A Theologian Who Knows What Time It Is

Rev. Douglas John Hall is a United Church minister and a professor emeritus of Christian theology at McGill University in Montreal

I am reading Douglas John Hall’s The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World. While a re-contextualized theology of the cross may not be sufficient to return Christianity to relevance in the 21st century, it is certainly a necessary part of such a return. Hall’s thinking is a gift for those of us who find most expressions of today’s Christianity to be either limp or reactionary– and therefore unhelpful and irrelevant.

A heading in an early chapter of the book defines discipleship as “the church’s journey toward the world.” The object of discipleship, according to Hall, is “solidarity”: a “greater and ever greater solidarity with the creation that God loves and, in Jesus Christ, seeks to redeem from within.” In a world that rejects daily– out of a largely unconscious fear– any intimations of its own vulnerability and death, suffering comes to all who love the world not despite, but in all its brokenness and pain. Hall’s theology of the cross is about a God who plumbs the depths of self-giving love– a love that the world, in its delusions of mastery and control, rejects.

In a post-Christian age, in which the Christian religion has been either sidelined by a largely indifferent consumer materialistic/imperial militaristic culture– or serves as the legitimizing cult of that culture– Hall helps us rethink the cross. In such rethinking is the possibility of a renewed Christianity, in which a renewed Church– no longer triumphant, and therefore able to be its faithful, counter-cultural self– re-visions God as primarily the God of Love (rather than primarily the God of Power). Then, as disciples, we can journey with Christ (never an easy or unambiguous journey) to “greater and ever greater solidarity” with the creation that God loves, and seeks to redeem.

 

Established Power and Truth-Telling

Brian Haw: English Prophet?

Our popular usage of the word “prophet” casts it in the direction of  “fortune-teller” or “one who possesses secret wisdom.” Prophesy in the Hebrew Bible is not about fortune-telling, but is more accurately understood as “truth-telling”– and especially the kind of truth-telling that established power doesn’t want to hear.

Whatever one’s view of war– from the most aggressive neo-conservatism to the most non-violent pacifism– no one can reasonably deny that innocent people get harmed. (Some will maintain that there is no such thing as a “non-combatant” (i.e., “innocent person”) anymore, in this age of total war. We can dismiss this, for now, as an unreasonable view.) One’s view of war surely shapes one’s judgment regarding the moral significance of innocent people being harmed, but one’s view of war cannot change the fact that in war, innocent people get harmed.

Englishman Brian Haw arrived at the conclusion that children being killed in the war in Iraq was morally unacceptable. Acting on that conviction, he encamped in front of the Houses of Parliament in London, protesting English government policy that supported the war. Whether English government policy should have or shouldn’t have supported the war in Iraq is debatable. What is prophetic– that is, “truth-telling”– about Brian Haw’s protest, is that he confronted members of Parliament with a significant truth about war: innocent people get harmed.

And the response of established power? Entirely predictable, whether in Western democracies or in Arab plutocracies rife with nepotism (Tunisia, Egypt): marginalize the truth-teller (or tellers) whose truth-telling challenges the dominant narrative or threatens the regime. To the credit of the English legal system– and to the tradition of Western political liberalism– attempts by established power to have Brian removed failed.

While the freedom of speech protects the right of people to speak stupidity or plain falsehood, it also protects the right of modern-day prophets to speak truth to power.

Brian died last Sunday, June 19th. The link is below.

‘Unsung Hero’ Brian Haw, 1949-2011

British anti-war activist will be remembered for his unyielding protest on behalf of children killed in conflict.

via ‘Unsung Hero’ Brian Haw, 1949-2011 – Features – Al Jazeera English.