What the heck Hauerwas?

Hey folks, just a quick comment. One shouldn't make too much of Stan's rhetorical style. As mentioned above, he sometimes throws off these seemingly flippant statements (well, ok, real, honest to God flippant statements) not as a way of dismissing his audience, but as a way of trying to break through thinking patterns. Think of it as a zen koan. I think Joshua is right in that Stan is talking about the way that we form our identities. If we are engaging in certain activities every week that reinforce that identity then our inner lives are being structured in a different way than the culture seeks to shape it. Tripp, rocking awesome place you've got here!

Reading Alister McGrath's Scientific Theology recently (extremely stimulating) I came across a remark on postliberalism generally and Stanley H. in particular which captures the mixed feelings that I sense in this post and in the comments on it. Something like 'ethically fruitful but theologically sterile'. Of course there are big pluses. The idea of Christian life as primarily about unspectacular, constant 'Sunday after Sunday' faithfulness is one that struck me compelliingly both in Hauerwas's Gifford Lectures ('With the Grain of the Universe') and in 'Hannah's Child', where it is coloured strongly by his daily lived experience of 24 years' marriage to his mentallly-ill first wife. There is a gritty authenticity to what he says about the essential nature of Christian witness which commands respect from many of us. Where he is frustrating, however, is his attitude towards the God-world interface (the question of God's interaction with the world-process seems off-limits) and distrust of any kind of correlative or experientially-based theology (e.g. his pummelling of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich as his sworn enemies). Dealing with other people's plausibility structures - to use Philip Clayton's and Tripp's term in their 'Theology after Google' essay - just doesn't seem to be his kind of game. So for anyone interested in genuine dialogue with the general culture Stan just isn't the one to go to. Disappointing but you can't have everything. This is where I found the Ingolf Dalferth podcast tantalizing (although pretty cryptic at first listen ...well, to be honest I didn't do too much better at it the second time around). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that his approach tries to combine what Hauerwas insists upon and admires in Barth - the idea that God can surprise and address us, being more than simply a human projection - with the openness to human experience, emotions and questioning found in the liberal tradition (from Schleiermacher to Tillich) that Hauerwas dismisses outright. That's a pretty rare balance - not dissimilar to Moltmann although the way he talks is very different. Seems to me that Ingolf D's onto something here, although it may take me five more listens to work out exactly what!

Hauerwas's answer, "the future is doing the same thing Sunday after Sunday," is an important answer in the formation of Christina ethics. Sam Wells, Hauerwas's colleague at Duke, fleshes out a similar notion in his book Improvisation. Wells writes that weekly habits, such as the Eucharist, prayers of the people, passing of the peace, etc., are primarily about the formation, development, and renewal of a sacred people. This is ecclesial ethics-- in which each church community is part of God’s sacred purposes for the world. While the church may be different contextually, the ecclesia is given a common meaning as it lives out the Christian narrative, Christian practices, and Christian witness. I think this is what Hauerwas was getting at.

I wanted to thank everyone who chimed in here. I have enjoyed this a great deal and gained some real insight about Hauerwas and what he might be up to. I have been in the middle of a move so that has limited my ability to respond but I wanted to THANK YOU to all who responded. I hope to follow this up soon. -Bo

@mark. that is indeed one sweet article!

I'm enjoying the previous TNT and this conversation. I appreciate Kevin's comment about it both being glib but not a rejection of contextualization. One thing that hasn't been brought up yet is Haerwas's public role as a gadfly-provocateur. He repeatedly says things that will surely be taken as moderately-offensive by one or another party (one lovely essay title is "Why Gays (as a Group) are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group) ). He appears to enjoy this curmudgeonly role that he has carved out for himself, and his response to Bo's question is frustrating, but certainly in keeping with his role/personality. I disagree with much of his work but at the same time am drawn to his ability to say something that always frustrates somebody. He always seems to incite conversation--which, for example, has happened on this blog.

As one who has studied with Hauerwas, I can certainly say a few things. One is that he in no ways would mean we should continue the same crappy stuff (He has a more colorful term for it!) that is not working now. And he certainly would not suggest that we ignore contextualizing what we do; he is, in fact, quite sensitive to those concerns His statement is a bit glib,however, because of his failure to address the actual question he was being asked. When all is said, Stanley will be remembered as one of the great ethicist/theologians of the 20th century--but not of the 21st. For all of his study and discussion around postmodernity, he is a thoroughly modern fellow. Hi David.

Hmmm... I often find myself in a love/hate relationship towards Hauerwas. However, today, at this time, I would say that I would agree with his assertion that the future of the Church is doing the same thing Sunday after Sunday. I also must qualify the statement I'm about to make, but from the tone of this article, I would say I agree much more with Hauerwas. The future of the Church is to be found through the weekly gathering of the Body of Christ for worship, just as we have done for the past 2 millenia. Weekly and regular reading of Scirpture, prayer, fellowship, and celerbating communion/eucharist have been at the core of discipleship and re-forming our identity not only as individual followers of Jesus, but as the Church since the very beginning (Acts 2:42). When we stop doing this on a regular weekly basis we cease being the Church, and become something else. My guess is that Hauerwas meant his statement in this way. Now, I do not beleive that worship has to look exactly the same each week. In that regard I think the way we do things - pray, preach, celerbate the sacraments, - can and should be done differently, and in this we are only limited by our imagination and the inspiration of the Spirit. But it is in remaining constant and faithful to these elements within our regular weekly worship that connects us with the Church, past, present, and future, regardless of what our service or building look like.

Hauerwas' baseline is that the first task of the church is to be the church in order that the world may know its the world and the church does not have a social ethic, it is a social ethic. Thus his emphasis on the consistency and integrity of the church's life - "doing the same thing Sunday to Sunday". My problem with him is that he seems not to question the institutional forms and structures of the church as we know it, though it seems he should based on his own analysis. Under a different and better set of institutional forms (and they are necessary) his emphasis of the church's life makes a good measure of sense to me. Peace, Lee Wyatt

hannah's child is on the list of "to read" but I'm not a junkie enough to pick it up. I appreciate the alternate frame, so it is probably best to say that what I posted is what I mean by saying "doing the same things". Yet, I also wonder how doing baptisms, pastoral care, and communion are contrary to Church growth or relevance. Now I also think that arguing for vibrato sopranos for special music or the ridiculous introduction of visitors with the roving mic is an untenable position to defend. In some ways I want to say that the church is the church as we gather Sunday after Sunday....not in some infrequent, artificial, short term communities. Again, that is Josh and not Hauerwas.

Though I agree with you about speaking into our context and looking for contemporary ways to be vital, I don't think Hauerwas feels that concern at all. I think he does mean that the survival of the church will be in doing the same things we've always done -- communion, baptism, care-giving, preaching, etc. He's not concerned with church growth or being relevant to the contemporary world. A good read would be his recent memoirs as they demonstrate his theology as lived. "Hannah's Child" is the name.

Yeah, I've heard Hauerwas say almost the exact same statement on a number of occasions. Though I am not a "Hauerwas Mafioso" I kind of understand what he is getting at. I know it can be confused with saying that rote repetition is all we need to do, but I think he is pressing us to see our local gatherings for worship as central to our Christian formation. Even as I work within a denominational bureaucracy that makes it bread and butter on "conferences" I have yet to be convinced that Discipleship happens in one off events. Though these gatherings provide retreat, re-framing, and re-imagining- they are not essential to life-long discipleship. In other words if we were to throw off worship in a localized, contextual community in order to become conference junkies, I think we would find our formation significantly lacking. Now of course Prof Hauerwas is good at the one off quip, so I am not speaking for him in any shape- but I think it should give us pause to ask where formation happens. These types of one time gatherings should spin us back into our communities where our re-visioned way of faith can inform and be shaped by our local community.

Tying up some loose ends in that post: Moving toward our Multicultural, interconnected, distinct identity does and will continue to require much "huddle time," but the game is where it matters. If what happens in the huddle never makes it to the game, we've missed the point. :) Delay of game! (sorry, had to throw that in there).

Bo. Sports metaphor? C'mon. I see your argument about web versus silo. However, Isn't the root of contextualism found in locality? While our localities are becoming more diverse, they still possess local flavor and depth. While our focus is currently on the rise of globalism and interconnectness, I believe we're going to eventually begin to see that we have to balance that with a hearty localism. We're going to need to find balance between interconnectivity and disctinctives. [aside: I may be wading into a conversation going on in my own mind right now, and wandering further and further from the road you intended. And I am aware of this. My mind is broken this way, I can't help it. And it's your fault I think.] If I could take a stab at a practical reality as a case study in progress: Here at Reedwood in Portland, we're currently slowly progressing into a multicultural community (Latino and Anglo being the two majority cultures in our congregation). As we try to understand one another as a bicultural community, we are also trying to understand what it means to be Quaker as well. On top of that, we're trying to figure out what it means to be a Latino/Anglo/Quaker community ministering in and to Southeast Portland. There's a lot of interconnectedness inherent in this. Yet, as we grow into this community, we are going to hone in on some distinctives about ourselves as a Latino/Anglo/Quaker community in Southeast Portland. We will be distinct from All Saints Episcopal down the street in Woodstock and the United Methodist community down Steele Street. Yet, we will also be interconnected in our focus and service of Christ. So the questions that arise for me as a minister in a specific worshiping community are: What is the future of Reedwood? What is the future of Christian ministry in Southeast Portland (of which we are a connected, yet distinct part)? What is going on in similar communities around the world that we can learn from? On a scale of 1-10, how far away from I at the topic at hand? ;)

Good thoughts. Questions/Thoughts: When Hauerwas suggested that the future of the church is in doing the same thing Sunday to Sunday, was he making a statement about consistency and doing the work of ministering was more important than gathering in conferences to talk about it? I wasn't there when you asked the question and received his response, but I see some wisdom about consistency in his words. Not that what we do has to look identical across the world and only on Sunday morning, but that when we become grounded in Christ and our context, we will be able to understand what this new consistent ministry looks like. The work of Christ comes to life when we begin to let the Spirit work through us and our context rather than in conferences and summits. Perhaps I have tried to drag Hauerwas' words into a different meaning than he intended though.