The Theology of the Cross in Historical Perspective

By Anna M. Madsen

The theology of the cross is indisputably a trendy concept today. Numerous seminars, books, and dissertations tackle the topic. But The Theology of the Cross in Historical Perspective demonstrates that theology of the cross is no passing fancy. Theologies of the cross appear at the beginnings of the church, in the sixteenth-century reformations of the church, and in the more contemporary modernization of the church. Without theologies of the cross, what the church is called to be and to preach becomes unclear. So then, what is the theology of the cross?

Anna Madsen surveys the theology of the cross in the thinking of Paul and Luther. She also outlines several important twentieth-century contributions to the subject. On the basis of her analysis, Madsen suggests that the theology of the cross reveals God to be found even in death. In death, after all, boundaries disappear. The theology of the cross assures Christians that God is present in the death of sin and in the realities of suffering and uncertainty. Given that it announces God's presence, the theology of the cross is ultimately a theology of grace, freedom, and trust.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Jan 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9781498276351

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The Theology of the Cross in Historical Perspective

Anna Madsen

THE THEOLOGY OF THE CROSS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Distinguished Dissertations in Christian Theology

Copyright © 2007 Anna Madsen. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Madsen, Anna

The theology of the cross in historical perspective / Anna Madsen.

Distinguished Dissertations in Christian Theology

x + 270 p. ; 23 cm.

Includes bibliography

ISBN: 1-59752-835-8

ISBN 13: 978-1-59752-835-1

EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-7635-1

1. Jesus Christ—Crucifixion—Theology. 2. Paul, the Apostle, Saint—Contributions in theology of the cross. 3. Luther, Martin, 1483–1546—Theology. I. Title. II. Series.

BR 121.2 .M32 2007

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Chapter 1: The Cross in Contemporary Theology

Chapter 2: The Stumbling Block that became the Cornerstone The Cross in Paul’s Theology

Chapter 3: Calling a Thing What It Is Luther’s Theology of the Cross

Chapter 4: The Cross in the Soil of War, Feminism, Poverty, and Wealth

Chapter 5: Is There One Theology of the Cross?

Bibliography

Distinguished Dissertations in Christian Theology



Series Foreword

We are living in a vibrant season for academic Christian theology. After a hiatus of some decades, a real flowering of excellent systematic and moral theology has emerged. This situation calls for a series that showcases the contributions of newcomers to this ongoing and lively conversation. The journal Word & World: Theology for Christian Ministry and the academic society Christian Theological Research Fellowship (CTRF) are happy to cosponsor this series together with our publisher Pickwick Publications (an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers). Both the CTRF and Word & World are interested in excellence in academics but also in scholarship oriented toward Christ and the Church. The volumes in this series are distinguished for their combination of academic excellence with sensitivity to the primary context of Christian learning. We are happy to present the work of these young scholars to the wider world and are grateful to Luther Seminary for the support that helped make it possible.

Elmer M. Colyer

Professor of Historical Theology and

Stanley Professor of Wesley Studies

University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Alan G. Padgett

Professor of Systematic Theology

Luther Seminary

www.ctrf.info

www.luthersem.edu/word&world

Acknowledgements

Only my name appears upon the title page of this dissertation, but a work of this size ought to allow space for the listing of numerous others who helped in its production. Of obvious mention is Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Hans Schwarz, who took a risk four years ago in calling this young green pastor from South Dakota to Regensburg, Germany. Under his tutelage, that color faded during the course of my time here. I am thankful for his patience, depth of knowledge, grace, and wisdom.

Frau Hildegard Ferme, the secretary to the Institut für Evangelische Theologie, is indispensable, not only to Prof. Schwarz, but to the students as well. Foreign students depend on her ability to navigate us through foreign waters, and are heartened by her wit, kindness, and willingness to come to our aid.

I arrived in Germany carried by many who encouraged, advised, and critiqued my work. I would be remiss were I not to note and thank especially the late Walt Bouman, Don Luck, and Bishop Marcus Lohrmann. In my seminary days, all were instrumental in the clarification of the gospel and my response to it. Their scholarly insights and spirited friendships will echo throughout my vocation. I thank also Michael Root, who suggested one day that nothing had yet been done comparing various theologies of the cross.

I thank also Augustana College, and particularly the Department of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics. Their welcome of my family, constant encouragement and collegiality makes work joyful. Jessica Maske, my student worker, assisted tremendously in final editing.

Alan Padgett and Elmer Colyer receive my deep appreciation for their enthusiasm about this project, and their patience during the delay in being brought to press. Accordingly, I thank K. C. Hanson, Charlie Collier, Heather Carraher, and Wipf and Stock Publishers, having found in them fine rapport and professionalism as they make the manuscript into a bound volume.

I find my greatest strength, however, coming from my family. My parents, Marge and George Madsen, inculcated a deep faith in me, not only by what they say and preach, but in how they link their faith and life. Their uncompromising love hints at the love God graces to all God’s children, and I am grateful for it. Per this project, my father demonstrated his affection for me by compiling the indices. Were Lutherans to believe in works righteousness, he would most certainly be rewarded at the gates of heaven. My sister Else and her husband Jon witness to the love of God in their relationship to one another and their children, and evidence it also in their encouragement of my work. I am thankful to them both.

My husband, William Coning, was a gift of whom I was undeserving. He was killed but a month before we were to commence a life together at Augustana College. His support was so unwavering that my ego reached dangerous levels. He willingly and graciously forfeited five years of his own pastoral vocation to come with me to Germany to pursue my dream of doctoral work. There he gave me not only the time and encouragement to take up graduate studies, but has given me our blessed son Karl, and little girl Else, both of whom benefited from Bill’s care as a stay-at-home Dad. Whereas I thanked him for his presence in my life, I thank God even more. God is indeed with us in our suffering.

This work is dedicated to our children, his legacy, and my tangible Easters.

Abbreviations

BC The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, eds. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, trans. Charles Arand, Erick Gritsch, Robert Kolb, William Russell, James Schaaf, Jane Strohl, Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000).

LW Luther’s Works, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehman, 55 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress; St. Louis: Concordia, 1955–86).

WA D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar: Böhlaus, 1883–1957).

chapter 1

The Cross in Contemporary Theology

Grounding of the Task

The cross is laden with meaning and yet empty of it. As a symbol of might, it announced victory, as during the Crusades and for Columbus, who, when he arrived in the Americas, immediately staked a cross in the soil to mark the Queen’s new possession. As a mark of human judgment, it designates who should and should not receive mercy, illustrated when the father of a victim of the Columbine school shooting was forced to take down the two crosses representing the young killers from those he had erected as a memorial to the dead. However, as a symbol without meaning, it indicates a passing trend with no specific statement at all, as seen with the ubiquitous cross necklace, belt buckle, or earring.

Among Jesus’ disciples, the cross unambiguously stood for ostracism, of criminality, of scorn. Mark lays bare the radical and unwelcome concept of a crucified Messiah in 8:27–33. Immediately following Peter’s earnest confession that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus announced his impending suffering and death. In anger, Peter pulled Jesus aside to reject his claim. But Jesus,

turning and looking at his disciples . . . rebuked Peter and said Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

Christians proclaim this paradoxical truth, exactly what Peter rejected, to be good news. The theology of the cross centers the symbol of the cross in the Christian life; theologians of the cross seek to define why it is good news, strive to delineate the implications thereof, and aim to set its theology against the alternative, the theology of glory.

While the theology of the cross is a stock phrase among Christian theologians, what it means remains subject to historical and contextual tides. The goal of this dissertation is to explore various perspectives of the cross and the theology which one can develop from it, and accordingly evaluate the term and its relevance to the Christian life.

As we shall see, regardless of its representative and the nuances of their particular perspective, the theology of the cross insists that salvation a) comes through the cross; and b) necessarily re-establishes authority and action according to God’s will. The nature of this salvation, however, is quantified differently, depending upon the theologian of the cross and their analysis of human need. We turn first, therefore, to a consideration of salvation and the human situation.

Saved from What?

Evil and suffering permeate our reality and give rise to the cry How long, oh Lord, how long? The cross, paradoxically a statement of death against death, stands in opposition to the presence of pain. But why pain at all? From what, or from whom, do we need to be saved?

Tradition often turns to the enigmatic figure of Satan. The etymology of the name itself is instructive. The word ‘satan’ stems from a verb meaning to be at enmity with. As a noun, it assumed the meaning of an accuser, as we see particularly in Job 1–2 and Zech 3:1–2. Although such a prosecutor was not considered to be necessarily evil, the image of Satan as the antithesis of God became strengthened after the introduction of Persian thought into the Judeo-Christian world during the late Post-exilic period.¹

Other texts suggest that God is the author of evil. Job 32:11, Isa 45:7 and Amos 3:6 all indict God for complicity in the creation of evil. But largely due to Persian and exilic influences, the Hebrew people wished to protect God from being seen as the creator of evil. A comparison of 2 Sam 24, in which the anger of God inspires David take the census (something which God will later condemn) with the later 1 Chr 21:1, in which Satan is the muse, illustrates the trend.²

Overwhelmingly, New Testament evidence tells of a God who has nothing to do with evil, other than banishing and overcoming it. For example, Jas 1:13 makes clear that [n]o one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. Third John 1:11, Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God, indicates that when one is in the presence of evil one is not in the presence of God.

Despite its ambiguous nature, Ted Peters maintains that theologians must address the experience of evil and the satanic. By doing so he does not imply that the devil ought to receive the trust and affirmation that properly belong only to God.³ Rather the devil should be the object of disbelief.⁴ Satan’s reality is to be rejected.⁵

The claim that evil contains no substance does not imply that it has no power. Its grasp on the human condition and on creation is painfully real. Christians assert that the only hope of reconciliation between God’s creatures and God is the way of Jesus, [f]or in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Col 1:19–20). In this sense, the question of the power of the demonic becomes a question of the first commandment, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me (Ex 19:2–3). The question is not whether other gods exist, but rather whether humanity chooses to trust them. Peters says [w]e invoke demonic power when we treat something as if it were infinite.⁶ Something other than God becomes ultimate.

The Ambiguity of Evil, Suffering, and Sin

Rosemary Radford Ruether details the innate difficulty of proper discernment of good and evil by telling of the temptation to live according to destructive patterns. [The] greatest evil . . . is the deliberate choice to reject this emancipation from Egyptian bondage, to long to be back in the land of slavery and idolatry.⁷ While spoken in reference to women’s tendencies to remain in dysfunctional relationships, her observation attends to the risk of rebelling against the bondage of evil, a rebellion which necessitates pain, risk, fear, and suffering. To that degree, it is often safer to remain in the comfort of idolatry.

While it is true that misdirected trust gives rise to suffering caused and manifested in war, rape, abuse, and greed, so too do natural disasters, illness, and death, cause so-called innocent suffering.⁸ Regardless of the source of suffering, the real promise of death exerts a concrete power which can prevail over all promises of life. When one believes that death will ultimately have the last word, apathy can ensue. So I hated life, said Qoheleth because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after the wind, (Eccl 2:17).⁹ Dorothee Sölle believed that the hopelessness of which Qoheleth spoke must be respected, and so she rejected the temptation to quantify, and categorize suffering.¹⁰ Suffering defies human explanation, particularly in light of a crucified God. In fact, she named it blind, tyrannical, absurd.¹¹ The only appropriate response is to defy it. Be it by way of lament, outright disobedience, or solidarity with the persecuted, humanity is to refuse suffering’s attempt to dominate its spirit.

Douglas John Hall agrees that it is impossible to find a coherent, satisfactory reasoning for the existence of suffering. As he explores the story of Job, perhaps the quintessential metaphor for suffering, he concludes that no amount of reason can make sense of his plight.¹² Indeed, rationalization and pacification only belittle his pain, as if restored fortunes supplant his previous family, possessions, and health. So Job retreats into himself. This reality leads Hall to say "it is not what God says finally to the suffering Job but that God says something that is the answer."¹³ Despite suffering’s attempt to alienate Job from his source of life, God maintains relationship in the midst of Job’s loneliness and despair.

In fact, in Job, Hall sees the possibility of redemptive suffering. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath (Job 7:16). Perhaps, says Hall, loneliness, limits, temptation, and anxiety are all built into the structure of creation. Without loneliness, humanity has no appreciation for the need of the other. Without limits, it falls into hedonism, making mundane everything that once had worth. Without temptation, no concept exists of what is good or just, for they need their opposites to appreciate that which is righteous. Without anxiety, people become automatons, unable to appreciate the tension, anticipation, and mystery of life. Hall acknowledges that innately, these facets of life have the potential to cause great suffering. But that they exist give life its warp and woof.¹⁴

Sölle too, although opposed to unjust suffering, believed that suffering can be a beacon of something profound. As an example she referred to marriages which dissolve with no remorse and no reflection.¹⁵ The lack of suffering betrays an apathy to the seriousness of a relationship gone afoul. In such cases, suffering would be a sign of health, whereas a lack of suffering indicates an absence of humanity. In this fashion, she again clarifies that humanity depends upon relationships. When one removes oneself from the sphere of inter-relatedness, there is the real risk of being severed from one’s own humanity.

Too, the lack of involvement with those who suffer betrays the Christian calling to suffer with. She fears that the individual piety movement introduces such a danger. Certainly Jesus died for me. But when theological reflection stops there, it forgets that Jesus died for all. Content that salvation has been granted, there is little motivation to attend to those who need to hear the word of the cross.¹⁶ Hall describes the alternative:

[W]hen the Christian community takes to itself the task of comprehending and engaging the culture which is its worldly context, it is not assuming a merely intellectual investigation; it is entering into the deepest darkness of the world. It will only discern the truth of God that is light for that darkness if and insofar as it exposes itself to the darkness.¹⁷

In this way, even the rebellion against suffering is a mark of hope.

Original Sin

About original sin, Luther said that it has caused such a deep, evil corruption of nature that reason does not comprehend it; rather, it must be believed on the basis of revelation from the Scriptures.¹⁸ However, the term original sin is not to be found in the Bible. Numerous texts suggest that sin is indeed inescapable. Jeremiah 5:23, 17:9–10, and Is 29:13 are but a few references to sin being an intrinsic aspect of human nature.¹⁹ Ferdinand Deist believes that overall, the Old Testament suggests that it is possible for humanity not to sin, though all do (Gen 6:5, 8:21; 1 Kgs 8:46; Prov 20:9). Although one can turn to Ps 51:5 (Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me) to find support for a hereditary understanding of original sin, Deist maintains that this verse misrepresents the overarching understanding found in the Old Testament. Rather, Sir 15:14 ought to frame a proper understanding of sin: From the beginning God created humans and put them under the power of their free will.²⁰

Interestingly, the Old Testament, outside of Genesis, refers to Adam but once, in 1 Chr 1:1. Eve receives even less attention, mentioned in Genesis by name but twice. The New Testament too mentions Eve only on two occasions, whereas Adam is referred to seven times in total. Twice he is noted in a list of descendents (Luke 3:38 and Jude 1:4). The other references (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:22 and 15:45; and 1 Tim 2:13–14) concern sin. It should not go unnoticed that these latter occurrences exclusively appear in Pauline works. In every instance, the immediate context is that of salvation through Jesus Christ. It appears that for Paul, Adam’s import was not to maintain the actuality of an initial trespass, but rather to make it clear that just as humanity has a common ancestor, Adam, who was sinful, so too it has a common Savior, Jesus. Humanity is united in its need for something outside of itself to rescue it from its trespasses.

The Protestant Christian tradition believes that Paul’s teaching was that humanity can not not sin, that it has a penchant to sin. This tendency, regardless of its origin, is deemed ‘original sin.’²¹

Sin

Still, that humanity intentionally chooses the path toward misery, sorrow, suffering, and alienation defies explanation. As Ted Peters says, [t]here is no good reason for destroying what is. Sin can give no good reason for what it is or what it does. Hence, by nature sin is not subject to a rational explanation.²² The temptation is to avoid the uncomfortable nature of sin’s inscrutability and consequent discomfort, as one sees in many contemporary liturgies which avoid the word sin in favor of weaker alternatives like shortcomings.

Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki rejects this attempt to evade sin’s grasp on humanity, and says that the language of sin must be retained because sin, unlike evil, entails human responsibility and human hope.²³ A brief survey of Scripture’s treatment of sin reveals the complementarity of these two. Luther found great comfort in Ps 130, for here the juxtaposition of sin and grace finds resolution. The psalmist of 130 confesses to have sinned. The Hebrew word ‘‘awon means iniquity, guilt, or punishment. Accordingly, the verbal form of this word means bend, twist, or distort. The psalmist cries, If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?" (v. 3). By this universal confession it is clear that the psalmist recognizes that all are prone to such distortion, and all incur guilt. Nevertheless, there is selichah, forgiveness with God, which frees believers from the imprisonment of its sins. Jeremiah 33:8 fuses the concept of iniquity with that of missing the mark, hattat, the other primary Hebrew word often rendered as sin. He connects both with God’s necessary forgiveness. I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me.

The New Testament consistently considers sin in the context of the one who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). In the Johannine works, sin is something humanity possesses. John 9:41 illustrates this concept. There, Jesus said to the Pharisees, If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. First John 1:8 makes the same point: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Sin, in these cases, is a quasi-tangible entity, while in other instances sin is something under which one is captive. What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under the power of sin, (Rom 3:9), or Heb 3:13, But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Romans 7 demonstrates the entrapment suffered by sinners: I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me (Rom 7:18b–19).

This same Romans text also offers believers hope. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! . . . There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (Rom 7:25a, 8:1–2) This is why Reinhold Niebuhr states that without clearly articulating one’s sinfulness, the gospel cannot be heard:

The idea that man is sinful at the very centre of his personality, that is in his will, is universally rejected. It is this rejection which has seemed to make the Christian gospel simply irrelevant to modern man, a fact which is of much more importance than any conviction about its incredibility.²⁴

With no sin, there is no need of gospel. With no gospel, humanity remains trapped in its sin.

Theologians have sought to define the precise nature of sin. Pannenberg also considers Augustine’s influence in his review of sin. He believes that Augustine developed the already existing idea that sin is not only a rebellion against God, but ultimately a rebellion against humanity’s own integrity and well-being:

According to Augustine, when human beings distort the natural order of creation through their volitional action they reject their own happiness, since they can obtain this only from God, who is their supreme good as he is the supreme good of all being.²⁵

God’s intention was that humanity be in relationship with creation. Humanity is intended to correspond with God, one another, and even amongst itself. Sin disrupts this harmony and necessarily destroys the potential of community.

Peters notes that for Augustine concupiscence consists of preferring the things that are lower . . . over the things that are higher, of desiring what is inferior.²⁶ Barth and Niebuhr assumed a similar interpretation, and defined concupiscence even more precisely as a form of arrogance. Barth explains sin as the preoccupation, the orientation, the determination of humanity as it has left its place as a creature and broken its covenant with God.²⁷ Niebuhr maintains that sin is due to pride, a belief that we alone can achieve what is right and good.²⁸

According to Paul Sponheim, Søren Kierkegaard defines sin as either the strong choice to become another self or as the weak not to be the self intended by the Creator.²⁹ Here, Kierkegaard anticipated the critique of the traditional understanding of sin as lodged by Valerie Saiving Goldstein in her groundbreaking article The Human Situation: A Feminine View. Instead of the masculine sins of pride and a questing for power, feminine sins

are better suggested by such items as triviality, distractibility, and diffuseness; lack of an organizing center or focus; dependence on others for one’s own self-definition; tolerance at the expense of standards of excellence; inability to respect the boundaries of privacy; sentimentality, gossipy sociability, and mistrust of reason—in short, underdevelopment or negation of the self.³⁰

This definition counters the traditional definition of sin as preponderance toward pride and arrogance. It points out that while women sin, generally their sin is fundamentally different—even opposite to—that described by the Church for centuries. However, both masculine and feminine forms of sin alienate the believer from God. Either sin insists that one has no self to offer, as in feminine sin, or that there is no need to yield the self, as in masculine sin.

Of course, sin is bound not just to the male or female individual. David H. Kelsey maintains that sin is a socially shared problem and not isolated individuals’ problem with God.³¹ Sin destroys relationships, and Suchocki goes so far as to say that the transmission of sin is our embeddedness within a ready-made social system.³² David Kelsey believes that theologians such as Jürgen Moltmann and Gustavo Gutiérrez advocate an all-embracing understanding of sin that recognizes a basic oppression endemic to our human situation. For such theologians,

sin is understood basically to be unjust societal self-contradiction, in contrast to sin as the self-contradictory state of human subjects. Hence, sin is at once socially structural (the functional equivalent of ‘original sin’ as corruption) and individual (the functional equivalent of ‘actual sin’ as personal act.)³³

The recognition of social sin, also known as systemic evil, reflects a contemporary post-WWII perspective, demanding personal and collective culpability. Salvation and acts of justice are passive and active consequences of the cross which do not erase sin and evil, but confront them with an eschatological hope.

As with evil, suffering, and original sin, sin remains inexplicable. So Stanley Hauerwas says,

Accordingly, the church’s approach to sin (and sickness) is not to provide an explanation, but to be a contingent human transformation whereby our condition as sinners is bounded by the more determinative reality of our salvation. Sin and sickness from the church’s perspective just are.³⁴

The theology of the cross does not seek to explain sin away as much as it recognizes it as an element of reality from which humanity needs to be redeemed. Although different theologies of the cross emphasize different conceptualizations of sin, they all tell of a God who operates in, with, and under sinfulness.

Finitude, Anxiety, and Alienation

Life is a product of contingencies bounded by a birth that is unchosen and by a death predictable only by its inevitability. Hauerwas maintains that humanity’s anxiety in the face of finitude is demonstrated by modernity’s preferred manner of dying. In a pre-Kantian world, humanity acted with an awareness that God observed its actions. Therefore it feared sudden death, with no time to confess sins. Now, one hopes to die a quick and pain-free death.³⁵

But Suchocki questions whether anxiety in the face of finitude plays much of a role in today’s modern life. [S]urely the condition of those most directly confronted with death should be illustrations of the power of anxiety as the presupposition of sin. But this is not the case.³⁶ One need only look to the peace of martyrs or those facing terminal illness to see that death can lend itself to great peace. She also refutes the power of anxiety by noting how unaware young people are of their mortality. Even adults who come down with a dreaded sickness seem surprised that they will soon die. How then, she asks, is anxiety over fear of death to account for the extent and enormity of sins of oppression?³⁷

She acknowledges that humanity experiences anxiety, however, and traces it to the fact that to live humanity must destroy. Implicitly, though, humanity knows that it can be not only the destroyer but also the destroyed. Through recreation, intentional ignorance, and isolation, humanity attempts to avoid this reality, but ultimately recognizes that there is no escape. Its only choice is to participate in the cycle.³⁸ Therefore, Niebuhr says,

It may be observed, by way of anticipating later expositions of the cause of evil in human life, that Jesus’ injunction Therefore I say unto you be not anxious contains the whole genius of the Biblical view of the relation of finiteness to sin in man. It is not his finiteness, dependence and weakness but his anxiety about it which tempts him to sin.³⁹

The Community of the Cross

Vigen Guroian describes the communal implications of the cross when he retells of a visit to a graveyard in Giumri in Armenia.

As I looked out on this city of graves, I began to realize in my gut and not just my intellect that Holy Saturday is compelling for Orthodox Christians because of its profound social meaning, because through its symbolism the victory of Christ over death is made tangible as a communal event. Christ’s descent into Hades is a triumph over the desolation and the loneliness, the isolation and the despair, that Satan, sin and death have inflicted upon every human being.⁴⁰

The correlation between humanity’s relationship to God and its communal relationship to one another is central for most of the theologies of the cross to be studied. In 2 Cor 5:14–15, Paul states that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. A contemporary version of this claim comes from Joel Green, who says that it is

in the human capacity to relate to God as his partner in covenant, and to join in companionship within the human family and in relation to the whole cosmos in ways that reflect the covenant love of God. ‘Humanness,’ in this