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1 Invitation to Theology Hall opens Thinking the Faith, the first volume in his systematic trilogy, with what he calls “A Summons to Contextualization,” and moves from there to ponder “The Meaning of Contextuality in Christian Thought” and how we might discern our current context. Here, however, leading with Hall’s argument for the necessity of theological thought in the first place will help us understand better how he understands the nature of such thinking and how it functions in Christian life—particularly in a context that is often content to try to eschew the disciplined practice of theological thought. For Hall, theology is in many ways a reactive discipline, which must respond to the needs of the moment, which are often recognized in the questions being asked. As he writes just prior to this selection, “Perhaps theology will become possible only when we have developed a distaste for answers, i.e., when we have come to know better the depths of the questions. Yet for those who are prepared for such an exposure to our context, there exists today—and in a way unique in our history—not only a summons but also an invitation to theology” (1989:169). Source: Hall 1989:169–77. Social Extremity/Theological Opportunity The old adage that “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity” has been applied in questionable and even despicable ways—for instance, by “evangelists” who operate on the principle that you must first break the human spirit and then offer it the “balm of Gilead.” If the proverb is understood in a descriptive rather than a prescriptive sense, however, it makes considerable sense. It is the same kind of sense Jesus made when he said, “Only the sick have need of a physician.” Those who are in good physical and mental health, with money in the bank, a promising career, and two lovely children, may have some additional comfort from the “consolations of religion”; but they are not likely to 13 cry out for help, forgiveness, salvation! The same thing may be said of societies. Surely the reason why Christianity has operated in our society primarily as a “culture religion” (Peter Berger), a blend of religious denominationalism and nationalism, is that few have needed it for what it really is—a religion of radical grace. The dominant culture of our society has felt no overwhelming need for the realistic reading of the human situation that is presupposed by a theology of radical grace. It does not lie within the power of the disciple community to engineer such need in its host society. However fervently prophetic spirits within the disciple community may wish for the kind of depth and vitality of faith and theology that great social transitions have often evoked, they cannot cause such transitions to occur. All the admirers of the pivotal Christian figures of such epochs (Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, the young Barth), who want the world always to be ready for such ringing messages as those epochs called forth—all such persons are frustrated, because the world will move at its own pace. Its crises cannot be ordered up by prophets! In this sense, theology is dependent upon society, upon the world. It has to take what is there, what is given in the moment, including what may indeed be hidden and should be brought to light. It cannot manufacture shakings of the foundation. But when such shaking occurs; when in the course of society’s unfolding the thinly veiled chaos that its “culture” just managed to cover begins to show through and the ancient unrest of homo sapiens is no longer contained by the careful conventions of the ages, then the disciple community must prepare itself to wake from its dogmatic slumbers, reach more deeply into the resources of its tradition than it has been accustomed to do, and see what can be found there for the healing of the nations. In this sense, the extremity of a human community is the opportunity for a new attempt at telling God’s story of the world. The Situation This, I believe, is how we should regard the context in which we find ourselves on this continent today. The worldview out of which our society has evolved has reached its extremity. It is a theologically evocative situation, and for our province of the universal church it is the first situation of this kind that we have experienced. For that reason alone it is difficult enough, of course. Christians in North...

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