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Title: Why Christian?: For Those on the Edge of Faith by Douglas John Hall ISBN: 0-8006-3130-7 Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers Pub. Date: 01 February, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful book!
Comment: For a long time, I was really lost with religion. I'd attended church as a youngster, but as I grew up, I grew distant from God, Christ, and everything religious. I sometimes even had to logically convince myself that God could exist.
I joiced religious youth groups that got me longing for a closeness to God, and I even joined a church once I got to college. However, I felt the church was very offtrack and more attached to conservative public views rather than what the Bible says and God demands. Although I felt they were offtrack, I felt as though I was getting somewhere, at least learning something abotu the Bible. But, I overall felt very confused.
Over the summer, determined to figure things out, I began reading the Bible and bought this book. Between reading the two of them together, I realized (to my dismay!) how wrong the church had been... and "Why Christian?" really helpd me open my eyes as to what everything was about. Rather than saying "believe this! I'm right, everyone else is wrong!" Hall guides the reader in his beliefs, general beliefs, and towards the Bible. It helped me in a way that the church and youth groups never could. And, it does not dispute the Bible.
Some readers argue against the view of Christ, but I believe they failed to realize that Hall did not attempt to explain everything... he merely wants to guide a nonChristian, a distant Christian, or a lost person towards some basic beliefs... Hall does not say that Christ's death on the cross was not mean to save us, he says the opposite. I think, if a reader reads Why Christian? with a mind already locked on beliefs, he will find a lot to criticize about it. But, one needs to realize that it's meant as a guidance, not set in stone.
Rating: 4
Summary: On the edge of faith . . .
Comment: I found this book to be very well written with a rather unique approach of using a "composite character" with whom the author has first a dialogue on a question and then for whom he provides a more thorough essay answer. The reader is caught up in this give and take between professor and student, and the questions are the hard ones! Why Christian? Why Jesus? Saved from What and for What? Why Church? Is there Hope?
There are many selected biblical quotations with a clear explanation written in such a way as to leave room for the reader to differ. In almost all cases, respect for other faith systems is maintained, reserving the most direct criticism for the author's own beloved Christianity. Professor Hall recognizes many of the atrocities committed in the name of religions, including Christianity, and explains why such actions are inconsistent with the precepts of those religions. He discusses how birthright so often is a reason for starting out in a religion but how today especially, birthright alone is not enough to keep someone in a given faith system.
Appropriately, some of the more fundamental questions are left to the reader to answer. For example, " 'So what precisely (as we may ask with Wendell Berry and others) are human beings for?' If we are not just accidents of nature, what is our place in the scheme of things? What is our purpose and how could we attain it, or reclaim it?" This question is never really answered directly, but is diverted to a related "sense of anxiety" angle.
My belief is that this book will be a bit of a disappointment for those looking to find a dogmatic statement of why Christian today. Instead, one finds a respectful questioning of today's Christianity with a deep routed love of what Christianity can be. This is indeed a wonderful resource "for those on the edge of faith."
Rating: 4
Summary: Thoughtful, if inconclusive
Comment: As any reader of Douglas John Hall's massive three-volume systematic theology--Thinking the Faith, Confessing the Faith, and Professing the Faith--will know, Hall is a sensitive and thoughtful Christian who is convinced of both the reality of God and the decisiveness of Jesus. He does not seek in this book simply to repeat in detail the content of his earlier work but to explain to contemporary audiences why he believes Christianity still makes sense. Some Christians will regard him as too liberal, others as too conservative; all can, I hope, agree that his heart beats with a passion for making God's love real in our world and for acknowledging the gap between God's goodness and the state of contemporary North American culture. I wish Hall had been somewhat more systematic; I wish he had explicated his own position in a somewhat less impressionistic fashion. But this is certainly among the books I'd place in the hands of someone interested in exploring the Christian gospel.
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Title: The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World by Douglas John Hall ISBN: 0800635817 Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: God & Human Suffering: An Exercise in the Theology of the Cross by Douglas John Hall ISBN: 0806623144 Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers Pub. Date: 01 September, 1987 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity by Douglas John Hall ISBN: 1579109845 Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Desert Hearts, Healing Fountains: Gaining Pastoral Vocational Clarity by Victor L. Hunter ISBN: 0827206305 Publisher: Chalice Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: Thinking the Faith: Christian Theology in a North American Context by Douglas John Hall ISBN: 0800625455 Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers Pub. Date: 01 October, 1991 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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