from "Broken Yet Beloved: A Pastoral Theology of the Cross"
(Chalice Press: 2002. pp.61)
The cross simply calls us to take a stand, to break with the neutrality and passivity and account for whose side we are on. In this way Paul's injunction "to take up your cross" is a call to join the struggle for justice. Or as Soelle says, "Put yourself on the side of the damned of this world."
Douglas John Hall has called the theology of the cross the "thin tradition" that has always been present in some form through out the history of Christianity. It has functioned to critique reigning ideologies and the church's tendency toward abuse. He is not talking about times when the church has distorted the meaning of the cross and used it to subdue dissent or impose imperialistic aims. Instead, a theology of the cross as the "thin tradition" offers an interpretive framework for entering into historical ambiguities in order to engage people who are suffering. The "thin tradition" is a political interpretation of the cross. Soelle rightly agrees, "The cross is the place where Christians stand when they begin to become aware of the civilization of injustice, and of estrangement as sin."
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