David Bentley Hart

[Isaac32]

I have to recommend Hart even if one reads him with caution because he was influential in my conversion to Orthodoxy. Many label him as "questionable" if not "heretical," but I have never seen an individual making such an accusation actually offer a substantial criticism of Hart's arguments.

It might be of interest to the OP that Hart is currently working on a translation of the New Testament for Yale University Press. Given that he is a universalist I am guessing he will offer a translation compatible with that view, which isn't without precedent.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Oh I think he can be read, just with caution. And he has helped lead folks home to the Church

 

[Light of the East]

Oh I think he can be read, just with caution. And he has helped lead folks home to the Church

There is so much more than just Hart's writings which is part and parcel of Orthodoxy and is very attractive to the seeking soul. The beauty of the Liturgy, the view of the afterlife, the understanding of God as love rather than the punitive vision given in the West. All these and much more certainly constitute a draw for the soul.

 

[Cappadocious]

Hard to get past Hart's writing style. It's like a bizarre attempt at a shocked-befuddled Victorian caricature of Lewis and Chesterton. Like script written by the new guy at a reenactment fair.

Take this excerpt from one of his First Things (may that rag cease) pieces:

"But, as is always the case here below in the regio dissimilitudinis, the pleasure is accompanied by an inevitable quantum of pain. The sweetest wine quaffed from the cup of bliss comes mingled with a bitter draft of sorrow (alas, alack)."

What I can't get is, who would post this sort of stuff under their own name?

 

[ArmyMatt]

There is so much more than just Hart's writings which is part and parcel of Orthodoxy and is very attractive to the seeking soul. The beauty of the Liturgy, the view of the afterlife, the understanding of God as love rather than the punitive vision given in the West. All these and much more certainly constitute a draw for the soul.

hey, whatever and whomever God uses to bring someone to Orthodoxy, even if not one of my choices