Summer Moltmann Blogging: Golgotha and Auschwitz

From The Way of Jesus Christ, p. 210.

"This means that it is neither religious poetry nor a disregard for the dignity of the individual and alien suffering of others when we see Golgotha and Auschwitz together, and say that Christ too was murdered in Auschwitz. The apocalyptic Christ suffers in the victims of sin and violence. The apocalyptic Christ suffers and sighs too in the tormented creation sighing under the violent acts of our modern human civilization. We therefore have to extend the remembrance of Christ's sufferings to all those in whose fellowship Christ suffers, and whom he draws into his fellowship through his sufferings. It is only when the remembering extends to their sufferings that hope will spread to the fields of the dead in history. But where forgetfulness is the order of the day, the dead are slain once more and the living become blind."

Summer Moltmann Blogging: the Solidarity of Christ

From The Way of Jesus Christ, p.180. (I've changed the male God language to female God language, leaving it otherwise unchanged.)

"Let us sum up:
'The sufferings of Christ' are God's sufferings because through them God shows her solidarity with human beings and her whole creation everywhere: God is with us.
'The sufferings of Christ' are God's sufferings because through them God intervenes vicariously on our behalf, saving us at the point where we are unable to stand but are forced to sing into nothingness: God is for us.
'The sufferings of Christ' are God's sufferings, finally, because out of them the new creation of all things is born: We come from God.
Solidarity, vicarious power and rebirth are the divine dimensions in the sufferings of Christ. Christ is with us, Christ is for us, and in Christ we are a new creation. In what sense is God love? God is the power of solidarity, the vicarious, the regenerating power."

why did Jesus die?

Listen to this: (from Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power by Rita Nakashima Brock)

"Jesus' death was tragic, but it neither had to happen nor was part of a divine plan for salvation... The brokenheartedness revealed in his death is created by the political systems of patriarchal society and was neither inevitable nor necessary. Such evidence of brokenheartedness does call us, however, to take heed and to understand.
Persons we love evoke our compassion, and to claim anyone's premature death is necessary leads us to thinking suffering is something we cannot protest. To make claims that any person's tragic, painful death is divinely willed or necessary for others to be saved mutes our ability to be angry about unnecessary suffering. Such claims dull the acuteness of our caring. We lose our rage at injustice and our passionate desire to eliminate the structures that produce brokenheartedness. We lose heart." (p.93-94)

That's interesting. However: does it ignore the lived experience of people in the pews, for whom there is power in the blood, for whom Jesus' death is a crucial event?

I don't know. We talked about it in class this morning.

Also: in this book, Brock talks a lot about Heart as a powerful, connective strength that subtly defeats more imperialistic kinds of power. I have to think of Captain Planet, and that totally makes the fifth ring all the better. Anybody know if there's a Captain Planet/ feminist theology link? The book is old enough that someone from the show could have conceivably read it...

Perhaps I'll post more good lines/paragraphs from class readings.