Religion as Thinking

"A Christianity which will bear witness to God's Word in Jesus will be speaking, thinking, arguing, debating Christianity, which will not be afraid to engage in intellectual and philosophical contest with the prevailing dogmas of its day."

-- Oliver O'Donovan, Begotten or Made?

This quote by Oliver O'Donovan, arguably the leading political theologian, is difficult for me. I have been reading Hegel and a student of Hegel, James A. Doull, recently. To quote from Doull:

"Religion belongs to the individual primarily as universal or as thinking, and is only derivatively in the form of language, imagination, symbol or whatever else. In virtue of its origin int he complete rationality of ancient secularity the need and the impulse to know what is believed is not an extraneous curiosity but intrinsic to the religion. The religion itself therefore generates revolt against an ecclesiastical order whose function it is to present and teach the religion in its more accessible but deficient forms." ("Secularity and Religion" www.swgc.mun.ca/animus)

It may appear that Doull's thought is prior to O'Donovan's. Can O'Donovan make his claim without holding that religion belongs primarily to the individual as thinking? Would the danger of this be to provide an overly subjective religion? Also, just because there is a danger in freedom should it be thwarted?

JDT