Bound and Free

Douglas John Hall isn't the new guy on the block, but I kind of finally spent some time with him. The retired professor of the theology of McGill University, Hall was a student of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich and has much affinity with J. Moltmann. In Bound and Free (Fortress, 2005), Hall tells the story of his theological journey, his commitment to the idea of stewardship, and his vision for a reclaimed Protestantism. As in his The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World, Luther is a major dialog partner.

In the third chapter, entitled: "Stewards of the Mysteries of God: Preserving Classical Protestant Theology", Hall lays out a dialectic of classical Protestantism:

1. Christocentrism (contra Christomonism) -- Thus Christ is central, but its not so exclusive that it crowds out anything else.
2. Dialectical character of theology (contra doctrinal simplism) Yes, there is complexity, ambiguity, paradox -- grace and freedom, etc. Protestantism is at its best says Hall when its modest.
3. Faith seeks Understanding (contra rationalism and irrationalism) Here Anselm got it right!
4. The Bible (contra Biblicism and Bible Illiteracy) Key here is the opening sentence: "The sola Scriptura of the Reformation never meant that no other work of Christian tradition should have any importance for Protestantism, but it did and does mean that the canonical scriptures of the Older and New Testaments have priority."
5. Faith in dialogue with doubt (contra Fideism or "True Belief") Faith is relational, it involves trust, but there is an important place for doubt. Yes, it is as he suggests: "Nothing, I suspect, is more important in the stewarding of this tradition today than that pastors and teachers should take every opportunity to assure those in and around the churches that doubt and doubters are welcome in the community of faith."

If you've not read this book, it is quite worth a try. Being that I am already a Moltmann fan, Hall's insights came as a very welcome companion.

Bob Cornwall