Gratitude for Douglas John Hall
Reading David Lott’s article about the late Douglas John Hall brought forth a flood of memories and deep gratitude (“A theologian without a school of thought,” September). When I enrolled at McGill University in Montreal as a midlife foreign student from the US, I was impressed by the quality of the religion faculty. I anticipated many good lectures. What I, a longtime teacher of teenagers and adults, didn’t expect was very much actual teaching as I define it: deep engagement and dialogue with students. I was wrong, especially where Hall was concerned.
He made it clear that in discussing theology we were entering an age-old conversation, and it behooved us to listen well. But he also elicited responses, often saying, “I wonder if . . .” or “Do you suppose . . . ?” As my project adviser, he responded promptly to my questions, signing emails with his initials or just “Doug.” As a full dialogue partner, he both encouraged and challenged me.
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I did sense that he was without a church to call home. When speaking of baptism into the church universal, he added almost wistfully that at best it was also baptism into a faith community. I was glad to read in Lott’s tribute that Hall indeed had a close circle of friends.
He wanted to be remembered as a theologian. I also recall him gratefully as a teacher.
—Nancy Gaston
Vancouver, WA
My first encounter with Hall came in 1976 with his book Enlighten Our Darkness. Since then I’ve read many more of his volumes, to my delight and for my growth. I thought Lott’s essay captured what for me is vital about Hall: He never connected all the dots. This is how I differentiate between a theologian of grace and an ideologue. The fact that he didn’t neatly belong anywhere is what makes him an ideal theologian for the church.
—Tom Eggebeen
Pasadena, CA
Christian Buddhism?
Alex DeMarco’s article on finding a deeper and more expansive spiritual understanding by being religiously multiple struck a chord (“How I became religiously multiple,” August). I agree that people, especially Christians, have missed opportunities to learn and grow through meaningful encounters with other traditions—or, for that matter, with science. My enjoyment is perhaps no surprise, as I once wrote a book about theologically and philosophically reinterpreting our Christian tradition through the lens of Mahayana Buddhism.
Kudos for publishing this article.
—Wayne Krefting
Minneapolis MN
Alex DeMarco’s attempt to ground Christian religious pluralism in the Buddhist concept of nonattachment is completely unconvincing. He writes that nonattachment “means acknowledging . . . [the] finitude and impermanence” of “our traditions and our beliefs,” which “will not be tomorrow what they are today, because change is the only constant.” That is good Buddhist thinking, but it is completely foreign to the Christian faith. Hebrews 13:8 states that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” The apostolic faith does not change from one age to another.
I encourage DeMarco to embrace, instead of nonattachment, Justin Martyr’s approach to religious pluralism. Martyr wrote that the wisdom of Christ the Logos is reflected in every religion. We should seek his truth in other faiths, always recognizing “the finality of Christ,” to borrow the title of a book by Lesslie Newbigin, the great missionary to India.
—James Edwards
North Ridgeville, OH
Alex DeMarco responds:
I appreciate this engagement with the article. To clarify, I was not trying to build a case for Christian religious pluralism, nonattachment-based or otherwise. My aims were more modest: (1) to lay bare the often unacknowledged implications of a nonpluralist Christian story vis-à-vis non-Christian religions and (2) to provide one window into the kinds of possibilities that religious pluralism opens up.
I don’t think seeing our traditions and beliefs as finite and impermanent is altogether foreign to Christian faith. “As the heavens are higher than the earth,” so does God exceed even our most cherished concepts of God. We have to distinguish between those concepts and the reality to which they, hopefully, point. Christ may be “the same yesterday and today and forever,” but our understandings of Christ certainly are not. Athanasius did not simply copy Paul; nor did Abelard read Anselm and say, “Ditto.” As scholars as diverse as Francesca Stavrakopoulou and David Bentley Hart show, the faith does change from one age to another. It evolves. If it didn’t, that would mean that we had so reified our concepts as to set them up as idols, as replacements for the Divine.
I think the transcendence of God and the fallibility and provisionality of our traditions constitute fertile ground for a Christian religious pluralism. See Marjorie Suchocki for a Christian religious pluralism grounded in traditional Christian doctrinal categories. Christologies, such as Ilia Delio’s, that see Jesus as the norm of humanity, rather than the great exception, are also important. Christian religious pluralism is, by definition, religious pluralism that is affirmed for Christian reasons—perhaps on that much James Edwards and I can agree. Thankfully, I find that there are many such reasons.
Preaching fabric
I was sitting in my office, starting work on my sermon on Acts 9 and the resurrection of Dorcas. I did what I always do: I prayed for Sophia/the Holy Spirit to be with me as I read and prepared. Reading the century is part of my prep, and 15 minutes after my prayer I opened up to Stephanie Perdew’s column on fabric (“The shelter of fabric,” August). I was blown away by the convergence. Thank you for that incredible article and its reference to the documentary The Quilters. Now I’m blessed to continue this specific study and storytelling via Perdew’s words and the lived experience of these incarcerated men making quilts for foster children. I’ll never not tell their story for the rest of my ministry career, anytime I talk about Dorcas.
—John Fawcett
Smithfield, NC
Weeping at desecration
As a longtime follower of the Oak Flat story, I weep to see the outcome of what so long ago started with the doctrine of discovery and expanded as an expression of, as the editors put it, “the worship of the false gods of unchecked capitalism and the illusion of unfettered growth” (“Apache Stronghold’s rooted resistance,” August). The decision to transfer Oak Flat to a mining company utterly ignores the rights of the land, along with the cultural and spiritual legacy of the Indigenous people who call this sacred land home.
We can be heartened that the Spirit yet hovers over the land as it bears the scars of exploitation and over the peoples who will no doubt find a resilient response—as they have over the past 400 years. But God who is Creator is not mocked: Justice for the land and all those who have been dispossessed of their lives, religious practices, inherent rights, and ancestral resting places will be meted out (Rev. 11:18). In the meantime, we must also respond more vigilantly to the call to unite in defending against the desecration of the earth and its resources. An important part of that response is to put into law the inherent rights of the land and its resources, upon which all life depends.
—Mark Chaffin
Scotia, NY
Complex popes
I enjoyed Rebecca Bratten Weiss’s article about Pope Francis (“Mourning Francis—and his limits,” June). I appreciate the complexity of that grief for those of us who consider ourselves to be progressive Catholics—those of us who were disappointed in his sometimes conservative stances on issues like women’s roles, even as he appointed women to several significant leadership roles in the Vatican.
As a member of Australian Catholics Exploring the Diaconate and a speaker in Rome on the issue of women deacons during last October’s synod, I fully understand Weiss’s hope tinged with a desire for more action. Many of us feel this tension specifically regarding the need to ordain women deacons. There was some movement at the synod, as the final document (no. 60) declares that “what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped” and “the issue of women deacons remains open.”
Francis was the best pope of the last few decades, and as Weiss notes, he moved the synodal process along. I join with others like James Martin in feeling fairly optimistic that our new pope, in light of his missionary experience, intellect, and vocal condemnation of war, will be a measured but active beacon for hope and unity. To address the present turmoil, I think the church may be forced to make significant changes, especially in regard to women’s roles, despite the neoconservative forces that surround us.
—Joanna Thyer
Sydney, Australia
