The first thing to note is that Christ died VOLUNTARILY as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity. That hardly constitutes child abuse.

Jesus was OBEDIENT to His Father, and in the hour of his death, He cried, "Let this cup pass from me, NEVERTHELESS not my will but thine be done." That is not a coercive, abusive heavenly Father. The cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" are words reminding us that Jesus suffered more greatly than we can imagine. He does it out of love.

Womanist and feminist theologians will have to admit that they do not believe Jesus is God, that is, they must deny the Incarnation. If He is not the Incarnate Son of God who came to earth to die for us, then Jesus becomes a superior life form, a special man even, an innocent man, whom God punished out of spite. He is not God in human flesh. In turn, this becomes a fundamental denial of the Trinity.

If Jesus is no longer God, then He is no longer Savior and we are still left in our sins. A more terrible thought cannot be imagined. We are in Holy Week, in which we see once again the suffering of Christ as a measure of His love for us, as an adult doing the will of His Father.

Theologians who uphold victim abuse notions must concede that Jesus is no longer God in human flesh, but a raised deity, someone special perhaps, even innocent but He was not the Son of God Incarnate.

Of course, modernist theologians say that traditional sacrificial atonement which constitutes belief in "divine child abuse" and therefore justifies abuses of children and women, is false in premise and outcome.

In traditional sacrifice atonement belief, (substitutionary atonement), God did not punish Jesus as a victim; Jesus voluntarily took our punishment on Himself in order to atone for our sins, He being sinless because we neither have the capacity or ability to atone for our own sins. If the battle is one of God's justice versus God's love, love won.

"I would go so far as to say that, in my opinion, for whatever it's worth, any theologian who calls traditional atonement belief 'divine child abuse' has left the 'realm' of Christianity," concludes theologian Roger E. Olson.

Modernist reinterpretations of the atonement will ultimately fail. Those liberal seminaries expounding these views are themselves rapidly dying. None of this nonsense is taught or recognized by the vast sea of Global South Anglicans, indeed denominations of most stripes in Africa, Asia or South America.

That these theologians get the most attention for their novel views means that going off the rails gets the most media attention. Purveyors of 'child abuse' theories mock Christ's cross's atoning death and its salvific purpose. For them there is no 'power in the blood of the Lamb', just a theology of powerless victimhood.

As we enter the holiest days of the year, we all stand before the One who stood in our place and paid the price for our sin, thus guaranteeing us freedom from the cloying effects of sin, and eternal life with God. This is joy unspeakable.

Christ's Atoning Death was NOT divine "child abuse," not now, not ever.

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