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.