Select Works of Douglas John Hall (7 vols.)

Christianity can have a significant future—one that will be faithful to the original vision of the movement and of immense service to our beleaguered world. But to have that future, Western Christians must give up the future that 16 centuries of state-sponsored Christianity has conditioned them to covet.

Douglas John Hall traces the decline of Western Christendom, examining ecclesiastical responses to its fall. He proposes that the churches should use their disestablishment for good, and describes how Christians might serve dominant societies, classes, and institutions in a post-Christian era.

The deterioration of our natural environment is one of the major issues of our time. Many analysts say that the Christian concept of humanity’s “dominion” over creation is a primary cause of this crisis.

Douglas John Hall does not attempt to exonerate historical Christianity from that charge—the church must own part in this predicament. But, Hall argues, confession alone is not enough. The crisis forces us to rethink our whole understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature. This new understanding must be based on the image of God in humanity—the imago dei.

Hall carefully examines the biblical, historical, and theological meanings of this term, which became Christianity’s symbolic way of designating the essence of human beings. He argues that the image of God is not an endowment; rather, it is a quality that pertains to our relationship with God. We should think of imago as a verb, not a noun, he says. The human vocation within the created order is “to image” the creator.

When he was 20 years old, Douglas John Hall hoped to study music professionally. He met a young minister whose “different” Christianity both surprised and intrigued him. In the end, this friendship altered the course of his life. This book traces the story of their 50-year friendship and its impact upon their lives. In the process of telling his story, Hall reveals the importance of mentors in the lives of the young.

Many Christians are confused or ambivalent about their role as stewards. Douglas John Hall recaptures the most basic meaning of the biblical metaphor of the steward and applies that meaning to our social context. Working from numerous angles, Hall explores the rich meaning and implications of stewardship. He compares scriptural teaching on stewardship—concentrated in Jesus’ parables—with the role of stewardship in the church’s history, maintaining that ever since the fourth century, the church's understanding and practice of stewardship has been distorted by its alliance with institutional power.

Douglas John Hall argues that Christianity first gained a foothold in the world because it proclaimed a message that awakened men and women to possibilities they had never entertained. According to Hall, Christianity’s existence is dependent on this new zest for life that is awakened in people who are transformed by a gospel that speaks to the specifics of each persons time and place. Religion is in decline in the West, but Hall challenges Christians to stop devising ever more impressive promotional schemes, and to hear and proclaim the gospel instead.

What really is Christianity? If all the religious packaging in which it is wrapped were removed, what would remain? These were Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s questions, and Douglas John Hall argues that they must be ours today. In many quarters, Christianity is so narrowly identified with a few radical parts, cultural associations, and past ambitions that many see it as a threat to the planetary future.

Hall maintains that, though we may no longer speak clearly of the essence of Christianity, perhaps we may still have a sufficiently shared sense of the core of the faith to be able to say what Christianity is not.

When life becomes complicated with problems too painful to face, Christians often turn to God as a way of turning off the world. For Douglas John Hall, prayer is more than a shield from trouble or a source of comfort. He calls Christians to experience exciting prayer possibilities that lift us out of our self-concern into a vital, worldly stewardship in harmony with the purpose of the gospel.

This thoughtful study asks two significant questions: what is prayer, and what should we be doing when we pray? Hall explores the nature of prayer, and the relationship between prayer, thought, and action. He observes that “Love for God and love for the world are not alternatives; they are part of the same seamless robe.” Through prayer “God separates us from the world in order to send us back into the world with renewed spirits.”