This year, we pause to remember and give thanks for members of our extended community who have passed away. Whether as alumni, faculty, donors, or faithful friends, their lives and contributions helped shape the life and witness of the college.

Some we knew closely; others we may not have had the chance to know personally. Yet each played a role in sustaining and supporting this place of learning and formation. Their memory lives on in the community they helped to nurture.

Ann Cumyn
Ann served on numerous school board committees, on the board of the College, and as a Lay Reader in several congregations, including St. George’s, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.

Ann first came to Canada from England in 1962 to teach with the Protestant School Board of Montreal. Her decades of service to the Montreal community were marked by dedication, wisdom, and a quiet strength.

A lifelong learner, Ann completed the Diploma in Education for Ministry in 2015 and remained an active participant in Dio’s continuing education and open enrolment programs. Her thoughtful presence and generous support of the College were deeply appreciated.

Douglas John Hall A remembrance offered by the Rev. Dr. John Simons former Principal of Dio.
Professor Hall was a prominent theologian, McGill professor, and prolific author closely connected to the United Theological College.

Few Canadian theologians have achieved the international renown of Douglas John Hall. He will be remembered for his penetrating challenge to the ecumenical church’s understanding of itself, its worldly context, and its mission. In his lectures, sermons and many writings, he articulated truths we too readily gloss, for example, that we do not have the God of the gospel narrative in view if all we see is the almighty Creator ruling over all, bestowing success and glory on his Elect. We also need to be confronted by the ugliness of the Cross. Indeed, we need to have the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself and took the form of a slave. To see the God of the gospel, in other words, we have to see a self-emptying that enacts solidarity with the victims of the world’s cruelty and injustice. The theologia crucis was one of the guiding themes of Professor Hall’s teaching.

Likewise, he emphasized the importance of context for responsible theological reflection. It may seem trivial to point out that every attempt to say something intelligent about God (which is what theology and preaching are), borrows assumptions from its cultural milieu. It is not so trivial a matter, however, in the case where such borrowings are unconscious and underwrite uncritical claims to finality. Professor Hall not only warned against the dangers of ignoring context, but actively encouraged theology to be critically contextual, that is, to make explicit the assumptions of the cultural milieu the theologian/preacher addresses. Apart from his own writings, a good example of what Professor Hall meant by contextual theology may be found in Principal Zink’s Fifteen Theses for Christians in a Crisis-Shaped World, the subtitle of  his book entitled Faithful, Creative, Hopeful.

To conclude with a personal observation. I will never forget Professor Hall’s generosity. One anecdote will have to suffice. A group of about twenty students of an Episcopal seminary in New York had accompanied their Dean to Montreal to  get a sense of its cultural and ecclesiastical life. The Dean told me there was one person the students wanted to meet, namely, Professor Hall. In spite of his busy schedule, he came across the street to the college and sat in front of the fire place. Over the course of an afternoon, we all participated in an amazing impromptu seminar with one of the world’s leading theologians.