Introduction

Summary

Why should the Most High stoop to things so lowly, the Almighty do a thing with such toil?

St. Anselm¹

In contemporary soteriological discourses, it is common to pit God’s saving love against divine justice, a move often accompanied by a subtle downplay of the salvific significance of the cross. But is this move really necessary? If not, how can we conceive of Christ’s cross as a manifestation of both divine love and divine justice? Can the question that moves Christian faithful, artists, and scholars alike – namely, Why the cross? – be answered without opposing justice and love and without compromising the demands that each places on us, individually and collectively? What does it mean to live under the shadow of the cross or in the light of resurrection (the two sides of the same reality) in a secular culture, which is increasingly post-Christian but still owes its humanistic aspirations to Christianity? Is Christ’s summons to take one’s cross and to become an agent of hope still relevant in this culture?