At root the difficulty lies in the fact that Christology in its story, symbol, and doctrine has been assimilated to the patriarchal world view, with the result that its liberating dynamic has been twisted into justification for domination. Historically, as the early church became inculturated in the Greco-Roman world, it gradually shaped itself according to the model of the patriarchal household and then to the model of the empire. The image of Christ consequently assumed contours of the male head of household or the imperial ruler, a move correlated with similar development in the
