From James Cone in The Cross & The Lynching Tree (2011)

The real scandal of the gospel is this: humanity’s salvation is revealed in the cross of the condemned criminal Jesus, and humanity’s salvation is available only through our solidarity with the crucified people in our midst. Faith that emerged out of the scandal of the cross is not a faith of intellectuals or elites of any sort. This is the faith of abused and scandalized people—the losers and the down and out.

*Click here for a free PDF of the Introduction and Chapter 1 of The Cross & The Lynching Tree.