Over the next few days, I’ll be blogging my thoughts about the Moltmann conversation. I’m not a theologian, and I’ve read very little of Jurgen Moltmann (although now I want to read a lot more), so I will just be reflecting on what I heard at the Emergent Theological Conversation.
At one point Moltmann, spoke about the two crosses of Christianity – the real cross at Golgotha and Constantine’s dream cross (a discussion I assume he develops further in his book, The Crucified God). The cross that appeared to Constantine in his vision was the cross of empire and violence. It was used to conquer, oppress, and destroy opposition. His cross is one of power and domination, not of response and reconciliation. But it is Constantine’s cross, and not the cross of Golgotha, that the church has most readily accepted through the ages. Moltmann mentioned that it was the precursor of the Iron Cross and Victoria’s Cross – crosses that spoke not of the sacrifice of Jesus, but of empire and political maneuvering. We place that cross on flags to demonstrate the forced acceptance of a political interpretation of Christ. Accepting Christ and his cross has become about accepting the empire’s official version thereof.
Moltmann suggested instead that we need to go back to the origins of our faith to find a new future for Christianity in the world outside of imperialism. We have so confused the cross of Constantine with the real cross of Christ that we fail to understand and honor what the cross truly means. We honor our idea of a powerful, vindictive cross instead of a suffering cross. Unless we break from this idolatry, the probleofm the Church causing pain in this world will continue.
I found the image fascinating. When the cross becomes our shield and sword instead of a symbol of hope, our faith becomes about struggle with the Other instead of love of the Other. Instead of acknowledging that through Christ’s suffering, all can be reconciled, we desire to forcibly make others think as we do. But conversion through coercion is not a reflection of hope and love, but of fear. If we cannot let the other be who they are and encounter the cross on their own terms, then we have forsaken the cross in favor of empire (be that a political or ideological empire). I fully agree that we need to return to the real cross, but I also do wonder what the future would look like apart from this need to use the cross to justify our disrespectful and inhumane treatment of others. A cross that embraced the suffering of others and helped them develop hope from that suffering instead of causing that very suffering is a vastly different sort of cross; and a church that shunned the cross of empire in favor of Jesus himself would be a very different church.