The essays in this collection are all similar to each other in the sense that each one is an engagement with one particular theologian or philosopher. I guess this means that this is somewhat of a book for the ”experts”, those of us that are really interested in what Hauerwas has to say about, say, Milbank or Nussbaum.
Several of the big names of American Christian ethics feature here: Reinohold Niebuhr, James Gustafson, Paul Ramsey. But there are also engagements with people like John Cobb, Paul Holmer, Tristram Engelhardt, that Hauerwas do not mention as often, as well as theologians that are more or less close to Hauerwas position, such as McClendon, O’Donovan and Milbank.
There is also an essay on Iris Murdoch here that is interesting, given the way Murdoch influenced Hauerwas early on. Here he ends up being quite critical of her.
Contents:
- Knowing How to Go On When You Do Not Know Where You Are: A Response to John Cobb
- History as Fate: How Justification by Faith Became Anthropolgy (and History) in America
- The Irony of Reinhold Niebuhr: The Ideological Character of ”Christian Realism” with Michael Broadway
- God As Participant: Time and History in the Work of James Gustafson
- Can Aristotle Be a Liberal? Martha Nussbaum on Luck
- Flight from Foundationalism, or Things Aren’t As Bad As They Seem, with Phil Kenneson
- Not All Peace is Peace: Why Christians Cannot Make Peace with Tristram Engelhardt’s Peace
- How Christian Ethics Became Medical Ethics: The Case of Paul Ramsey
- How to Go On When You Know You Are Going to Be Misunderstood, or How Paul Holmer Ruined My Life, or Making Sense of Paul Holmer
- Murdochian Muddles: Can We Get Through Them If God Does Not Exist?
- Reading James McClendon Takes Practice: Lessons in the Craft of Theology
- Creation, Contingency, and Truthful Nonviolence: A Milbankian Reflection
- Remaining in Babylon: Oliver O’Donovan’s Defense of Christendom, with James Fodor
- Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. Remembering
