ABSTRACT
The equation of love with self-sacrifice, self-denial and self-abnegation in Christian theology is dangerous to women's psychological, spiritual, and physical health, and it is contrary to the real aim of Christian love. When Jesus' passive victimisation is seen as necessary to salvation then it is a small step to the belief that to be of value is to sacrifice oneself for others. Attempting to retrieve a feminist theology of the Cross by revisiting themes of suffering and self-sacrifice with the assistance of the insights from pastoral theology reveals the very real problems facing such a move. In protesting against patriarchy, the general misogyny in ethics, doctrine, biblical interpretation and anthropology, feminists have avoided some of the paradoxes of scripture. Women need though to resist the increasingly widespread tendency to condemn all forms of self-giving. Self-sacrifice is not pernicious by definition; it is not always a manifestation of co-dependency.
