paul exhorts his readers to be like Christ who ‘emptied’ (εκενωσεν) himself.

Cruciformity, then, is cross-shaped existence in Jesus the Messiah. It is letting the cross of the crucified Messiah be the shape, as well as the source, of life in him. It is participating in and embodying the cross. (p. 67)

If feminism is about empowerment and the establishment and defense of equal rights for women, can it at the same time be cruciform?  If the Christian life is a call to reject “selfish exploitation of status in favor of self-giving action” how does the Christian participate in (what I would argue is) the necessary work of feminism?

For a while now I have been thinking about this question: can feminism be cruciform?  Gorman’s book, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (2001), has a section discussing some objections to cruciformity, including those from feminist and womanist theologians.  Gorman explains:

Many feminist and womanist theologians have drawn the conclusion that because the doctrine of atonement and the corollary call to “take up one’s cross” have been used against women, these remnants of an oppressive, patriarchal Christianity need to be abandoned. (p. 373).

Furthermore, feminist theologians have pointed out how the call to imitate Christ-like suffering has been used to force women to endure domestic abuse.  Obviously, this is a valid and important concern.

So, I’m working on a paper for my Paul class in which I aim to describe what a distinctly Christian and cruciform feminism looks like.  I’ve had this (rather broad) question in mind for a while, wondering how I can be actively working for women’s rights while at the same time laying my own rights down.  I’m still working on my thesis but you’ve probably already guessed that I think the answer is “yes.”  Feminism can be cruciform.  In fact, I hope to argue that feminism (namely, a distinctly Christian and thus cruciform feminism) is necessary because the world at large is not (yet) cruciform.

In researching the question, I’m pulling from a number of different topics and authors.  I’ve been reading books and articles from the likes of Sarah Coakley, Beverly Gaventa, Richard Hays, Elsa Tamez, Rosemary R. Ruether, and of course Gorman.  Confession time: though I’ve always considered myself a feminist, until recently I just hadn’t read a lot from authors who specifically identify themselves as feminist theologians.  A few semesters ago I read some articles by Mercy Amba Oduyoye, an African Womanist theologian (whose work I really enjoyed), for a hermeneutics paper but since then I’ve not read much else.  I am learning a lot, which includes discovering areas in which I actually do not identify with other feminist theologians.  Nevertheless, I certainly appreciate their work and find myself asking a lot of the same questions.

I’m particularly interested in what Sarah Coakley, a feminist theologian, has to say in her book Powers and Submissions.  Yesterday I read one of the essays, titled “Kenosis and Subversion”, in which she argues,

kenosis [is] not only compatible with feminism, but vital to a distinctively Christian manifestation of it, a manifestation which does not eschew, but embraces, the spiritual paradoxes of ‘losing one’s life in order to save it’. (p4)

Truth be told, I need to reread the essay a few more times to get a better grasp of her argument but I’m looking forward to learning from her on this subject.  Hopefully it will help me with this paper!

I’m sure some of you out there have thought through this subject before.  Do you have an comments, questions, or helpful insights to share?  Are there any sources you would recommend?  I look forward to sharing more in the next couple of weeks as my paper (hopefully) comes together.  Most of all I look forward to learning more and being challenged in the way I think.  Paper writing is a very strenuous process for me but after all the agony and pain I have always come out on the other side thankful for what I’ve learned.  Godspeed to all you who have papers due this month!  And especially for those who are gearing up for presenting at SBLAAR!!

Interpreting the Violent Imagery in Revelation

~ Mike Skinner ~ 9 Comments

In case you missed it, Mark Driscoll caused quite a stir yesterday with his comments on Jesus, God, and pacifism.  I’ve already offered my general thoughts on why Driscoll is wrong about Jesus (Jesus is Cruciform, Not Octagonal) as have others (three particularly thoughtful responses can be found here, here, and here).  But, I still think there is more to say.

You see, I understand why people struggle to understand God as consistently nonviolent.

Let’s be honest.  There is a lot of violence directly attributed to God in both the Old and New Testaments.

If you take away Driscoll’s flare for controversial rhetoric, I’ve found that his view represents that of a large amount of Jesus-centered, Kingdom-focused Christians.  They understand Jesus’ ethical priorities in the Gospels and don’t want to dismiss or compromise them, but they have no idea how they could possibly interpret Revelation (and other parts of the Bible) without doing so.  I think it is important to not simply dismiss these concerns, but to instead offer alternative readings of these problematic passages.

How could one possibly read the violent imagery found in Revelation 14:14-20 (cited by Driscoll) without concluding that Jesus will one day shed the blood of his enemies?

I think Michael Gorman, in his excellent book Reading Revelation Responsibly, provides a possible way forward.  He suggests that we take another look at the proper (and intended) function of the violent symbolism in Revelation:

“The language and images of death and destruction (in Revelation) symbolize – in comprehensible, if disturbing, idiom – the universality and finality of God’s ultimate eradication of evil rather than the means by which God brings about that eradication.  As the omnipotent One who spoke creation into existence, God hardly needs to resort to literal violence to effect the cessation of evil… Instead, Revelation should be understood as portraying symbolically what God does actually with a divine performative utterance, an effective word not unlike the word that spoke creation into existence.” (p. 152)

There is an abundance of symbolism in the second “harvest scene” of Revelation 14.  Is anyone really willing to interpret this apocalyptic passage “literally”?  Will there really be a giant angel with a cosmic sickle harvesting grapes and putting them in a divinely-wrathful winepress that produces blood when trodden outside the city?  Is the blood going to literally flow as high as 184 miles?  Will the Guinness Book of World Records be there to measure it?  If not, why must we read the “blood” as real blood being poured out of deceased human bodies that have been ripped apart by Jesus?

What if the symbolism and imagery isn’t mean to communicate the means of judgement but the effect of judgement?  This isn’t just special pleading by the “pansies.”  After all, there are plenty of nonviolent themes in the book of Revelation.  Jesus is declared worthy to rule because of (not in spite of) his nonviolence.  The church is commanded to follow Christ’s example and conquer by their blood (not that of their enemies).

And why do we have to assume that God can’t effectively eradicate evil nonviolently? Gorman points out that Revelation itself provides clues that this might be the case.  For instance, the sword that strikes down Jesus’ enemies comes from his mouth in Revelation 19:11-16, 21.  As Gorman says, “This signifies the effective word of God’s judgement – the wrath of God and the Lamb – that needs no literal sword, and which a literal sword could never accomplish.” (pg. 153)  Likewise, Gorman notes that there is no fighting recorded during the five great “battle scenes” of Revelation.  No blood, no guts, no bombs, no swords, no violence.  When I teach through the book of Revelation, this is always a striking feature of the book to high schoolers – it is anti-climatic.  Revelation never follows through on the expectation it builds in the Western reader for a classic Armageddon battle. Why?  Gorman answers, “Because the images of battle are supposed to suggest to us the promise and reality of God’s defeat of evil, but they are not the means of that defeat… Christ’s only weapon is the ‘sword’ of his word.” (pg. 155)  I think Gorman’s suggestion, that God might eradicate creatures in a way similar to how he created and sustains them, is worth serious consideration.

So then, what is the message of Revelation 14? That God will, because of his desire for a peaceful new creation, fully and finally judge all that is evil.  It is not clear to me that this passage is meant to do anything more or anything less than this.  In particular, I find it hard to accept that it should cause me to radically reinterpret the picture of God we have received in Jesus.

While I don’t imagine this reading will convince everyone (anyone?), it should at least make it obvious that pacifists aren’t ignoring these “violent” texts.  There are real, viable ways to read Revelation that don’t make God into a monster.  Maybe we should try them out.

Do you agree?