Death On A Friday Afternoon: Meditations On The Last Words Of Jesus From The Cross

Richard John Neuhaus chose a daunting project in Death on a Friday Afternoon: the book is a wide-ranging meditation on Jesus' seven last words spoken from the Cross on Good Friday. (These "words" are actually Jesus' seven final statements, taken from the four gospels; they include "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?") Neuhaus has a powerful rhetorical style, which disposes him occasionally to make questionable, grandiose claims, such as, "If what Christians say about Good Friday is true, then it is, quite simply, the truth about everything." Yet Neuhaus also has a great respect for the mysteries of Christianity and is capable of open, honest grappling with the toughest questions of the faith: "[W]hat does it mean to say Christ died for our sins? Why was it necessary? Or was it? And which sins in particular?" Despite its occasional overreaching, Death on a Friday Afternoon is an elegant, mature, and compassionate exploration of the hardest, darkest questions in Christianity. --Michael Joseph Gross