Imitatio Christi-based feminist critique

Feminist critics have fiercely pressed several objections to classic theories of atonement. Amid a critique of several classic theories of atonement, Rebecca Ann Parker writes,

In the same book, Rita Nakashima Brock identifies the root of the concern at traditional theories of salvation and atonement:

Delores Williams focuses on how the substitutionary element of traditional theories of atonement is problematic given the experience of Black women:

Adam Kotsko pointedly distils these arguments:

So, according to these critics, classic atonement theories perpetuate, reinforce, reinscribe, or support a host of injustices upon women: sexist social structures, obedient and passive acceptance of abuse, and exploitation.

How is this so? How are we to infer these consequences from the classic theories? None of the above sources quite explain how this inference is supposed to go. Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza offers a promising explanation. She writes,

Fiorenza here draws on the venerable notion in Christian discipleship of imitatio Christi – the imitation of Christ as a norm for Christian behaviour. She isn’t the only scholar to see this norm as problematic for women. In a general essay on the imitation of Christ, Margaret Miles states,

These ideas from Fiorenza and Miles can be used to build a forceful critique of classic atonement theories; I’ll call it ‘the imitatio Christi based feminist critique’. The critique is best understood as a dilemma, with the feminist critic endorsing a certain resolution of the dilemma. The dilemma amounts to a conflict between four theses:

According to the imitatio Christi-based feminist critique, there is a conflict between these four theses. Assume IC and CDP. It follows then that imitating Christ’s death – by imitating crucial features Christ manifested in his death – is a paradigm way in which Christians morally ought to imitate Christ. Assume now CAT. The classic atonement theories specify the crucial features. What it means to imitate Christ’s death is to imitate features of Christ in his death that are highlighted as virtuous by the classic atonement theories. All the classic theories highlight that Christ intentionally sacrificed his life for the sake of others, accepting suffering that he did not deserve – acting as a substitute or example – so that others may be saved. Sacrificial undeserved suffering voluntarily endured as a substitute or example to bring about some good end is endorsed as particularly virtuous – indeed, perhaps the chief virtue of Christ. Followers of Christ are enjoined to take up their cross daily and follow Christ (Lk 9:23), to serve others as Christ served by giving up his life as a ransom for many (Matt 20:28), to have the same attitude as Christ who took the form of a servant, ‘humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross’ (Phil 2:5, 7–8, NIV), to love our fellow followers as Christ loved us and so ‘we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers’ (1Jn 3:16, NIV), to be willing to endure suffering as a witness to Christ (Rev 7:14) and a way of revealing the life of Christ (2Cor 4:10, 12). In one of the most explicit passages on the importance of imitating Christ, slaves are enjoined to submit to their masters – even harsh masters – because they will be suffering for doing good and ‘to this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps’ (1Pet 2:21, NIV). The passage goes on to describe how Christ suffered to elucidate why and how the slaves should imitate him:

So, it is virtuous not to resist or retaliate undeserved harm and instead to rely on God to bring about justice and, it seems, to be like Christ in bearing the sins of others so that the sinners might turn to God and live.

Imitating Christ in his death in these sorts of ways – informed by how the classic atonement theories interpret the significance of Christ’s death – perpetuates, reinforces, reinscribes, legitimates, or supports injustices upon women. 1 Peter gives moral advice that at least perpetuates, reinforces, and supports injustices on slaves (it’s less clear injustice is reinscribed or legitimated). As Fiorenza notes, the default position of many women, historically, is a state of oppression. They suffer unjustly, and the ethics of imitatio Christi informed by classic atonement theories – while not necessarily endorsing the injustice – morally enjoins women to imitate Christ by enduring these sufferings as a way of serving others, showing love to others, bearing witness to Christ’s life of love in the hopes of converting others, meanwhile relying on God to bring about ultimate justice. This encourages submission, meekness, and humility that – given the way the world in fact works – perpetuates the oppression of women. Thus, CAT, IC, and CDP entail that (No Reinforcement) is false, and so these four claims form a dilemma.

Feminist critics say we should solve this dilemma by rejecting at least CAT. And, indeed, of these four theses, CAT seems least plausible. IC and CDP are explicitly stated and illustrated in various places in the New Testament, and (No Reinforcement) is strongly supported by independent ethical reasoning. The Church (a few denominations aside) has famously refrained from settling on a specific view of the atonement, and theologians and philosophers today still debate (often with passion!) how best to understand the atonement in light of scripture. So, if we must reject one of these theses, there is a strong case to be made that CAT is the one to go.

Some critics appear to reject IC and CDP along with CAT. Logic doesn’t demand rejecting more than one thesis, but these critics appear to think that the classic atonement theories are so deeply intertwined with the statements in scripture about imitating Christ that there simply is no way to surgically separate norms of imitatio Christi from the classic atonement theories. If we must reject the latter, then we must also reject the former.

Other critics, however, are content to reject only CAT. They think the norms of imitatio Christi can be upheld so long as we interpret the significance of Christ’s death differently. The most popular move is to endorse some version of Christus Victor theory according to which (very roughly) Christ dies on the cross as a byproduct of his main goal to defeat the powers of evil and to triumph over them in the most decisive way possible through resurrection (see, e.g. Weaver Reference Weaver2001). Thus, Christ’s death is valuable simply as a way of combatting the powers of evil, and so we should imitate Christ in his death through acts of combatting the powers of evil. Thus, fighting against various forms of oppression is consistent with imitating Christ; indeed, the suffering people will endure as they fight against systems of oppression will itself be endured as a way of imitating Christ. Submitting to oppression to present an example of love, obedience, and humility would not amount to imitating Christ’s death, on this view.

Notice that, at least in principle, this sort of approach can use the dilemma to argue against the classic theories of atonement without falling afoul of other common objections to feminist critiques. This approach doesn’t mischaracterize the classic atonement theories (indeed, the dilemma I’ve presented honours the classic theories, although it simplifies them in ways that do not affect the force of the dilemma). It can also assume an orthodox view of the Trinity on which the will of the Father and the Son are the same. And, as noted above, the imitatio Christi-driven feminist critique argues from a key theme of scripture against theoretical views (i.e. the classic theories of atonement). Those who honour prominent ethical norms presented in scripture will thus have good reason to accept IC and CDP. Thus, even if many other feminist critiques fail because they fall prey to the common objections mentioned above, the imitatio Christi-based critique remains to pose an additional challenge for the classic theories.Footnote ¹

McNall objects to feminist critiques on the grounds that they make ‘a tacit assumption that each Christian doctrine may do the work of all the others’ (McNall Reference McNall2019, 163). A broader look at the various ways scripture grounds ethical claims offers sufficient resources to morally oppose the oppression of women. This objection doesn’t quite defuse the imitatio Christi-based critique because – even if there are other scriptural grounds for opposing acts that support the oppression of women – if IC, CDP, and CAT are true, then there is a strong prima facie case that women ought to behave in ways that support the oppression of women. Given that imitating Christ’s death is paradigmatic for a Christian moral life, this case is prima facie quite strong; that implication alone is problematic. What defenders of a classic theory of atonement need is not scriptural reasons that override a strong prima facie case that women should engage in behaviour that supports their oppression, but rather reasons that undercut this apparent implication of the classic theories (together with IC and CDP).

Such undercutting reasons are precisely what I shall now attempt to provide. I will argue that a more careful analysis of imitation together with an appreciation of the final goal of atonement in the classic theories – reconciliation – will show that CAT, IC, and CDP do not in fact imply a rejection of (No Reinforcement). On the contrary, a good case for accepting (No Reinforcement) can be made based on the other three theses.

A reply: imitation and reconciliation

We can imitate people in various ways. An example will help illustrate the space of possibilities. In the early 1990s, a series of advertisements for Gatorade encouraged viewers to ‘be like Mike’ – the famous basketball player, Michael Jordan. There are many ways to be like Mike. You could try to very closely imitate some of his idiosyncratic basketball behaviour – the way he sticks his tongue out while playing, or the way he dunks a basketball, or his acrobatic layups. And you might do this for a variety of reasons – to impress your friends, to look cool, to get some laughs, or to become a better basketball player. Crucially, your motivations and goals don’t necessarily resemble Mike’s motivations and goals. I’ll call this kind of imitation mimicking or aping – it’s a kind of imitation that focuses on closely replicating the behaviour and may be done out of various motivations, for various goals, and isn’t focused on replicating motivations or goals. You could abstract away from closely replicating his behaviour and instead imitate certain kinds of things Mike does. For instance, you might drink Gatorade like Mike. You don’t drink it just like he drinks it; you’re imitating his drinking it, not how he drinks it. Or maybe you abstract away even further and imitate not his drinking of Gatorade, but instead his regular drinking of hydrating liquids. Maybe you don’t like Gatorade, but you drink a bunch of water and Powerade instead. Imitating action types – as those types get more abstract – affects the kinds of motives and goals you might have. For instance, you’re not going to look cool drinking a glass of water because Mike does it, but you might look cool drinking a glass of Gatorade because he does (and a socially competent person would know this).

Often one imitates action types because one is more interested in (i) the person’s motives or goals behind their specific actions and (ii) acting in a way that somewhat resembles the other person’s actions so as to effectively achieve the same goals (or to work towards achieving those goals), with similar motives. Suppose, for instance, that Mike sticks his tongue out because it helps him focus, or because it is a way of taunting the opponent he is crushing. You too want to focus while playing basketball, or taunt your opponent effectively, but you know you’d just look silly sticking out your tongue (and it doesn’t feel good to you). So, you find some other physical act that will achieve the same goal. Here you are imitating Mike, but you are not mimicking him. And the way you imitate his actions is shaped in part by motives and goals you think he has that you wish to share, and in part by your own skills, abilities, traits, desires, and passions.

One may be primarily interested in imitating a person’s character, motives, and goals and only secondarily interested in imitating their behaviour. Suppose I admire Mike’s tenacity – how hard he trains and works, his relentless will to win. I’m not a basketball player, but I want to share those qualities of his and apply them in my own profession as a philosopher. Very little of what I do will resemble what Mike does; I’m not going to lift a bunch of weights and practise free throws for hours. Instead, I might write more and submit my work to more conferences. But if I were a basketball player, I might imitate more closely some of Mike’s habits and behaviours. The key to this form of imitation is that one is treating the other person as a role model in some regard. I’ll call this form of imitation emulation, following Zagzebski (Reference Zagzebski2017).

People sometimes mimic Christ, such as a child repeating the Lord’s Prayer at the encouragement of her parents. Even mature Christians say the Lord’s Prayer, but they’ll do so as a way of trying to imitate Christ’s attitudes towards God the Father and his concern for humanity. The latter’s prayer isn’t mere mimicry; rather, it is a form of emulation that is coupled with close behavioural imitation. Emulation, indeed, appears to be the way Christians are to imitate Christ, with a focus on Christ’s character, motives, and goals. This will sometimes result in fairly close behavioural imitation, such as by praying the Lord’s Prayer, but often will result in imitation of action types, such as caring for the sick.

To imitate Christ, then, in the sense of emulation, one will need to (i) identify the traits of Christ that are to be imitated, and then (ii) determine what actions one ought to take in order to acquire or manifest those traits in various situations. I cannot here give a full account of these two stages. Rather, I’ll make a few brief observations about them which will inform how I address the main issue facing us in this section, namely, how Christians ought to imitate Christ’s endurance of suffering on the cross and how it follows that we should accept (No Reinforcement).

Now to some general comments about these two stages of the process of imitating Christ. First, there are many different accounts of which of Christ’s traits are to be imitated. Gregory of Nyssa lists various names of Christ and suggests that humans should imitate him so that (some of) those names also apply to them (Gregory of Nyssa 1967, 96ff). Thomas a Kempis (Reference Kempis and Gardner1989) focuses largely on various internal characteristics of Christ. Francis of Assisi focuses on imitating ‘the poverty, humility, powerlessness, and vulnerability of the historical Jesus’ (Miles Reference Miles1989, 13). The Meditations on the Life of Christ from the thirteenth century emphasizes imitating the humanity of Christ by empathizing with Christ in imagining oneself as acting out or observing aspects of Christ’s life (Miles Reference Miles1989, 14f). This sort of contemplation is key to Ignatian spirituality as well. In principle, all these approaches could be valuable. Perhaps the best approach shifts among these and other approaches, with the goal of imitating ever more accurately a multidimensional set of human and divine traits of Christ. Here I assume no specific account of such traits or approach to determining such traits.

Second, not all of Christ’s traits we ought to aim to imitate. Some are physically or logically impossible to imitate (e.g. living in the first century CE). Others aren’t important to imitate (e.g. wearing sandals, having five fingers). And others are unique roles of Christ, such as his atonement for human sin. As Gregory of Nyssa asserts, ‘those which our nature does not approximate by imitation, we reverence and worship’ (Gregory of Nyssa 1967, 99).

Third, there are plainly many ways to imitate Christ well. Imitating Christ will take various forms depending on one’s own personality, proclivities, abilities, desires, goals, and calling. Paul exhorts the Corinthians to ‘be imitators of me, as I am of Christ’ (1Cor 11:1), thus indicating that saints such as himself can be fitting objects of imitation as well. And the saints differ in many ways – personality, temperament, life circumstances, and specific actions and goals (Johnson Reference Johnson2024, 190).

Zagzebski, drawing on Kierkegaard, develops this point by arguing that by imitating Christ, we do not aim to become like Christ’s ideal self; rather, we aim to become our own ideal self, where our ideal self resembles in some crucial ways Christ’s self. She writes,

There needn’t be (nor do I understand Zagzebski to think there is) a single unique ideal self for every person. There could be a range of potential ideal selves, determined in part by things beyond our control, such as personality, temperament, circumstances of life, deep desires, fears, likes, loves and the like.

The Christian notion of the Church as the body of Christ further explains how there are many ways to imitate Christ well. According to Paul, the Church is the body of Christ, with Christ as the head. And like a living organism, the different parts of the body have different functions and roles (1Cor 12:12ff; Eph 4:15–16). So, what Augustine sometimes calls ‘the whole Christ’ – the Church with Christ as its head – should itself imitate Christ because the will of Christ as the head, will (when all functions well), lead the whole body to act in accord with his will, which will imitate his life in various ways. And in order for the Church to do its job imitating Christ, God will call its members to play diverse roles.

With these clarifications about imitation in place, let’s now turn to one of our central questions: how are we to understand the idea that Christians ought to imitate Christ’s endurance of suffering on the cross? Plainly, they are not being enjoined to mimic Christ, for they are not all being called to crucifixion, or even execution. Luke 9:23 has Jesus say that his followers should bear their cross daily – thus, however it is Christians are to imitate Christ’s suffering in his death, it isn’t by literally dying. (Although it should be noted that martyrdom has been regarded as one momentous way of imitating Christ to which some are called; see Moss Reference Moss2012.) In addition, imitating Christ’s death requires the right sort of attitudes. Paul says, ‘let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus … [who] humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross’ (Phil 2:5, 8). So, Christians are to emulate Christ by sharing some of his attitudes he had when he suffered and died (which attitudes will be discussed shortly), and Christians are not required to die, but they are to take these attitudes towards some instances of their suffering.Footnote ²

It must be stated clearly that Christians are not required to accept suffering as intrinsically good. Christ himself plainly fears the suffering that is to come and asks, if it is possible, that God ‘let this cup pass from me’ (Mt 26:39). Thomas a Kempis, despite waxing poetically about the way of the cross – ‘in the cross is health, in the cross is life, in the cross is the fulness of heavenly sweetness’ (Kempis Reference Kempis and Gardner1989, 94) – does not regard suffering as intrinsically good. Rather, suffering is at best extrinsically good. For Kempis, suffering endured willingly helps us not to be crushed by suffering that will inevitably come to us mere mortals, and by patiently enduring it while clinging to God, we are given divine consolation and brought into a more intimate relationship with God in which our love for him is deepened and our inordinate loves for the world are diminished (Kempis Reference Kempis and Gardner1989, 94–99).Footnote ³ Suffering may be extrinsically valuable for other reasons as well, such as helping the development of virtue, serving as a witness to Christ, and removing mental and attitudinal blockage from a love of God.Footnote ⁴

Many kinds of suffering, willingly endured, can be useful for attaining the above goods. However, we are focusing on imitating the suffering of Christ on the cross. And there are a few distinct features of this suffering. First, Christ’s suffering results from people and forces opposed to his ministry. Second, Christ could have avoided this suffering if he’d chosen, but he willingly embraced it.Footnote ⁵ Third, Christ’s embrace of this suffering is motivated by Christ’s deep love for humanity (Jn 15:13; 1Jn 3:16). Fourth, Christ embraces this suffering for a specific purpose: ‘to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (1Jn 4:10).

I suggest that an instance of our own suffering more closely imitates Christ’s suffering on the cross as it possesses more of these four features. The first three are fairly straightforward, but the fourth requires a bit more explanation. Clearly there is something about Christ’s atonement that we cannot imitate. He alone is the atonement for the sins of humanity against God. We cannot also atone for the sins of humanity. This is one area where, as Gregory of Nyssa puts it, we must worship because we cannot imitate. However, Christ’s atonement has a goal: the reconciliation of humanity with God (Thurow Reference Thurow, Zalta and Nodelman2023, Reference Thurow2021). And humans can imitate Christ by having this goal as they suffer. One might suffer while trying to witness to the gospel in a way that winsomely attracts someone else to Christ. The former person does not atone for the latter’s sin, but, when all works, they do assist in bringing the latter closer to reconciliation with God.

There is a second – and for our purposes here, key – way humans can imitate Christ by sharing the goal of reconciliation: they can aim to bring about reconciliation amongst humans. The writer of 1John says,

So, the love that Christ shows on the cross – dying for us to bring about reconciliation with God – we also are to show to our fellow humans, aiming to bring about reconciliation not only with God but amongst each other. Several lines of reasoning connect reconciliation with God to reconciliation amongst humans. Love of God requires love of humans, and love of humans requires aiming at reconciliation amongst humans (see Mt 5:23–24). The Christian community is itself called to be unified (Jn 17:20–24; Rom 12:16), which requires reconciliation where there are divisions amongst the community. Christians are called to forgive others as they are forgiven by God (Mt 6:14–15; 18:23–35), and forgiveness is a key part of reconciliation.

Now we can finally turn to our second central question: do the classic atonement theories CAT, together with Christian ethical norms surrounding the imitation of Christ (IC and CDP) entail that Christian ethics perpetuates, reinforces, reinscribes, legitimates, or supports injustices upon women (i.e. the negation of No Reinforcement)? With the above clarification of what imitating the suffering of Christ on the cross involves, the answer is no. Indeed, I shall argue that in fact the former three claims imply No Reinforcement.

A community of women who willingly embrace suffering due to sexist oppression and are motivated to do so by love for people in their community (thus imitating three aspects of Christ’s suffering) will not imitate the fourth aspect: aiming at reconciliation. For submission to oppression, regularly and systematically and without opposition, in fact works against reconciliation. A relation of oppression prevents the full reconciliation of love that Christians are to have towards each other under Christ. God does not oppress humans. He loves them deeply and desires that they become an ideal version of themselves, and nobody’s ideal version of themselves involves them being oppressed. Thus, if we are to love humans as God loves us, then our love for humans also, in its fulness, is incompatible with oppression.

Indeed, the norm to imitate Christ would imply that we should imitate him in a way that aims at non-oppressive reconciliation. Acts of resistance to oppression can imitate Christ’s suffering on the cross even more fully. One might resist an oppressive act or social arrangement, knowing that one will suffer from the powers that have an incentive in maintaining oppression. One thus willingly embraces suffering in pursuit of a great good that is consonant with Christ’s ministry of manifesting God’s love to humanity, and one may oneself be motivated by a love for humanity – a love for oppressed women and a love for the people and society doing the oppressing – while aiming at non-oppressive reconciliation between women and others in society.Footnote ⁶ Thus if we collectively and individually, morally, ought to imitate Christ’s death, then we ought to do so in a way that aims at non-oppressive reconciliation. Such imitation thus should not perpetuate, reinforce, reinscribe, legitimate, or support injustices upon women. Thus, CAT, IC, and CDP imply No Reinforcement.

Several other observations strengthen this case. First, as noted above, oppression is incompatible with divine love. Since everyone’s ideal self will be in a relationship of love with God (Stump Reference Stump2022), oppression works directly against one’s becoming one’s ideal self. So, since imitating Christ is supposed to help us become our ideal selves, submitting to oppression will work against a fundamental goal of imitating Christ. Second, because submitting to oppression works against becoming one’s ideal self and experiencing divine love in its fulness, submitting to oppression will tend towards breaking a person’s will and self-respect, resulting in alienation. But that works directly against another goal of imitating Christ, which is to produce spiritual fruit such as patience, humility, and other virtues. Third, willingly enduring oppression in a way that does not oppose the oppression is not an act of love towards the oppressors, because doing so allows/reinforces the oppressor in their oppressive attitudes, which is bad for them since it is inconsistent with the divine love they ought to manifest, and we ought to desire what’s good for those we love. It would be good for the oppressor to be confronted about this, stopped or dissuaded from their oppressive actions, and encouraged to change. In addition, any chance of reconciliation between oppressor and oppressed will require the oppressor to acknowledge their oppressive wrongdoing, repent, and make some sort of reparation.Footnote ⁷ Willingly enduring oppression without opposing the oppression doesn’t nudge the oppressor onto this path of reconciliation. Fourth, for all the above reasons, willingly enduring oppression in a way that does not oppose the oppression is a flawed witness to the gospel of Christ, since it willingly manifests a defective relation between humans and, when done as a way of imitating Christ, falsely implies that God accepts that defective relation.

It’s important to be clear about the normative implications of the above argument. The argument implies that there is something defective, bad, and unfitting about attempting to imitate Christ by willingly embracing oppression without opposition and since we ought to imitate Christ as best we can, we have a prima facie duty not to willingly embrace oppression without opposition. It would also seem to clearly follow that we have a prima facie duty not to demand or pressure others to willingly embrace oppression without opposition.Footnote ⁸ However, it doesn’t follow that everyone ought, all things considered, never willingly embrace oppression without opposition. As was mentioned above, there are many ways of imitating Christ well and how one ought, all things considered, to imitate Christ will depend on factors such as one’s skills, position in life, abilities, roles, desires, hopes, fears, and on how one is called to serve God in the body of Christ. Once all these things are considered, it may be that some people morally may willingly embrace suffering that results from oppression without opposing the oppression. That may be the most one can muster in certain situations. It may be that there are other good goals one is better positioned to work towards, and one may feel called to work primarily on those other goals. In certain cases many goods may be at stake, and one might judge, on careful moral reflection, that such willing embrace is the overall best thing to do. This is a welcome consequence because it would be morally odd, to say the least, if in a world of sexist oppression, all women had an absolute moral duty to resist oppression at all points. This would place an enormous moral burden on women – one that surely isn’t fitting with their status as victims of oppression.Footnote ⁹

Although individual subjects of oppression will not always have a moral duty to imitate Christ by willingly embracing the suffering from oppression while opposing oppression in a way that works towards reconciliation, a good case can be made that the Church – the whole Christ – does have this duty. If the Church were not to oppose oppression of women and were to instead allow and encourage a willing embrace of such oppression without opposition, then the Church would fail to imitate Christ’s suffering on the cross by failing in a serious way to share his goal of bringing about reconciliation that is fitting of divine love. Because the Church is to be both an enduring witness to the gospel of divine love to the world and a school in which followers of Christ are trained in the gospel of divine love, this would be a particularly grave defect. The Church has a duty to avoid grave defects. So, this is a situation – I suggest – where a collective entity, the Church, has a moral duty to do X, but where not all members have a moral duty to do X.Footnote ¹⁰

To sum up my argument: (i) one of the key ways Christians are to imitate Christ’s suffering on the cross is by sharing his goal of reconciliation between God and humanity and humans with humans, (ii) oppressive relationships are incompatible with the reconciliation that is required by divine love and attempting to imitate Christ by willingly enduring oppression without opposition conflicts with goals of imitating Christ, so (iii) it would be bad, unfitting, and defective to imitate Christ’s suffering on the cross in a way that perpetuates, reinforces, reinscribes, legitimates, or supports injustices upon women and Christians have a prima facie duty to imitate Christ in a way that opposes oppression. In addition, (iv) the Church has an all-things-considered collective duty to imitate Christ by willingly embracing the suffering from oppression while opposing oppression. Thus, a proper understanding of what it is to imitate Christ’s suffering on the cross, in combination with classic atonement theories and a norm to imitate Christ’s suffering, in fact implies that Christians and the Church should imitate Christ in a way that does not perpetuate, reinforce, reinscribe, legitimate, or support injustices upon women.

This proper understanding of what it is to imitate Christ’s suffering on the cross is consistent with the classic atonement theories and, when combined with any of them, eliminates the problematic apparent implications mentioned earlier. For instance, penal substitution theories combined with the above understanding of imitation will not imply that women (or anyone) should – even prima facie – willingly endure suffering due to oppression as a way of imitating the punishment Christ endures in our place. Enduring punishment for human sin is something Christ uniquely does; we can imitate his suffering in other ways provided it aids in bringing about reconciliation. Given my argument for point (ii) above, enduring suffering due to oppression does not bring about reconciliation, but rather hardens oppression, thus working against reconciliation. Satisfaction theories combined with the above understanding of imitation will not imply that people should – even prima facie – willingly endure suffering due to oppression as a way of imitating the recompense Christ offered. Imitating Christ’s offering of recompense would be done by acts that aim to and have some decent chance of bringing about the goal of his recompense: reconciliation. And, again, given point (ii) above, willingly enduring suffering due to oppression works against reconciliation. Similar moves can be made regarding moral exemplar theories.

In short, the classic atonement theories can say that Christians are not called to atone for sins as Christ did. That is impossible. What humans are called to do, according to the classic atonement theories, is imitate Christ’s sacrificial path, as it were, in bringing about reconciliation. And my argument shows that imitating that sacrificial path, with the aim of reconciliation, implies No Reinforcement.

Objections

Objection 1: In fact, the imitation of Christ and the classic atonement theories are used to support the oppression of women! Brock and Parker’s accounts simply demonstrate as much. So, CAT, IC, and CDP remain problematic.

Reply: What’s problematic is how some people use CAT, IC, and CDP, not the theses themselves. My argument above shows that the theses themselves, when supplemented with a proper understanding of the imitation of Christ’s suffering on the cross, imply No Reinforcement. So, the theses themselves don’t perpetuate, reinforce, reinscribe, legitimate, or support injustices against women; indeed, the theses oppose all of this! Thus, those who use these theses – intentionally or inadvertently – to perpetuate etc. injustices against women are simply misunderstanding and misusing those theses. Thus, if my argument is correct, the theology embodied in these theses is not in itself abusive; those who would use them to perpetuate injustices against women are abusing the theology (Gudmundsdóttir Reference Gudmundsdóttir2010, 118ff).

That said, the feminist critiques are of enduring value because they challenge defenders of classic atonement theories to work out and better understand the implications of those theories – not to mention, to actually live out those implications!

Objection 2: What if women, because they are oppressed, are more likely to bring about certain forms of reconciliation by willingly embracing suffering due to oppression without resistance (e.g. a peaceful home life and peaceful interactions with neighbours), whereas by resisting they produce conflict – in part because resistance to oppression will tend to be met with opposition – thus working against reconciliation? Would my account imply they should willingly embrace suffering due to oppression in these cases? If so, that would be problematic; since sexist oppression is widespread, it would frequently be the case that women morally ought to embrace suffering due to oppression, thus perpetuating and reinforcing sexist oppression.

Reply: In the case stipulated, I don’t think it would follow that women morally should willingly embrace suffering due to oppression. Probably in many of these cases – depending upon the other sorts of reconciliation women in them can encourage, and their own desires, goals, loves, fears, and calling – women morally may embrace suffering due to oppression. But I also think that many women in these cases morally may willingly embrace suffering by resisting oppression; indeed, some of them will feel deeply called to this, and my argument implies that, for them, it is good and fitting – and perhaps even morally obligatory – to imitate Christ by resisting oppression.

It is worth adding that saintliness – imitating Christ to a very high degree – does not necessarily imply niceness. Christ himself says he comes to bring division (Lk 12:51–53); he knows his pursuit of reconciliation between God and humanity will be opposed by some and so will create divisions that work against some types of reconciliation, such as social relationships governed mostly by niceties. Saints such as St Francis of Assisi imitate Christ in causing division. His own family and many ‘respectable’ people rejected his ministry.

In addition, my argument implies that the Church has a collective responsibility to oppose the oppression of women. So, in sum, my argument implies that the Church morally ought to put pressure against oppression, and many women (and men) ought to put pressure against oppression, but some women may in some circumstances choose not to. That total state of affairs does not perpetuate or reinforce sexist oppression.

Objection 3: If suffering while working towards reconciliation is a key way we can imitate Christ’s death, then it seems women will have an imitatio Christi-based reason to reconcile with abusers and men who have contributed to their oppression. But it seems women will often, in fact, have good reason not to reconcile with such people – attempting to reconcile would be painful and may trigger painful memories; they may fear their abusers will reoffend, and attempts at reconciliation may negatively impact some of their other life-giving relationships.

Reply: The view I’ve defended implies that women have an imitatio Christi-based reason to be open in principle to reconciling in some sense with abusers and men who have contributed to their oppression. However, whether and when they should reconcile and what such reconciliation looks like will very much depend upon various contingent factors. Such factors include: whether the abuser has repented and changed, whether the woman has good reason to think the abuser has repented and changed, and how various sorts of reconciliation would affect each of their lives and the lives of others who may be impacted. In some cases, a woman may only have overall reason to wish that an offender would come to see the error of their ways and that they would change their life as a result, but would have no reason or obligation to develop or restore any substantial relationship with the offender. In other cases, a woman may have reason to forgive the offender, but not to develop or restore any substantial relationship. In yet other cases, a woman may have reason to develop or restore various sorts of substantial relationships. I suspect that in many cases women and their offenders will only (if ever) be reconciled to substantial relationships in the eschaton. Until humans have undergone massive moral and spiritual transformation in the eschaton, many women may during their life have reason, at most, to work towards the possibility of this later more substantial reconciliation by opposing and resisting oppression. The ethics of specific cases (and nuanced kinds of cases) deserves careful attention that I cannot give here. My main claim, and what I hope to have made plausible, is that nothing about the ethics of imitation discussed here clearly implies that women should reconcile with abusers in morally problematic ways.Footnote ¹¹

Objection 4: 1 Peter doesn’t use the sophisticated reasoning about imitation that I have presented. It argues more woodenly that slaves should do good and endure whatever suffering they experience along the way ‘for to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example’ (2:21). This reinforces their oppression. Women, in effect, have been given variations of this argument. Scripture supports these more wooden arguments rather than my argument.

Reply: To fully reply to this objection would require a systematic hermeneutic of passages about slavery, which I don’t have space for. But there are signs a hermeneutic can be developed that explains why these passages don’t manifest my line of reasoning. First, the 1 Peter argument is clearly an enthymeme because it plainly is not applied generally. Later, Christians are told to give a reason for the hope they have within to hostile non-Christians. And the apostles in Acts resist suffering in many ways. I suggest the hidden premises involve background assumptions, taken for granted by the audience, that suggest the advice given to slaves was wise for their situation, but which do not generalize to all situations. The background assumptions might include: (i) slavery is an ancient institution that isn’t going anywhere, resistance to which will bring the ire of the Roman empire on the young Church, (ii) Christians are already suffering as a strange new religion and don’t need to give the Roman empire another reason to persecute them, and (iii) the final judgment is coming soon anyway, in which Christ is going to set things right for everyone, including slaves. Assumptions (ii) and (iii) are more or less explicitly stated elsewhere in 1 Peter; (i) surely goes without saying in the first century. In circumstances where these assumptions are true (or reasonably believed), it may be wise to counsel imitating Christ’s suffering through nonresistance to slavery. My argument can allow for this conclusion; it would simply add that in other circumstances, resistance may be permissible, fitting, and required, and even that nonresistance is defective in one key way of imitating Christ’s atonement.

Second, Philemon indicates that the NT is open to putting pressure against slavery and that counselling the freeing of a slave honours God. This suggests there is something bad, from the perspective of reconciliation with God, about keeping people enslaved, and thus submitting to slavery and not opposing such submission is also bad. Thus, other parts of scripture provide a foundation for my sort of argument.

In sum, I reply that my argument is theologically sound and scripturally justifiable and that it can also be used to explain how the 1 Peter argument is enthymematic.Footnote ¹²