Fleming Rutledge
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Fleming Rutledge (born 1937) is an American Episcopal priest, author, theologian and preacher. Ordained to the diaconate in 1975, she was one of the first women to be ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church.
Rutledge is widely recognized in the United States, in Canada, and in the UK not only as a preacher and lecturer, but also as one who teaches other preachers. Her particular expertise is the intersection of biblical theology with contemporary culture, current events and politics, literature, music and art. She has often been invited to preach in prominent pulpits such as the Washington National Cathedral, the Duke University Chapel, Trinity Church in Boston, and the Harvard Memorial Chapel.
Early life and education
Rutledge was born in 1937 in Franklin, Virginia. Rutledge graduated from Sweet Briar College in 1959 magna cum laude with highest honors in English. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1975. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary in May 1999.[1]
Ordained ministry
Ordained to the diaconate in 1975, Rutledge was one of the first women to be ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church (January 1977).
For fourteen years Rutledge was assistant and then Senior Associate at Grace Church in New York City, a parish celebrated at that time for its youthful congregation and evangelistic preaching. She was actively involved in the renewal there. Her previous position was at Christ's Church, Rye, New York, where she was known for her creation and leadership of an extensive Christian program for high-school youth.
Rutledge served as interim rector of St. John's, Salisbury, Connecticut (1996–1997), and has twice been a resident Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton. During the 2008 fall term, she was resident at Wycliffe College, Toronto, where she taught preaching. Most recently, she was a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (April 2010).
Ordained to the diaconate in 1975, Rutledge was one of the first women to be ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church (January 1977).
For fourteen years Rutledge was assistant and then Senior Associate at Grace Church in New York City, a parish celebrated at that time for its youthful congregation and evangelistic preaching. She was actively involved in the renewal there. Her previous position was at Christ's Church, Rye, New York, where she was known for her creation and leadership of an extensive Christian program for high-school youth.
Rutledge served as interim rector of St. John's, Salisbury, Connecticut (1996–1997), and has twice been a resident Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton. During the 2008 fall term, she was resident at Wycliffe College, Toronto, where she taught preaching. Most recently, she was a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (April 2010).
Books
- The Bible and The New York Times (1998)
- Help My Unbelief (2000)
- The Undoing of Death (2002)
- The Battle for Middle-Earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in "the Lord of the Rings" (2004)
- The Seven Last Words from the Cross (2004)
- Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Sermons from Paul's Letter to the Romans (2007)
- And God Spoke to Abraham: Preaching from the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2011) – ISBN 1561011975[2]
- The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (2015)
- Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (2018)
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The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
by Fleming Rutledge
Though the apostle Paul boldly proclaimed “Christ crucified” as the heart of the gospel, Fleming Rutledge notes that preaching about the cross of Christ is remarkably neglected in most churches today. In this book Rutledge addresses the issues and controversies that have caused pastors to speak of the cross only in the most general, bland terms, precluding a full understanding and embrace of the gospel by their congregations.
Countering our contemporary tendency to bypass Jesus’ crucifixion, Rutledge in these pages examines in depth all the various themes and motifs used by the New Testament evangelists and apostolic writers to explain the meaning of the cross of Christ. She mines the classical writings of the Church Fathers, the medieval scholastics, and the Reformers as well as more recent scholarship, while bringing them all into contemporary context.
Widely known for her preaching, Rutledge seeks to encourage preachers, teachers, and anyone else interested in what Christians believe to be the central event of world history.
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Books by Fleming Rutledge -
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Fleming Rutledge - The Justice and Righteousness of God - Program 5022
May 22, 2014
Writer and preacher, Rev. Fleming Rutledge, one of the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church, talks about God's justice. She says to be outraged on behalf of one's own group is to be human, but to be outraged on behalf of the defenseless and the oppressed is to do the work of God.
Fleming Rutledge on 'The Crucifixion'
Oct 8, 2016
On September 25th and October 2nd, Fleming Rutledge taught a class on "The Crucifixion" at Calvary-St. George's Church in NYC. We thought we'd record the second of her two classes. Enjoy!
Fleming Rutledge | The Body Prepared for Jesus | 2019 Theology Conference
Wheaton College, Apr 16, 2019
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Review of "The Crucifixion" by Fleming Rutledge
Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 696 pp.
reviewed by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson
You must read this book.
I have never said that about any book I’ve reviewed, and rarely at all. Rarer still is there a book of seven hundred pages that should not have been a single page shorter and never leaves the reader bored for a moment. If this is the only book of theology you read in your life, or the last book of theology in your life, it is enough. By zeroing in on the most central and most shocking claim of the Christian faith—that Jesus Christ, truly divine and truly human, died on a cross—Rutledge has opened up for us the entire Scripture, the dogmatic claims of the church, the nature of God, the meaning of life. It is no exaggeration to say that everything hangs together in Jesus’ hanging on the cross.
This is also one of the best books I’ve ever come across for teaching theological method; it would make an outstanding textbook for an entire semester’s study. Rutledge studiously avoids the constricting method of trying to find the one single motif, image, proposition, or expression that is correct, into which everything else must fit: a good way to kill both faith and imagination. Instead, her reverence for Scripture suggests the method of listening to the whole canon, in its many tones and nuances, pictures and expressions, for what all the component parts are trying to say and not for what we might prefer them to say.
This nevertheless allows for some ranking of relative importance, noting internal tensions or disagreements among the various biblical books, and thinking through what they might mean. There’s no doubt that Rutledge ranks Paul first as an interpreter of the cross in its apocalyptic dimensions, but she doesn’t snub the Gospels or the other Epistles, or the Old Testament for that matter, in the process. The book is instead an exemplary work of faith seeking understanding, reason seeking conformity to divine wisdom.
Part 1 of the book lays out just how shocking, horrifying, and humiliating the cross was in its place and time. We have a hard time accessing this because none of us have seen a crucifixion in real life—as would have been a not abnormal experience under the Roman empire—and time has sanitized this ubiquitous symbol. The cross, back then, was reserved for the dregs of the empire, for the slaves who dared to revolt; it was virtually never inflicted upon Roman citizens, no matter how outrageous their behavior.
In addition, Rutledge goes into appropriate but not lurid detail on the physical impact of crucifixion (noting that the New Testament says not a word about this—perhaps not to rivet attention on the wrong issue, or perhaps because it was so well known there was no need to go into it). The conjunction of political punishment and bodily catastrophe prompts the question: why this means of God’s death?
And that brings us to another refreshing and timely aspect of Rutledge’s work: knowing the American religious context as well as she does, she can challenge and correct the errors of the religious right and religious left alike. For instance, she rightly critiques the domesticated answer to the question above—“to show how much God loves us”—as a non-answer. Why is love shown with brutal suffering? Why should God go through this to prove such a point to us?
At the same time, Rutledge skillfully deconstructs a fixation on punishment or propitiation as the be-all-and-end-all of atonement theology as found in a certain kind of Evangelicalism. The liberal disdain for Anselm is analyzed and found wanting; but so is the droning chorus of “Jesus paid for my sins with his blood” without ever deigning to ask to whom or what for.
As a final example, Rutledge exposes the shallowness of both extremes’ conception of sin, whether the blame is assigned to self or to structure. Each is fully entangled in the other, and each is the prey of the powers of sin, death, and the devil, which have furthermore exploited the God-given law to hold human beings captive. Only an apocalyptic cross, Rutledge argues via a vast range of scriptural texts, can answer to our predicament—can both rescue us and change us. We need both.
Part 2 then takes up the major biblical motifs that describe, illuminate, or explain the crucifixion of Jesus. Much as I enjoyed Rutledge’s deft handling of atonement theologies and contemporary half-truths, I found this part of the book even more rewarding. It opened up the Scriptures instead of shutting them down (which, sad to say, seems to be the case in most preaching I hear). She deals with, in order, the Passover and Exodus; blood sacrifice; ransom and redemption; the great assize; the apocalyptic war (more familiarly known as Christus Victor); the descent into hell; substitution; and recapitulation. Again, these various motifs are not in competition with each other. Many are found in many books, and the biblical writers shift among them with ease and grace. Focusing on each theme individually brings out its depths and enriches the wider picture.
Any quibbles I might have here or there are purely trivial in the context of this magnificent volume. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It will strengthen the mind, warm the heart, and nourish devotion to the one who humbled himself to the point of death, even death on the cross—whom we rejoice to call our Lord and God.
Sarah Hinlicky Wilson is the Editor of Lutheran Forum.
- Sarah Hinlicky Wilson
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Crux of the matter
by Anthony B. Robinson
September 28, 2015
The Christian Century: Review
The Crucifixion, by Fleming Rutledge
Preacher Fleming Rutledge’s magnum opus is many things. It is an examination and rethinking of virtually all the major ways in which the death of Christ has been interpreted. It is also an argument that the how of Jesus’ death—the ghastly and dehumanizing ordeal of crucifixion—matters. But perhaps more than either of these, Rutledge’s book is a protest. It is a protest against what might be termed Christianity lite: against the many contemporary iterations of the Christian faith, both conservative and liberal, that don’t have much in the way of theological depth and seriousness—iterations that trade a rich, world-shaking, challenging faith for what seems only a mess of trivia.
The Crucifixion is also an extended protest against the failure to take seriously evil and sin—that is, to take seriously the world in which we live. Implicit in her argument is this thesis: a Christian faith that does not face and come to grips with radical evil does not deserve to be taken seriously.
Early in her study, Rutledge observes that “personal engagement with the cross is difficult and painful, but leaders of congregations will have a hole in the center of their ministry without it.” She is right. Preachers who engage the apparently negative are not only doing so in a culture that is thoroughly committed to the upbeat and positive, but they are likely aware of the complexity of preaching and teaching about something that is both central and controversial. It is easy to get it wrong, and hard to get it right.
Don’t conservative and evangelical churches regularly preach the cross and the crucifixion? Yes, they do. But they often reduce these themes to formulaic, even mechanistic interpretations of their meaning, related only to individuals and their fate after death. Moreover, as Rutledge argues persuasively, such proclamations are often theologically incoherent, doing violence to the trinitarian nature of God and rendering the God now separated from Jesus Christ into a monster.
Perhaps partly in reaction to the predominance of such reductive and misleading interpretations of the crucifixion by conservatives and evangelicals, other parts of the church—mainline, liberal, and progressive congregations and their preachers—have had less and less that is substantive to say about the crucifixion. Pelagianism, ever knocking at the mainline door, sidesteps the cross to emphasize Jesus’ good works and his role as a moral exemplar and spiritual guide. Then proclamation tends to become telling stories about Jesus rather than preaching Christ crucified. In some mainline church settings, the crucified One is portrayed as just another innocent victim of the empire, not as the One whose death constituted God’s redemptive disruption of the world.
One of Rutledge’s crucial contributions is her reconsideration of Anselm, in which she shows that neither liberals nor conservatives have him right. Both camps have rendered Anselm far more simplistic, less nuanced, and less pastoral than he was. On more than one occasion Rutledge quotes Anselm’s rejoinder to his interlocutor, Boso, “You have not yet considered the weight of sin,” implying that this is also true of much contemporary American interpretation. Whatever else one may say of Anselm, he did take seriously the weight of sin.
After discussing Anselm, Rutledge takes up what she calls biblical motifs for understanding and interpreting the crucifixion. The use of the word motif is important. Too often interpretations of the death of Christ are described as theories, but in Rutledge’s view, a theory is far too tidy and rational for the layered ways the crucifixion is witnessed in scripture. The term motif is more fluid and suggestive, and it allows for the ways in which scripture is in dialogue with itself.
The Christus Victor motif reflects the apocalyptic theological orientation that decisively undergirds the entire book. Some of Rutledge’s most important themes derive from this perspective. She is influenced here by a number of New Testament scholars, including Ernst Käsemann and J. Louis Martyn (she studied with Martyn at New York’s Union Theological Seminary). Most of all Rutledge draws from the apostle Paul to convey an understanding of the crucifixion and resurrection as the apocalyptic novum—God’s decisive intervention in which the new age began.
Two of the many themes that apocalyptic theology contributes to an understanding of the crucifixion are particularly significant: sin and divine agency. Rutledge understands Sin and Death (she capitalizes them) as the twin ruling powers that hold the world and fallen humanity in their grip. Sin is not merely the misdeeds of individuals. Sin is a power and a realm that enslaves all human beings. What is required is not simply correction but deliverance. God and fallen human beings are not the only players on the field of life. The active powers of Sin and Death are there too. In the incarnation, God in Christ invaded the enemy’s turf—a perspective that casts a different light on Christmas.
This leads to the second particularly significant theme, divine agency. In the apocalyptic perspective, God is the primary actor. Salvation depends not on human beings getting it right, but on God’s action—God’s decisive intervention to encounter and disarm the powers of sin and death and to rectify what has been put out of joint. Rutledge stresses that God has done and is doing something we cannot do for ourselves.
In at least one quarter of American life, emphasis on these themes makes perfect sense: the world of addiction and recovery. Addiction is a matter not simply of personal error, but of being in the grip of a demonic power that wills one’s destruction. Many recovering addicts understand and confess their powerlessness over addiction and their need for and reliance on a higher power. This sounds remarkably like apocalyptic theology and Paul’s gospel. For Paul we are all addicts, all slaves of sin. The real reason mainline Christianity tends to be averse to both Paul and the cross may lie here: we doubt that we are sinners, and we are pretty sure we don’t need saving, thanks just the same.
Rutledge’s subtitle is Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, and her work goes a long way toward advancing such understanding. But there is a more ancient sense of the word understanding that I suspect she would also welcome: we stand under something that we cannot fully see or grasp. Rutledge helps those who preach and those who listen not only to understand the meaning and significance of the crucifixion, but also to stand under it in awe and devotion.
*Anthony B. Robinson is a United Church of Christ minister and the author of many books on church life and leadership, including Changing the Conversation: A Third Way for Congregations (Eerdmans).
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CHRIST AMONG THE DISCIPLINES
CONFERENCE NOTES
https://www.christamongthedisciplines.com/
by R.E. SlaterNovember 20, 2020Please note: I write these notes to myself. They are not intended to be exact transcriptions from the speakers themselves. What I have written are not their words but my own thoughts. - resPlease note: All panelists provided textual statements for comments to attendees. These are not allowed to be publically published as they are intended to form to the moment-in-time not replicable beyond the panel discussions themselves as very specific conversations to one another in the AAR setting
Panelist Bios:
Stanley Hauerwas: Professor Stanley Hauerwas was most recently the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke Divinity School. Over the course of his career, he has sought to recover the significance of the virtues for understanding the nature of the Christian life. This search has led him to emphasize the importance of the church, as well as narrative for understanding Christian existence. His work cuts across disciplinary lines as he is in conversation with systematic theology, philosophical theology and ethics, political theory, as well as the philosophy of social science and medical ethics. He was named "America’s Best Theologian" by Time magazine in 2001. Dr. Hauerwas, who holds a joint appointment in Duke Law School, delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectureship at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland in 2001. His book, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic, was selected as one of the 100 most important books on religion of the 20th century. Dr. Hauerwas also more recently authored The Work of Theology (Eerdmans, 2015), Hannah’s Child: A Theological Memoir, 2nd Ed. (Eerdmans, 2012), and War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity ( Baker Academic Press, 2011).
Cambria Kaltwasser is assistant professor of theology at Northwestern College, Iowa, and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She earned both her M.Div. and her Ph.D. at Princeton Theological Seminary, where her research focused on Karl Barth's account of human agency as responsibility before God and neighbor. Her broader interests include theological anthropology, covenant, sanctification, and Christian hope. She is a fellow of the Barth Translator's Seminar through the Center for Barth Studies. Kaltwasser lives in a farmhouse in Orange City, Iowa, with her husband Jared, and two children, Asher and Adrian.
Preston Hill: Preston Hill is a PhD Candidate in Theology at St Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews, having previously completed an MLitt degree in Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the Logos Institute. He is researching Christ’s descent into hell in the theology of John Calvin. Preston served as director of the 2019 Theology and Trauma Conference at the University of St Andrews and is an aspirant for ordination to priesthood in the Anglican Church of North America. Preston is currently a Doctoral Intern and faculty member at the School of Counselling at Richmont Graduate University in Tennessee where he researches and teaches on theology and trauma to master’s level licensed therapists from a Christian perspective.
Cynthia Rigby: Professor Cynthia Rigby joined the faculty of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 1995. She is a sought-after speaker who is known for making the “so what?” of Christian doctrine clear and accessible. The Dallas Morning News called Professor Rigby "one of the great theologians of our time." An energetic scholar, Dr. Rigby's latest book is Holding Faith: A Practical Introduction to Christian Faith (Abingdon Press, 2018). She is a general editor of the nine-volume lectionary commentary series, Connections (Westminster John Knox); the first volume was published in 2018. She is currently completing a book on Christian feminist theology for Baker Academic Press and a book for Westminster John Knox Press tentatively titled, Splashing in Grace: A Theology of Play. Professor Rigby enjoys lecturing and teaching for academic, church, and denominational events both domestically and internationally. Dr. Rigby is actively engaged with congregations, preaching, teaching adult education classes, and leading church conferences on many different subjects. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Professor Rigby serves on the board of the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation and recently served as an author of the Sarasota Statement for the Next Church (2017). In 1998 Professor Rigby received the PhD in systematic theology from Princeton Theological Seminary where she was awarded a doctoral fellowship and the Wildrich Award for Excellence in Homiletics. Prior to her appointment at Austin Seminary she served several churches, lectured at New Brunswick and Princeton Seminaries, and spent a year as Pastor of Special Ministries with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Cagayan d’Oro City, Mindanao. In 2010 Dr. Rigby became the first faculty member elected to Austin Seminary's Board of Trustees.
Author: Scott Harrower is associate professor of systematic theology, moral theology and patristics at Ridley College, Australia. He is the author of Raised from Obscurity: A Narratival and Theological Study of the Characterization of Women in Luke-Acts; and God of All Comfort: A Trinitarian Response to the Horrors of This World.
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Observation by Stanley Hauerwas
Structure of book. CC1-4 Clearing the swamp of telling the Crucifixion; the Godlessness of the Cross I found as one the more sensitive discussions in the book re Psalm 22: Why the Life of Jesus cannot be separated from His Crucifixion. Excellent: How God's agency is something in the past but is here with us now. I felt Barth constantly in her writings.
CC1-4 - This is biblical; Second Part - This is biblical; but how are these different; Perhaps a different approach than "biblical" may have been more helpful. Its organization seems to need a different type of organization.
Sentimentality has been more distructive to how Christians and theologians have thought about The Crucifixion. Crucifixion is the heart of how we understand Christianity and is inseparable from the OT.
Observation by Cambria Kaltwasser
Karl Barth background; Covenant: Christian Hope; Iowa; Presbyterian.
I choose how to contextualize God's Love and Judgment. She struggles to turn from Divine Agency to Human Agency. There is not enough allowance for the latter's responsibility of sin.
God's Wrath v Love; Forgiveness v Justice; Gospel v Law. The tension between each must include the other. They are not binary categories but necessarily inter-related categories. Each are poorer without the other. It is a common mispractice amongst Christian churches.
Observation by Preston Hill
Christian Therapist - Suffering, Trauma, Atonement are of extreme interest to me.
Theme of Theodicy - How does this help Christians today who have suffered deeply? Or of humanity and nature generally? The best answers are wrenched out of our guts than in a classroom (pg 7).
Bonhoeffer's commentary on Genesis: Adam to be like God but we can never understand Adam's sin. There is an infinite chasm between act and doing the act of sin/evil. Evil is the privation of the good. It is unjustifiable. Evil's answer is in lament and the after affect of suffering. For survivors of autracity the unexplanation of evil is a balm to their hearts and spirits. Evil is unexplainable and inextricable. Suffering is the response to oppression. "You intend it for evil, I intend it for good." (cf. Cynthia Rigby).
Allen Lewis ||s Fleming R. - to experience the horror without knowing the ending. [This falls in line with the thought of process theology/philosophy]. Engaging in trauma then also has a hope involved in that God will try to heal and bring redemption to all agency-filled activities, consequences, and results.
Calvin is the foil for atonement theologies of Trinitarian Heterodoxy of Father taking wrath out against His Son, descent into Hell, etc. But there is no Trinitarian rupture but a feeling of rupture of the ontology of God's Self. He was feeling our perceptions and experiences of "God forsakenness" unto Himself. This act redeemed creation. Calvin felt there was room for doubt and despair. So these are the good things of Calvin.
In the post-traumatic context in a post-Holocaust world, talking about suffering is not enough. Suffering is a closed wound. Trauma is an open wound which lives on and on in the survivor. How then does the Crucifixion give us conceptual tools to take Jesus in the lives of traumatized people?
Observation by Cynthia Rigby
Austen Theological Seminary, Texas; Editor, Author; Reference Work; Feminist; Lecturer/Teacher to all groups; congregational teacher/lay pastor; boards and committees; Ph.D from Princetone in Homilectics; Serves as pastor in churches and the United Church of Christ; Board of Trustee to her Seminary.
Apologizes for lack of the Black voice in the conference and in its representation in Fleming's interviews in her book. Restorative Justice is interested in breaking the cycles of violence.
Finally, to think of reparation in terms of grace more than in relationship to the Cross' penality?? That amnesty may lead to making amends, etc.
Response by Scott Harrower (Australia theologian)
Thank you for including a voice from the Pacific! :)
FR is more than a typecast of an Anglican.
The Transforming Grace of Resurrecting Love.
see statement to all four observers
