frequently asked questions

There is an reoccuring theme in the introductions in Hauerwas’s books, namely, ”Does the world need another book by Hauerwas?”. He has tried several different strategies to answer this question (in the affirmative), and usually he ends up arguing that the essays collected in the book in fact all belong together. Most of the time the argumetn, IMO, fails, which of course does not mean that I think that the world does not need another book by Hauerwas. At least I do.

This is a book where he comes very close to pulling of the trick of selling a collection of texts as a ”proper” book. That is, most of the texts in this book actually deal with questions of knowledge, theology and the modern university. They do not, however, build on each other or offer one overall argument.

This is bad if you expected something along those lines, but for the rest of us it is good because we can choose to read those essays that interest us, just like with most of Hauerwas’s books. In this book, I particularly like the first essay which actually could be the first chapter in the kind of book this isn’t, that is, a strong argument about knowledge, theology and the university. I sets the scene nicely for such a discussion.

The rest of the chapters approach the subject from different perspectives, usually in discussion with one writer. Also, Hauerwas here again and again returns to Yoder, this is clearly a book for those concerned with the relationship between the two. Other (related) themes that come up are religious pluralism and nationalism. There is one important text that clarifies Hauerwas understanding of democracy (Re: Stout). There is also a text on Gregory of Nazianzen, which clearly takes Hauerwas out of his comfort zone.

The real value of the book of course is that it does work as a long meditation on life in the university by a man who has lived in that world all his life, but at the same time kept the distance to it that Hauerwas’s sense of Church entails. That this distance is not a rejection, or an isolation is probably the true central theme of the book.

Contents:

1. Theological Knowledge and the Knowledges of the University: Beginning Explorations
2. Leaving Ruins: The Gospel and Cultural Formations
3. How Risky is The Risk of Education? Random Reflections from the American Context
4. The End of ”Religious Pluralism”: A Tribute to David Burrell, C.S.C.
5. The Patos of the University: The Case of Stanley Fish
6. What Would a Christian University Look Like? Some Tentative Answers Inspired by Wendell Berry
7. Carving Stone or Learning to Speak Christian
8. Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana: Schooling the Heart in the Heart of Texas
9. Christians and the So-called State (We Are In):
10. Democratic Time: Lessons Learned from Yoder and Wolin
11. The State of the Secular: Theology, Prayer, and the University
12. To Love God, the Poor, and Learning: Lessons Learned from Saint Gregory of Nazianzus
13. Appendix A: Duke University: The Good of This Place
14. Appendix B: Seminaries in Trouble: Chastened Reflections on the Centennial of Bethany Theological Seminary
15. Appendix C: Ordinary Time: A Tribute to Rowan Williams

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This is the first book where all the central Hauerwasian themes are more or less in place. It is also the first book I would not hesitate to call a modern classic. In many ways it could be considered the more scholarly and theologically complex older sibling of A Peaceable Kingdom, which, after all, is supposed to be a textbook.

Hauerwas here deepens his view of narrative, and the themes of church and the liberal state are treated thoroughly for the first time. The book opens with what I think is Hauerwas best text, hands down, ”A Story Formed Community: Reflection on Watership Down” Ok, so I do love the novel it discusses, but it is extremely well written. I have used it in class several times and it always opens up discussion extremely well.

Many of the texts here are found in the Reader as well, but it still has a value as a whole, as this is the book that perhaps best reflects Hauerwas’s postion in its early form. Especially the themes of marriage, sex and family, as well as abortion, get their most thorough treatments here. The discussion of these questions (that usually are considered ”private”) serve to demonstrate the public nature of Christian convictions.

Contents:

1. A Story Formed Community: Reflection on Watership Down
2. Jesus: The Story of the Kingdom
3. The Moral Authority of Scripture: The Politics and Ethics of Remembering
4. The Church and Liberal Democracy: The Moral Limits of a Secular Polity
5. The Church in a Divided World: The Interpretative Power of the Christian Story
6. The Virtues and Our Communities: Human Nature as History
7. Character, Narrative and Growth in the Christian Life
8. The Moral Value of the Family
9. The Family: Theological and Ethical Reflections
10. Sex in Public: Toward a Christian Ethic of Sex
11. Why Abortion Is a Religious Issue
12. Abortion: Why the Arguments Fail

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This is a rather uneven collection, and its best parts can be found in the Reader. Those include ”On Keeping Theological Ethics Theological” which might well be one of the most important texts Hauerwas has written. Another interesting text here is the Introduction which is a fairly in depth engagement with George Lindbeck’s then new The Nature of Doctrine. There is also an important text on the Holocaust as a moral challange for Christians (also included in the Reader). Special mention should be made of the text on the Jonestown massacre, which might be the most important text – hardly even mentioned – when one wants to assess if Hauerwas i ”sectarian” or not.

As one can see from the list of contents below, there are a lot of Hauerwasian themes that get their first treatments here, but frankly, some of it (particularly the discussion on Nuclear War) feels a bit dated. So, frankly, unless one of the articles here (or the Introduction) is of particular interest to you, your money might be better spent on one of the other on the list.

Contents:

1. Introduction: The Scope of This Book
2. On Keeping Theological Ethics Theological
3. On Keeping Theological Ethics Imaginative
4. Remembering as a Moral Task: The Challange of the Holocaust
5. On Taking Religion Seriously: The Challange of Jonestown
6. The Reality of the Kingdom: An Ecclesial Space for Peace
7. The Reality of the Church: Even a Democratic State is Not the Kingdom
8. On Surviving Justly: Ethics and Nuclear Disarmament
9. An Eschatological Perspective on Nuclear Disarmament
10. Should War Be Eliminated?

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Hauerwas has not written a lot on sexual ethics, these texts would hardly make up a booklet if combined, yet he has quite a distinctive perspective. It is not without problems, though. There seems to be a basic tension between his Yoderian insight that the Church is not a community that grows by procreation but by witness and conversion; and his strong emphasis on the moral education of children. This would be a nice little problem for someone to sort out, for example in a master’s thesis… 😉

In Chronological order:

From A Community of Character (1981):

• ”The Moral Value of the Family”. Hauerwas makes a number of arguments in this text. One, that the family is not threatened by womens liberation, sexual revolution or something like that but by liberal economic and social values that has robbed the family of its meaning. To counter this, we must ”recover the moral significance of our willingness to have children”.
• ”The Family: Theological and Ethical Reflections”. Here the central argument is that with the decline of other institutions in society the family has to carry an impossible load. This is coupled with the contention that at the same time the family has lost its traditional social significance as a social institution and bearer of tradition. Hauerwas suggests that we need to counteract the ”romantic perversion” of marriage by re-placing marriage inside the Christian community, a community with a clear purpose and mission.
• ”Sex in Public: Toward a Christian Ethic of Sex (alternate subtitle in the Reader: ”How Adventerous Christians are Doing It”. This is a biting critique of most Christian talk about sex. Of course there is the old idea that Christians have only negative things to say about it, but Hauerwas focuses on two more relevant trends, dubbed ”Realism” and ”Romanticism”. As an alternative Hauerwas advocates a talk about sex that focuses on its public character and political significance.

From After Christendom:

• ”The Politics of Sex: How Marriage Is a Subversice act”. This one continues and deepens the theme of ”Sex in Public”. Hauerwas discusses with Bertrand Russel’s view of marriage and argues that Marriage has to be protected from the State.

From Dispatches from the Front / The Reader:

• ”Why Gays (as a Group) Are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group)”. This short text is not really about homosexuality but about Christians and war. The point of course is that Hauerwas wishes that Christians would be considered at least as problematic to the U.S. Military as Gays.

From The Hauerwas Reader:

• ”The Radical Hope in the Annunciation: Why Both Single and Married Christians Welcome Children”. This text from 1998, essentially revisits the same ideas as the early texts from A Community of Character. It includes a brief discussion of ”Hauerwas’s Law”.

From Sanctify them in Truth:

• ”Gay Friendship: A Thought Experiment in Catholic Moral Theology”. This one is important, not only for a very different approach to homosexuality from what is the usual in theology, but also for Hauerwas’s understanding of marriage.

From A Better Hope:

• ”Resisting Capitalism: On Marriage and Homosexuality”. This is a short text, that does not bring that much new into the argument, except this:”Indeed, my deepest problem with the current debate among Methodists [regarding Gay Marriage] is that we become one another’s enemies and as a result fail to notice who the enemy is – that is, capitalism”.

From Matthew:

• Pages 168-172. This is in fact one of the clearest account of Hauerwas’s position, and at the same time one where the above mentioned tension is most visible.

From Working with Words:

• ”Love: A Sermon” A Wedding Sermon. Argues that Marriage and love has to be seen within the context of the Church. Cites Benedict XIV’s Deus Caritas est.

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