"Most books on the cross of Christ are regurgitations of outmoded atonement theories that say almost nothing memorable. But Brian Zahnd has once again broken the mold with his revolutionary book The Wood Between the Worlds. Herein we have a capacious portrait of Jesus' sacrifice that is so stunningly beautiful and uniquely framed that the reader cannot look away. An enrapturing volume to reignite the church's curiosity around the crucifixion penned by one of today's most provocative pastors."

"The American church has inherited a desiccated theology of the cross, one that bypasses the rich and diverse images of salvation presented in Scripture and articulates atonement in terms of deity appeasement and individualistic salvation. In The Wood Between the Worlds, Brian Zahnd puts flesh back on the dry bones of our atonement theology. His holistic reading of the biblical texts recounts the salvation story with an eye toward what the cross meant and continues to mean for the world. Using literary allusions, Girard's scapegoat theory, and reflections on our current social and political reality, Zahnd refocuses us on the truth of the gospel message—that Jesus' death saves humanity not from hands of an angry God but from the violent powers that have corrupted us and held us in their sway. The efficacy of the cross, then, is not that it divides the damned from the saved but that it unites all humanity, reconciling us to one another in hope as we hunger for the final restoration of creation."

"With the heart of a pastor, the mind of a scholar, and the soul of a Jesus follower, Brian Zahnd here shares the fruit of his long, unhurried contemplation of the cross of Christ. His keen insights liberate us from flawed atonement theories based in retributive justice that have persisted for far too long, and he breathes new life into the mystery of the cross: the supreme centerpiece of God's love that radiates redemption and ushers us into the peaceable kingdom."

"To the apostolic witnesses, the cross of Christ was never a theory to be solved by theologizing, as if the calculative mind could solve its mysteries through abstraction. The cross can only be narrated, beheld, and shared as a transforming testimony—proclaimed in sermons, symbols, and parables, in the poetry and hymns of lives it has rebirthed. For over four decades, Brian Zahnd has been a poet-preacher-prophet of the cross. I daresay he's an eyewitness theologian who kneels at its foot. This book is his revelation of who he has seen there."