The opposite end of the spectrum: a post-Christian, feminist theologian
Hampson has been accused of a narrowly literal interpretation of Christian events, but she is unmoved: "Well, either there was a resurrection and something extraordinary, or there wasn't.'' She has no time for cut-and-paste Christians, those who want to ditch the bad bits and define Christianity in a way that is compatible with modern knowledge. "We should be clear that the Christian claim has always been, and must be, that such a uniqueness has occurred in history. To think that Jesus was a fine teacher (and nothing more) is compatible with being an atheist. To hold that he was singularly in tune with God is a theistic position, but not necessarily Christian."
In Hampson's worldview Christianity is on the scrapheap not only because it cannot possibly be true, but because it harms women. Since Christianity is anchored in a particular time, events from that point in history become a "benchmark'' to which constant reference is made. "The circumstances of that past age are propelled into the present, influencing people, not least, at a subconscious level," says Hampson. Obedience and worship are inescapably fundamental to Christianity. This, she says, must be a problem for feminists who have struggled to free themselves from patriarchal dominion. In her new book, After Christianity, she takes this argument a stage further: "I began to see that the very raison d'etre of the Christian myth was to support men as superior over women, that it served to legitimise how men see themselves in the world."
"A faith that crucifies women" by Emily Williams