The American Spectator

p> ETHICS AND EVIL br> Re: George Neumayr’s Divine Decadence : /p> p>Stanley Hauerwas is a perfect example of the modern day Theologian, “forever learning but never coming to true knowledge.” Theoretical ethics have no place in Christianity, for the teachings of Christ are not based on theory, and ethics are based on the teachings of Christ. Theologians exemplify the Bible verse: “God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to confound the wise.” They drift from the message of good over evil, and charity (love) toward your fellow man, to an abstract of life that makes the evil rise up and shout HEAR! HEAR! while making the good sadly shake their heads in sadness. br> — Charles Elliott br> Houston, TX /p>

While I agree with many of your conclusions in “Divine Decadence,” you did not, unless I am mistaken, confront Prof. Hauerwas’s argument directly, on its own theological ground.

p>I believe Prof. Hauerwas may be misunderstanding several statements in the New Testament. As I recall, Christ says, for example, “resist not evil.” But were this and similar biblical admonitions simplistic calls to unconditional pacifism in the outer world (a pacifism such as Prof. Hauerwas seems to adhere to), or were they something more difficult? Prof. Hauerwas probably doesn’t take Christ’s statement, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword,” simplistically — why then does he apparently take such an approach to the admonitions about not resisting evil? I don’t know about Prof. Hauerwas, but it’s clear that many who take positions similar to his do so because they would rather feel inwardly “pure” than face up to a world that sometimes morally compels us to choose between two evils, a lesser and a greater. A concern with one’s inner feelings (even for feeling “pure” or “angelic”), to the point where others’ and the world’s real difficulties are evaded, is arguably not at all Christian, but merely a symptom of the original Fall. If so, the title of your piece on Prof. Hauerwas (“Divine Decadence”) was doubly apt. br> — Edward Udell