Читать книгу What Christianity Is Not - Douglas John Hall - Страница 7

With the break-up of Christendom, serious Christians throughout the globe find themselves confronted in new and urgent ways by the question, What, really, is Christianity? Shorn of its ‘religious’ accretions, what remains of this faith-tradition? How, as Christians, can we remain faithful to the core of the gospel whilst opening ourselves in modesty and compassion to others who are “not of this fold”?

In its quest for religious certitude and political ascendency, Western Christianity in particular has too often ignored or obscured the transcendent mystery that gave and gives rise to faith in the first place. ‘Negative’ or apophatic theology aims to preserve that mystery through the development, in the Christian community, of a critical vigilance that recognizes the tendency of the penultimate to claim ultimacy. Thus this theology critiques many things held sacred by believers—such as conventional cultural assumptions, moral codes, doctrinal systems, ecclesiastical polities, and even the Bible—in order to keep faith focused on the One who cannot be reduced to codes or systems, ideas or words.

In this book I have tried to apply this theological method to the question historical providence has put to all of us who claim Christian identity in this post-Christendom world: What is Christianity, really? While the book necessarily reflects its author’s North American identity, it aims to speak to and for the global—or, better, the ecumenical Christian—situation. The various ‘provinces’ of what was once ‘Christendom’ experience somewhat different aspects of the overarching question, and at differing levels of intensity, but the great problem is addressed to all of us. With the disintegration of ‘the Christian religion’ can we say, finally, meaningfully, what Christianity is? Or at least what it is not?

D.J.H.