The cross of Christ has proven to be no less of a "stumbling block" for Christians living in the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, than it was in the first century, when the newly established community of friends and followers of Jesus Christ sought to define the
foundation of their faith over against the critiques of their Jewish and Greek contemporaries. This book presents a theological reception of the contemporary feminist challenge to classical christology by means of an explicit feminist retrieval and reconstruction of a theology of the cross.
Gudmundsdottir argues that a feminist theology of the cross serves a dual purpose in feminist christology: it discloses the patriarchal distortion of traditional christology, and can also reveal lost dimensions in the understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Although Gudmundsdottir
argues that feminist critique is an indispensable element of contemporary christology, she also claims that there is a redemptive message in the cross of Christ that is retrievable for women today. Despite its potential for abuse and indeed its well-documented history of misuse against women in the
past, a theology of the cross proclaims Jesus as a divine co-sufferer who brings good news to the poor and oppressed, and as such can be a source of healing and empowerment for suffering women. The constructive task of this book is to show that a theology of the cross can indeed become a theology of
hope today, offering women meaning and strength from a God who takes human form and enters redemptively into their situations of suffering.
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Christ, the Cross and the Feminist Critique
1. An Introduction to the Feminist Critique of the Christian Tradition
2. Feminist Reconstruction of Christology - Typology
3. The Life and Death of Jesus Christ from the Perspective of the
Cross
4. The Cross of Christ: Symbol of Hope or Sign of Oppression?
Conclusion: The Cross of Christ as a Symbol of Hope
Bibliography
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Arnfridur Gudmundsdottir is Professor of Systematic Theology with Emphasis on Feminist Theology, at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Iceland.
Feminism and Theology - Edited by Janet Martin Soskice and Diana Lipton
Women and Religious Traditions - Edited by Leona M. Anderson and Pamela Dickey Young
Gendered Worlds - Judy Root Aulette, Judith Wittner and Kristen Blakely
Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin
