Making Peace with the Cross: A Mennonite-Feminist Exploration of Dorothee Sölle and J. Denny Weaver on Nonviolence, Atonement, and Redemption

This thesis brings German liberationist-feminist theologian Dorothee Sölle and American Anabaptist-Mennonite peace theologian J. Denny Weaver into conversation to address two significant contemporary theological debates – namely, the debate among feminists and womanists asking whether the cross can be redemptive for women and other historically marginalized groups and the debate among Mennonite and other peace-oriented theologians asking whether God is nonviolent. By holding Sölle’s more Abelardian emphasis on the cross as divine solidarity with the oppressed together with Weaver’s “narrative Christus Victor” understanding of Jesus’ resurrection as nonviolent divine victory over evil, I address both debates. I therefore synthesize their views into an integrated Mennonite-feminist theology of the cross and redemption which neither reifies violence nor all forms of suffering as redemptive. The first two chapters provide context for the conversation between Sölle and Weaver. Chapter 1 establishes their respective theological approaches and methods as a political, liberationist-feminist, mystical and pacifist theologian (Sölle) and as creating a more thoroughly nonviolent, “post-Yoderian” Mennonite peace theology using feminist, womanist, and liberation theologies (Weaver). Chapter 2 traces the three major historical atonement theories (i.e., Anselm’s satisfaction, Abelard’s “moral influence,” and patristic Christus Victor theories), elaborating Sölle’s and Weaver’s critiques of the historical theories as well as her liberationist redefinition of the Abelardian theory and his nonviolent, ethically-oriented revision of Christus Victor. The final two chapters explore the theological and ethical implications, respectively, of bringing Sölle’s and Weaver’s views together. Chapter 3 redefines God Christocentrically as nonviolent, passible/compassionate, and “other” in transcending the cycles of violence and retribution through immanent solidarity with the oppressed. Chapter 4 redefines Christian ethics in imitation of this nonviolent and suffering God, positing that disciples are empowered to redemptively take up the cross and “walk in the resurrection” in nonviolent, compassionate, and life-giving ways. I close with a trinity of reimagined crosses expressing the nonviolence of Jesus of Nazareth, the compassionate solidarity and birth-like struggle of the Crucified Woman, and the empty cross of resurrection as a tree of life.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD