The Cross is at the very centre of our faith. Frances Young, who has been called one our greatest living theologians, has spent a lifetime exploring its meaning and the rich and varied ways it has been construed through the centuries. For the earliest Christians, Passover was essential to their understanding of the Passion, but there are other biblical images which created imaginative traditions: sacrifice and scapegoat, the Tree of Life and other surprising links with to the Garden of Eden, and rich resources of paintings and poetry. On Passion Sunday, as we turn our thoughts towards Holy Week, she introduces her profound and far-reaching thinking about the Cross.
Frances Young is Emeritus Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham and a Methodist Minister. Her many books include Construing the Cross (SPCK 2016), the publication of her 2014 Didsbury lectures on the signs, symbols, poetry and significance of the Cross.