Lighten Our Darkness

by Douglas John Hall, David Monge

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revised and with a Foreword by David J. Monge In this great classic, Douglas John Hall analyzes the inadequacies and dangers of the officially optimistic society of North America and its officially optimistic religion. He then appeals to the thin tradition of Luther and Kierkegaard within Christian history as a way into the darkness of our time. He eloquently appeals to this theology of the cross as not only pointing toward a new image of human nature for Christians today but also affording us a glimmer of true light. Students, laypersons, clergy, and many others will find here a gripping critique of modern Western culture and a way toward genuine Christian faith in challenging times. Mind-shaking and spirit-shaking. -- John C. Bennett One of the best and most constructive theological critiques of culture and religion to come along in a good while. -- Larry Rasmussen I believe this is an important book. I know that it is stimulating and provocative--almost maddeningly so. . . .Thoughtful Christians need to reckon with the ideas contained in this book. -- Edgar M. Carlson, The Lutheran Quarterly Douglas John Hall, one of the most respected of North American theologians, is Professor Emeritus of Theology at McGill University, Montreal. Among his many books is the trilogy Christian Theology in a North American Context, which consists of Thinking the Faith, Professing the Faith, and Confessing the Faith. His popular Why Christian? For Those on the Edge of Faith was published in 1998.

Genres: Theology, Spirituality

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Douglas John Hall was an Canadian emeritus professor of theology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and a minister of the United Church of Canada. Prior to joining the McGill Faculty of Religious Studies in 1975 he was MacDougald Professor of Systematic Theology at St Andrew's College in the University of Saskatchewan (1965–1975), Principal of St Paul's College in the University of Waterloo (1962–1965), and minister of St Andrew's Church in Blind River, Ontario (1960–1962).

Reviews

[Ryan Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a punch to the gut. Difficult, confronting, and dense theology. Hall identifies the critical issues with the prevalent image of humanity in Western culture. The image is one of mastery. Of nature, of others, of technology, of ourselves. He eviscerates Christianity for its enabling and adoption of this image and argues compellingly for the midwifery of a new image of humanity that is struggling to be born now that the failures of the mastery image are becoming well known and experienced. This new image is one of receptivity, of an acknowledgement of our interrelationality with nature and one another.

The role of the church is to adopt a "theology of the cross" which rejects the triumphalism of Western Christianity in favor of an approach that treats seriously the belief in the God revealed in Jesus who enters into the darkness of our suffering and experience and provides the hope, but not the certainty, of deliverance. That enters the darkness of the current age and lives with a tension between hope and doubt. That leads others into the darkness so as to be able to comprehend the light. One of the most challenging perspectives I have ever grappled with, but rings true and profound.

[M Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the earliest (if not the first) American treatments of post-modern theology, this volume gives the foundation for such now popular authors as Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, et al.

Hall's thesis (1976) is that the American church has largely been dominated by the relentless optimism of the American Empire and now is helpless to cope with the looming sense of darkness in the American spirit brought on by crises such as Vietnam and Watergate. America, he writes, is only now beginning to deal with the darkness in a way that Europe has been doing since WWI. There is, however, in Hall's view, a "thin tradition" of spiritual honesty in the Church and he traces it from Paul through Luther, Kierkegaard, and Barth, with lesser reference to Bonhoeffer and Tillich.

Ultimately, Hall proposes a new basis for American theology building off what he saw as positive stirrings in the then-current culture: the peace movement and back-to-nature leanings of the "hippie" youth culture and the more mainstream ecological movement. In these, he saw the possibilities of a theology that redefined human relationships to the Creator, to creation/nature, and among humans. Most importantly, Hall sees the need for a popular theology that goes beyond "happy talk" to confess the darkness of human nature and the universe.

While some of this book seems necessarily dated, "Lighten Our Darkness" was a necessary bridge between the relentless optimism of the populist theologies of Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham to today's authors cited above. Hall has continued to write with what he has announced as his last book (he is 84) coming out just this year. I will certainly be looking for more of his books to "catch up." He has been ranked as one of the "25 theologians to broaden your faith" by the UC (United Church of Cananda) Observer along with such current writers as Borg, Crossan, Brueggeman and Wright.

[Deborah Brunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely love Halls’s delineation of the thin tradition, of Luther’s theology of the cross. He contrasts this with the theology of glory which Christianity has adopted strongly in the modern era in the West, and particularly in north America, the perspective he writes from. He proposes a development of a theology of the cross to deal with the current issues of the day, many of which have grown out of modernism’s premier values of mastery and progress. With no expectation of limits on what we could or should do we are ill equipped to meet the problems we create with ever expanding technology that decimates and wastes the earth. Likewise with the expectation of ever expanding glory, reward, and prosperity, how do we live in a world where in our actual experience we face failure, suffering limits and death?

A theology of the cross is a profound way to enter into the darkness of negation, loss, isolation, meaningless, death and despair and find a light on and in the cross that we might otherwise never know, never understand.

My only criticisms are that it was repetitive and I feel he just does not bring things together as strongly as I would have liked in the end.
I look forward to later books where his thoughts on a theology of the cross might be more consolidated.