Toward a theology of failure

At The Christian Century Barbara Brown Taylor's "Spectacular Failure" asserts that the church does not adequately address failure:

When Christians talk about what the church has to offer the world, one thing we do not often mention is an adequate theology of failure. Like everyone else, we live in a culture that adores success, and that never seems to tire of raising the bar.

Yet the church is not in the success business, Prof. Taylor notes:

At church, the loser shows up right above the altar. If success was ever on his list of things to do, then it was not the kind that anyone around him had much use for.

Prof. Brown does well in exposing the idolatry of accepting cultural views of success and achievement. The cross is indeed a symbol of failure--where Christ paid the price for mankind's failing to live righteously. And in the resurrection that follows the cross, we share with Christ not success, but victory.