One of the most articulate and thoughtful books on the Cross is The Cross in Our Context, Douglas John Hall, (Fortress, 2003). I am drawn back to this book quite often when I need someone to remind me why I'm a Christian theologian, and a theological educator, and the responsibility to truth and intellectual integrity such a calling imposes. The book is a distillation of Hall's 3 volume Systematic Theology which doesn't find its way onto many reading lists, but ranks with Thomas C Oden's theology of the ecumenical consensus as a theology that, when taken togehter, gives due importance to past tradition and contemporary context.
Here is why I think Hall is worth reading, at least in this shorter version of his large scale theology:
"The theology of the cross cannot be a wholly satisfactory, wholly integrated statement about our human brokenness in relation to God; it can only be a broken statement about our brokenness - and about God's eschatological healing of our brokenness...The drive to mastery is perhaps never so great as when we try to master theology. Christian theology, particularly Christology, is perhaps a peculiar and poignant instantization of the original temptation: the temptation to have instead of continuing to live vis a vis this Thou who is not have-able"
(The photo is copyright, - it was taken at The Bield, in Perth, during a retreat in August)
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