The Cross and Gendercide: A Theological Response to Global Violence Against Women and Girls

Violence against women and girls is a human rights epidemic that affects millions of lives around the world. While many Christians are addressing this crisis through education, advocacy and philanthropic support, there has been a reluctance to name gendercide as a theological and confessional issue, a matter that strikes at the very essence of the Christian faith. In The Cross and Gendercide, Elizabeth Gerhardt draws on Luther's "theology of the cross" to provide a theological basis for naming and responding to the grave sin of global gendercide. She lifts up the work and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as an especially powerful resource for mobilizing the church today toward political action and social engagement. From the perspective of Christ's cross, the church must raise a prophetic voice against systemic violence and speak up for the myriad women and girls who are invisible and voiceless in the world today.

Violence against women and girls is a pressing global problem. In this groundbreaking study, Elizabeth Gerhardt proposes a holistic theology of the cross as the basis for a prophetic response by the church to a problem that is not only moral and ethical, but also confessional.