Delivered from the Elements of the World - by Peter J Leithart (Paperback)

About the Book

In this wide-ranging study bursting with insights, Peter Leithart explores how and why Jesus' death and resurrection address the deepest realities of this world. This biblical and theological examination of atonement and justification challenges conventional perceptions and probes the depths of the death that changes everything.

Book Synopsis

In Delivered from the Elements of the World Peter Leithart reframes Anselm's question, "Why the God Man?" Instead he asks, "How can the death and resurrection of a Jewish rabbi of the first century . . . be the decisive event in the history of humanity, the hinge and crux and crossroads for everything?" With the question reframed for the wide screen, Leithart pursues the cultural and public settings and consequences of the cross and resurrection. He writes, "I hope to show that atonement theology must be social theory if it is going to have any coherence, relevance or comprehensibility at all."There are no small thoughts or cramped plot lines in this vision of the deep-down things of cross and culture. While much is recognizable as biblical theology projected along Pauline vectors, Leithart marshals a stunning array of discourse to crack open one of the big questions of Christian theology. This is a book on the atonement that eludes conventional categories, prods our theological imaginations and is sure to spark conversation and debate.

Review Quotes

"I have benefitted greatly from Leithart's work. It was a work immersed in the Scriptures and also sensitive to contemporary concerns. . . . I see Leithart's work as a creative ecumenical proposal that can serve as a starting point to bridge the East and the West. In an age where the rhetoric of unity becomes cheapened by division and violence, Leithart advance a program where fleshy structures of exclusion and division are abolished. Spirit in flesh: that is new creation."

"When you read Peter Leithart, you suddenly realize how timid most Christian theologians are, tepidly offering us a few 'insights' to edify our comfort with the status quo. Leithart is like a lightning strike from a more ancient, more courageous Christian past, his flaming pen fueled by biblical acuity and scholarly rigor. In this book, he does it again--here is the City of God written afresh for our age, asking a question you didn't know to ask but now can't avoid: Why is the cross the center of human history? Couldn't God have found another way? Leithart's answer--this book--is a monumental achievement."

About the Author

Peter J. Leithart (PhD, University of Cambridge) is president of Theopolis Institute and an adjunct senior fellow of theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. He is the author of many books including Defending Constantine,