"In this lively and poetic translation of Stanislas Breton's classic The Word and the Cross - the first work of this major French phenomenologist of religion to be translated into English - Breton addresses the message of the Cross in a new era. Breton is a master of the dialogue between theology and the philosophical tradition, and his book is a timely addition to the contemporary debate about religion and postmodernism. The Word and the Cross offers a searching re-thinking of questions raised by the Sign of Contradiction which both challenge and bring sober comfort to contemporary thought. Distilled from a lifetime of rigorous reflection and mediation, Breton pursues the way the Cross, as a mark of interrogation within our world, continually challenges our world to a more profound engagement in justice, openness to the other, and the abandonment of triumphalism. Drawing upon Paul's proclamation that the foolishness of the Cross is wiser than the wisdom of Philosophy and upon the Neoplatonic theological and mystical traditions, Breton presents the Cross both rigorously and poetically as a principle of critique and renewal for a world in search of community and engagement."--Jacket.