Why Did Jesus Die and What Does That Have to Do with Me?

“This is a wide-ranging, challenging, and thought-provoking book. Anderson goes beyond the dominant Western categories of how the atonement works. By emphasizing the atonement as the entire mystery of reconciliation of human beings to God through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Anderson calls us to be grateful and joyful participants in the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of reconciliation in our broken world.”


—Dorsey McConnell, bishop emeritus, Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh





“There is any number of historical or constructive studies of atonement today. Fred Anderson’s study is different because it is from a pastor’s heart, but a book few pastors could have written. It is forged in forty-five years of learned ministry, avoiding nothing, never didactic, always hungering for the big picture. Unlike many strictly academic studies, it grew out of dialogue and is earthed in practical living. I thoroughly commend its clarity, profundity, and wisdom.”


—Iain Torrance, president emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary





“Fred Anderson is a pastor with a gift for making theological scholarship accessible to any thoughtful person who wants to understand the cross and its world changing significance. This book blessedly redeems ‘the atonement’ from being a divisive and exhausted debate to a compelling invitation to receive new life in Christ. It provides careful exegesis of Scripture and the theological tradition, which leads to insight on how this new life is nurtured sacramentally through Christ’s ongoing ministry as our high priest.”


—M. Craig Barnes, president, Princeton Theological Seminary





“Fred Anderson offers readers a refreshing, wide-ranging, and highly accessible overview of atonement language from its use in Scripture to its theological development throughout the history of the church. With clarity and persuasion, he unpacks the attempts to explain this complex doctrine while demonstrating that the biblical language of sacrifice is firmly rooted in thanksgiving for divine grace rather than as an attempt to appease an angry god.”


—Paul Galbreath, Union Presbyterian Seminary





“In this inspiring book, Fred Anderson claims that believing in Jesus Christ is about far more than going to heaven when we die. It is also about participating in God’s New Creation today. Drawing on forty-five years of pastoral ministry, Anderson punctuates his theological and historical insights with real-life questions from his congregants. After reading this, you will never look at the cross in the same way again!”


—Thomas K. Tewell, founder, Macedonian Ministry Foundation





“Read this book. You will find a magisterial and hugely instructive survey of virtually all the Christian ideas about atonement throughout the centuries. And you will end in exactly the right place: a passionate and ecumenical invitation to participation in word and sacrament as participation in Christ, in whom all the world, including all human sorrow, has been made to participate in God.”


—Gordon W. Lathrop, United Lutheran Seminary, emeritus