Construing the Cross

"This is an outstandingly lucid and imaginative reflection on the meaning and significance of the cross. Young ranges effortlessly from Scripture to the Fathers, from paintings to poetry, from social anthropology to preaching, and using metaphor and images, draws a picture that is more profound and more far-reaching than any of the constraining theories of the atonement. At once masterful and moving."

--Kent Brower, Senior Research Fellow in Biblical Studies, Nazarene Theological College



"Wise, rich, surprising, this wonderful book opens familiar traditions anew, with profound vision. There is the ancient and the current, poetry and paradox, challenge and simplicity: there is life. Frances Young is an incomparable teacher."

--Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence, Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor, Chair, Dept. of Religious Studies, Brown University



"Here one of the greatest living theologians further opens up one of her core themes. The combination of scholarship, imagination, lived experience and profound, daring thought is gripping and inspiring. Above all the cross shows the depths of life and of God together, and the result is a powerful prophetic wisdom for our times."

--David F. Ford, University of Cambridge