Question & Answer

Q: By A Reader

If Jesus did not die on a cross to cover our sin, then what was the purpose of him dying? What was the purpose of his life? Was it to show us how to simply be “good people?”

A: By Rev. Irene Monroe

Dear Reader,

As a figure that has dominated Western culture and Christianity for over 2,000 years, too little attention is paid to Jesus’ death. As Christians, we move swiftly from Good Friday to Easter/Resurrection Sunday.  If more focus were spent on the reasons for his death and the systems of oppression that brought about his demise, violence against marginalized people would cease to exist. However, without the contextualization and accountability of the violence enacted upon Jesus, the cycle of violence continues.

In the year 33 A.D., Jesus was unquestionably a religious threat to conservative Jews because of his unorthodox views and practice of Jewish Law. He was viewed as a political threat to the Roman government simply because he was a Jew.

As an instrument for execution by Roman officials during Jesus’ time, the cross’s symbolic nature and its symbolic value can both be seen as the valorization of suffering and abuse, especially in the lives of the oppressed.

For those of us on the margins, a Christology mounted on the belief that “Jesus died on the cross for our sins” instead of “Jesus died on the cross because of our sins” not only exalts Jesus as the suffering servant, but it also ritualizes suffering as redemptive. While suffering points to the need for redemption, suffering in and of itself is not redemptive, and it does not always correlate to one’s sinfulness. For example, the belief that undeserved suffering is endured by faith, and that it has a morally educative component makes the powerful insensitive to the plight of others, and it forces the less powerful to be complacent to their suffering – therefore, maintaining the status quo.

The cross is the locus of redemption insofar as it serves as a lens to critically examine and make the connections between the abuses of power and institutions of domination that brought about the suffering Jesus endured during his time – to the abuses of power and institutions of domination that brings about the suffering which women, people of color and sexual minorities are enduring in our present day.

When suffering is understood as an ongoing cycle of abuse that goes on unexamined and unaccounted for, we can then begin to see its manifestation in systems of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, to name a few,  in our everyday lives. With a new understanding of suffering and how it victimizes the innocent and its aborts the Christian mission of inclusiveness, Jesus’ death at Calvary invites a different hermeneutic than its classically held one.

When the Christian community looks to the cross, we must see not only Jesus but also the many other faces of God crucified as God’s people today. In so doing, we see the image of God in ourselves, the image of God as ourselves, and the image of God in each other. We then deepen the church’s solidarity with all who suffer -those who are Christ in our midst.

~ Rev. Irene Monroe

This Q&A was originally published on Progressing Spirit – As a member of this online community, you’ll receive insightful weekly essays, access to all of the essay archives (including all of Bishop John Shelby Spong), and answers to your questions in our free weekly Q&A. Click here to see free sample essays.

About the Author
The Reverend Monroe does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on NPR’s WGBH (89.7 FM). She is a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS. Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists. A Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist; her columns appear the Boston LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and the Boston Globe.
Monroe states that her “columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As a religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.” Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s research library on the history of women in America. Click here to visit her website.