The Crucifixion was a form of sexual abuse

While many see the Cross as a symbol of peace, that ignores its link to violence in the Christian culture

The claim made by one of my fellow academics this week that Jesus might have been the latest – or, you might argue, the first – victim of the #Metoo campaign (#Himtoo, perhaps?) initially sounds bizarre. Sexual violence towards the Son of God? Look at it more closely, however, and the suggestion stands up. And, as Easter approaches, it is a good time to reconsider what the Crucifixion really means.

The Cross has always been a contested symbol. On one hand it can be interpreted as an absolute rejection of violence – God in Jesus submits to an unjust execution and dies upon a cross. For the peace tradition in Christianity, represented by Quakers and other Christian pacifists, it is a mandate for non-violence.

On the other hand, the Crucifixion has carried a more violent message. Jesus was stripped, stabbed and left to die – but has been raised by God and will return with terrible vengeance, according to the Book of Revelation.

In private life, the violent strain in Christianity has culturally been apparent in an eagerness to discipline children harshly. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” comes from a satire by Samuel Butler, rather than the Bible itself, but it’s a reasonable paraphrase of certain verses in Proverbs. The view that God requires parents and guardians to break the rebellious wills of their children shaped the ethos of many British schools, religious institutions and families, and it lies behind a continuing resistance to a ban on smacking children in this country.

But just as a smacking ban has now spread to 52 countries, so, too, has the surfacing of all kinds of physical abuse become a social problem, and one that will no longer be tolerated. As with all profound social changes, a long and gradual shift in attitudes has suddenly been catalysed by a series of dramatic episodes: witness the scandals around the behaviour of the likes of Jimmy Savile and Harvey Weinstein, and the #Metoo campaign that has emerged from the latter.

It is within this context that the idea of Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse starts to seem credible. We know that Jesus was executed for political as well as religious reasons, and that the use of sexual violence against political enemies was (and still is) widespread. We also know that sexual abuse is less about sex than about power and humiliation. Why else would Jesus have been stripped naked, mocked, beaten and spat on – not to mention penetrated by a spear in his side?

The idea that Jesus was the victim of sexual abuse only seems shocking if we are unwilling to admit that he was fully human and truly powerless to resist what happened to him. This goes to the very heart of what we think Jesus is all about. Is God a divine potentate, or wind and Spirit working in, with and through this world and our humanity? The Bible gives both answers and the Cross can be interpreted both ways.

Conservative Christians today have tended to oppose many of the profound cultural changes we are experiencing: the rising status of women and children; an increasing openness about sexuality. They await an apocalypse in which their views will be vindicated.

Many other Christians, including those who have put the issue of Jesus and abuse on the table, disagree. They want to distance themselves from Christianity’s legacy of violence, and pick up the strands of Bible and tradition that offer an antidote.

The clinching factor in the debate between these groups may be the mounting evidence of Church complicity in sexual abuse. Over the past few weeks, Britain’s Inquiry into Institutional Child Abuse has blown open the myth that this was a problem confined to the Catholic Church, and uncovered shocking evidence about the scale of the problem in the Church of England. Tactics of clerical abuse and cover that go right up the Anglican chain of command are now on record.

Against this background, it is time to own up to the deep ambivalence about violence and abuse that lies at the heart of Christian cultures, and to think again about what the legacy of Crucifixion really means. Jesus may be divine, but he was a victim, too.