Brian Zahnd is the founder and lead pastor of Word of Life Church, a non-denominational Christian congregation in Saint Joseph, Missouri. Brian and his wife, Peri, founded the church in 1981. Brian is also the author of several books, including, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, Water to Wine, A Farewell To Mars, Beauty Will Save the World, and Unconditional?: The Call of Jesus to Radical Forgiveness.

Today we’ll be having a conversation about his newest book “The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross”

CONVERSATION QUESTIONS:

While most books on the cross or atonement try to “sum up” or find a specific mechanism for the cross but in this book you go the route of mystery and contemplation through beauty and poetics, while also being exegetical and theological. Please explain why you wrote this book? Also, explain the title “The Wood Between the Worlds”.

In chapter 2 you talk about the singularity of Good Friday in how it is tied to forgiveness but you also bring out the idea from NT Wright about how we have paganized our atonement theology. How has our atonement theology been paganize resulting in certain views of how God forgives?

You have a chapter on what the Cross meant to Jesus? How did he understand His death? (Chapter 9)

Let’s venture into a bit of the political nature of the cross. Quite a few of your chapters from 10 on deal with how Jesus’ death exposes the Powers and Empire. I love your connections to the ring of power from the LOTR in chapter 10, how does this image connect to the cross? (This is very applicable in this election season!)

In chapter 11 “The War is over” you say “Jesus is the Prince of Peace who died on the cross refusing to wage war upon his enemies. Now we are called to live as citizens of his peaceable kingdom no matter what the rest of the world does.” Walk us through this idea.

We just did a 2 part series looking at Isaiah 53 and something in those episodes we touched on was the idea of scapegoating. In chapter 12: The Sacrifice to end all sacrifice, you also look at scapegoating- about how we often demand a victim but God does not. Please speak a little on scapegoating, sacrifice, and the cross.

This also ties into your chapter 13 on the lynching of the Son of Man- how the cross was a lynching. And how the cross deals with capital punishment in chapter 14. It seems like the modern church is so far from the early church in this view and maybe we need to look more closely at the cross.

Chapter 17 is called the Harrowing of Hell. It’s all about Holy Saturday and resurrection, and how “the death of God dooms death”. Speak to us a little about this because I feel this is a downplayed thing or ignored often in the evangelical church.

Chapter 18 is the Lamb upon the throne. It talks all about Revelation and also the way God rules the world. What does the cross tell us about how God chooses to rule the world?

We believe the cross is something we’ll never fully get to the bottom of. But I do love how you explain it in your intro:

The cross is the pinnacle of divine disclosure, the eternal moment of forgiveness, divine solidarity with human suffering, the enduring model of discipleship, the supreme demonstration of divine love, the beauty that saves the world, the re-founding of the world around the axis of love, the overthrow of the satan, the shaming of the principalities and Powers, the unmasking of mob violence, the condemnation of state violence, the expose of political power, the abolition of war, the sacrifice to end sacrificing, the great divide of humankind, the healing center of the cosmos, the death by which death is conquered, the lamb upon the throne, the tree of life recovered and revealed. And with this brief list of interpretations, I’ve come nowhere near exhausting the meaning of the cross, for indeed the crucifixion of Jesus is an inexhaustible revelation of who God is.

For those who are set in stone on their one mechanical way to view the cross what is you message to them… or even to the church on how we can usher God’s people into a more beautiful view of the cross?