The American Spectator : Stanley Hauerwas's America

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Stanley Hauerwas's America

By Mark Tooley on 12.18.09 @ 6:07AM

The influential Christian pacifist will not make it easy for Barack Obama to be a war president.

Will the Religious and Evangelical Left, which are largely pacifist, stick with President Obama, despite his new Afghanistan surge? Watch for fading enthusiasm, thanks partly to the pervasive influence of Christian pacifist Stanley Hauerwas, once hailed by Time magazine as America's most influential theologian.

Always a theological provocateur, Hauerwas recently carried his crusade against "Christian" America to Houghton College, a Christian liberal arts school outside Rochester, New York. He is an ardent disciple of the late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, who sought to re-interpret the Crucifixion as primarily a rejection of all violence. Professing to be sort of theologically orthodox, Hauerwas has become a preeminent voice among neo-orthodox American Protestants and some left-leaning evangelicals by rejecting the ostensible conflation of American nationalism with Christianity.

"War is America's central liturgical act necessary to renew our sense that we are a nation unlike other nations," Hauerwas told students at Houghton in October. A United Methodist by background who teaches at United Methodist Duke Divinity School in North Carolina, Hauerwas portrays himself as a quirky Anabaptist. Like his mentor, Yoder, he is of course a strict pacifist. Also like Yoder, he does not completely heed traditional Anabaptist beliefs about scriptural authority. Hauerwas favors acceptance of homosexuality and, though traditionally pro-life because abortion is "violent," he has more recently criticized pro-life activism, suggesting Christians ought better to advocate government health care.

Like Yoder, Hauerwas is deeply influenced by Karl Barth, who implicitly inclined towards universal salvation, and accordingly portrayed the church as an otherworldly communion that critiques civil society but supinely does not seek specifically to shape it. Hauerwas harshly condemns the United States as a political project, partly because he believes it to be innately violent, partly because the U.S is purportedly based on abstract ideas rather than organic culture. His Houghton speech amplified this anti-American theme, dismissing the Religious Right's nationalism as "politically a form of Protestant liberalism."

America sees itself as more religious than modern, secular Europe, Hauerwas noted, and consequently also is more self-confidently patriotic and comfortable with war. "War is a moral necessity for America because it provides the experience of the 'Unum' that makes the 'pluribus' possible," he surmised. Religious identity in Europe is seen as divisive, and national identity is viewed as an unpleasant reminder of the 20th century's world wars. Quoting A Secular Age author Charles Taylor, Hauerwas opined that American support for war is simpler because unreserved confidence in your own righteousness is easier when you are the "hegemonic power."

Hauerwas recalled progressive Christianity's avid support for American involvement in World War I as supposedly "self-sacrificial service to other nations." Social Gospel Christians like Henry Emerson Fosdick also optimistically expected that wars facilitated "egalitarian social policies." World War I likewise solidified America's linkage of Christianity with its form of democracy, Hauerwas regretted, solidifying its own civil religion that, unlike in Europe, is still in its "hot" phase. Disturbingly for Hauerwas, war has always been absolutely central to America's civil religion.

America's great wealth makes war all the more necessary, Hauerwas asserted. "Yet Americans assume that we never go to war to sustain our wealth, because war must be understood as a moral enterprise commensurate with our being a democracy." Provocatively, and predictably, Hauerwas opined that 9-11 was "absolutely necessary for the moral health of the republic" because America's fighting an "unending war against terrorism" helpfully creates a "common enemy that unites us."

"I wish America was more like Europe," Hauerwas declared. American Christianity's vitality, at least compared to Europe's, creates a church incapable of "political challenge to what is done in the name of the American difference." A more secular America might be safer for America and the world, he surmised. Liberal Protestantism watered Christianity down to morality and civic-mindedness. Christians in America became virtually "unintelligible" to their neighbors and to themselves by denying Christianity's radical demands and succumbing to civil religion, Hauerwas believes. "This helps account for the strident character of the rhetoric of the religious right in America," he added. "Though claiming to represent a conservative form of Christianity the religious right is politically a form of Protestant liberalism," because of its American nationalism.

America's religious conservatives make a "fetish of this or that belief," like the substitutionary atonement, mistakenly thinking Christianity is defined by "belief," Hauerwas lamented. Once faith has been relegated to the "private," as liberal democracy has insisted, the nation adopts the church's language and authoritative claims for itself. Secular liberals think they fear resurgent conservative Christianity. But the real threat to secularism, Hauerwas warned, is "America" itself.

Hauerwas lamented that "Americans are determined to live in a world of safety even if we have to go to war to make the world safe." American obsession with health and safety are linked to modern America's discomfort with and fear of death, which he derided as ultimately and ironically an "ideology for a culture of death." If Christians are to "reclaim the political theology required by the truthfulness of Christian convictions we will need to begin by doing theology unapologetically," he insisted. The church will have to recover its authority and challenge the "presumptions that the state is the agency of peace." Inevitably, Hauerwas concluded that "commitment to Christian nonviolence is the presumption necessary for the church to reassert its political significance."

Is uncompromising pacifism the key to Christianity's spiritual and cultural restoration? Yoder's stance that the Crucifixion more centrally rejects all violence than offers atonement for universal sin reveals the particular "fetish" of the Yoder-Hauerwas school. Is the only valid and true Christianity a particular Anabaptist strain limited to a small minority of adherents? As some ultra-Protestant sects sometimes insist, is nearly all of Christianity in error except for a select few since the pre-Constantinian Early Church, which ostensibly was "non-violent," even though the Apostles affirmed the state's "sword" as providential?

And how does Hauerwas's nonviolence meld with support for the Welfare State, which is innately coercive and sustained ultimately by the threat of force? Is state "violence" wrong if deployed against terrorism but correct if enforcing government health care? As a joyful contrarian, Hauerwas is likely undisturbed by his own contradictions. His many followers, including preeminently the rising Evangelical Left, seem not only unbothered but unaware of the inconsistencies, and indifferent to the implied divorce from most of Christian tradition.

topics:
Pacificism, Religious Left, Stanley Hauerwas

About the Author

Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (69) | Leave a comment

Jim| 12.18.09 @ 8:08AM

"...he does not completely heed traditional Anabaptist beliefs about scriptural authority. Hauerwas favors acceptance of homosexuality..."

Just additional evidence of the fact that "evangelical" has become a term without meaning.

Ryan| 12.18.09 @ 8:40AM

The entire article is a "wait, WHAT?" response on my part. How can a Christian NOT believe in substitutionary atonement? Christ's crucifixion as a mere rejection of violence?

Did this guy even read the Bible?

Matt Dodrill| 5.25.10 @ 12:52AM

Hauerwas does not reject substitutionary atonement as such. He simply uses the BELIEF in substitutionary atonement as an example of how many Christians heighten "belief" as the crux of the faith instead of emphasizing orthopraxy. But he does not reject "belief" as such either. He's simply saying that "belief" should not be what defines the Church.

Brian| 10.19.10 @ 12:17PM

"How can a Christian NOT believe in substitutionary atonement." Easily. To ask if Hauerwas has read the Bible is the highlight of arrogance. I would ask you if you have actually "studied" the Bible. How much do you really know about the matrix that Paul lived in? Jesus?

Steve| 12.18.09 @ 8:49AM

Like all principled Christian Leftists, Hauerwas never lets Christian dogma stand in the way of Leftist dogma. More loyalty to Marx than Christ. What a silly goof.

Jacen| 9.9.10 @ 1:35PM

He's not a Marxist, nor a "leftist." His entire project decries the political ideology known as classical liberalism that created terms like left and right. Wow. Read his material rather than basing your opinions on secondary accounts.

Erich Kofmel| 12.18.09 @ 10:08AM

First: get your facts straight. "A Secular Age" was written by Charles Taylor (not some Clyde Taylor). If not even that much is correct, how reliable is your interpretation of someone's theological stance likely to be?

Brian B| 12.18.09 @ 10:47AM

--If not even that much is correct, how reliable is your interpretation of someone's theological stance likely to be?--

Getting some author's first name wrong means one can dismiss everything else that person has to say? Interesting standard. I wonder if Erich applies it to people he agrees with.

--His many followers, including preeminently the rising Evangelical Left, seem not only unbothered but unaware of the inconsistencies, and indifferent to the implied divorce from most of Christian tradition. --

They are not divorced from Christian tradition. They are divorced from the doctrine and words of the bible itself. They are what Paul described in 2 Corinthians 11:3, 4:
3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts may be corrupted from a sincere (and pure) commitment to Christ.
4 For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough.

They put up with a false god for precisely the reason they project onto others; they subsume God to their politics because to a leftist politics is their god.

John| 12.18.09 @ 12:18PM

It is not true that Yoder does not believe in substitutionary atonement. He argues that the cross means more than substitutionary atonement, which is extremely biblical (e.g., Matt 10:38; Eph 2:16; Col 2:15-16). This article portrays a charicature of both Yoder and Hauerwas.

Dan Phillips| 12.18.09 @ 12:33PM

This may be true, but anabaptist of the Yoder type do reject explicitly the Reformation conception of "original sin" and "total depravity."

Quartermaster| 12.18.09 @ 5:39PM

That was the Calvinist conception of "original sin" and "total depravity." And, Calvin actually got the first from Augustine, who invented the doctrine. "Total Depravity" was Calvin's invention.

Dan Phillips| 12.19.09 @ 4:53AM

""Total Depravity" was Calvin's invention."

Well except for he fact that it is clearly articulated in Scripture.

Dan Phillips| 12.18.09 @ 12:28PM

I'm not inclined to concede that Hauerwas is "orthodox" (small o) if he rejects substitutionary atonement and is open to universalism. However, he is dead on about this:

"dismissing the Religious Right's nationalism as "politically a form of Protestant liberalism." "

and this:

"Hauerwas harshly condemns the United States as a political project ... partly because the U.S is purportedly based on abstract ideas rather than organic culture."

Paleocons have been making both these points from the beginnings of paleoconservatism as a distinct political entity. We generally do not concede that America is an "abstract idea" nation, but recognize that believing such, as much of mainstream conservatism does, is pure unadulterated liberalism.

I am also skeptical that there is much to the often discussed "rising evangelical left." While some of the leadership maintains a technical assent to historic Christian orthodoxy, they often play games with the terminology and if you scratch much below the surface a theological liberal emerges. Evangelicalism implies orthodoxy as “new evangelicalism” is an outgrowth of the fundamentalist faction of the fundamentalist vs. modernist controversy. If their theology is not orthodox then they are not evangelicals. They are neo-modernists.

Richard Ranger| 12.18.09 @ 12:48PM

Agree with John above. This article works overtime to classify one of our time's most original Christian thinkers, and to drop him into a round file called "leftists". Hauerwas' theology is prophetic, which means that he frequently pushes an argument to its outer edges. So much of organized 'conservative' Christendom in this country - however well-intentioned - is largely about making peace with Caesar, so long as Caesar is chasing down various bad guys, foreign or domestic. Hauerwas' theology may not be completely 'right', but he makes the effort to reason from the words of the Gospel to the challenges Christians face today, rather (than as so many so-called 'Christian conservatives') to reason from the issue du jour that annoys them to find support through biblical proof texting.

Dan Phillips| 12.18.09 @ 3:04PM

I may have some problems with Hauerwas's orthodoxy, but I agree that it is a mistake to lump him in as just another leftist. If this essay is an accurate reflection of his thought, and I have no reason to believe that it isn't, then his criticism of American "conservatives" for embracing "America's civil religion" (essentially paragraphs 3 - 10) is profoundly conservative and illiberal in many respects. It is not a coincidence that that brand of leftism incorrectly identified as neo"conservatism" is all about America’s civil religion.

JP| 12.18.09 @ 9:11PM

Hauerwas's thought is wrought with both theological and philosphical problems. Like all Protestants he rejects the deposit of faith which assisted the Church through many trials and tribulations. Abstractions and subjective constructs guided by a type of arid intellectualism drives his thinking in directions that he personally wishes it to . The US as a political and social institution has been savaged for more than 6 decades. I have more respect for the orginal post-war Marxists and existentialists than for these would be modern prophets. Noam Chomsky and Jean Paul Satre deserve more respect. There is original sin after all!. And every American is doomed to the 1st Cirlce of Hell. If only Dante was alive to see it all!

Hauerwas is no more than a deconstructionalist. Deconstructing 2000 years of Tradition and Scripture and reconstructing it as some Ghandi like New Age philsophy is big business. They are all disciples (whether they know it or not) of Nietszche. They are like the inhabitents who sickened Zarathustra. Thier lack of faith is total. They have fallen so far that Zarathustra believed that they have in fact Killed God.

Dave Hanson| 12.18.09 @ 4:36PM

Superb article, Mr. Tooley. Thanks for 'piercing the veil' with which Hauerwas wraps himself. He's just another By-Ends, fellow-travelling with Christian(s) but not one with them. Anyone who rejects the commandment of Our Lord is not one of His. By Our Father's eternal decree our Sovereign LORD Jesus rules "until He places all His enemies under His feet". And He uses us His servants in performing that 'placing'; we are commanded to "Occupy!" until He comes the Second time. To "occupy" we must fearlessly confess Christ as Lord over ALL of life and act accordingly--not least, in those human realms where Force (Hauerwas' "violence") must be wisely used (i.e., the constitutionally-limited civil State in its proper sphere, in the military, in police work, and in personal self-defense). "Let him who has no sword sell his garment and buy one!"--Jesus, to His disciples.
"Pacifism" as a doctrine = merely a mealy-mouthed pseudo-'christian'-sounding excuse for cowardice in the face of Christ's enemies and for disobedience to Christ's explicit commands to His disciples (e.g., to go armed in this world, prepared to deal with its evil).
FWIW--I serve as both an Army Reserve officer and as an elder in an Evangelical Free Church (in Iowa--"flyover America" to the liberal likes of Hauerwas). Our 150-0r-so congregation includes Reservists and National Guardsmen, policemen and other men (and at least a couple of women) who regularly carry arms as Christ commanded us. To keep and bear arms is Christian obedience, not Hauerwas's prissy skirt-swishing avoidance of 'violence'.

Dan Phillips| 12.18.09 @ 6:11PM

I don't think that pacifism is Biblical, but it is not helpful to dismiss it as cowardice and "prissy" either. If it is incorrect theology then counter it with correct theology without resorting to name calling.

If I read you correctly, where you disagree with Hauerwas is that you don't accept his anabaptist "two kingdoms" theology. (There is the Kingdom of Man and the Kingdom of God and Christians are essentially citizens of the Kingdom of God and merely wayfarers in the Kingdom of Man. Does Hauerwas vote? Most Mennonites don't.) As you imply that Christians have particularly Christian duties to cary out in the civil sphere. While you disagree with Hauerwas here, you are actually articulating an illiberal form of Christian particularism that is at odds with the civil religion Hauerwas is complaining about whether you realize it or not.

Think hard about paragraphs 3 - 10. To project some sort of civil religion imperative to make the world right onto America the nation state is profoundly hostile to a Christain particularist world view. (Not that America as an affluent Christain nation should send missionaries to the world to proselatize the lost which I would agree with, but that America should send troops to spread liberal democracy [hostile to Christian particularism] to the benighted masses. The later is borderline blasphemous at best.)

JP| 12.18.09 @ 9:28PM

The obvious thing that so many people miss is the fact that God allowed His Son to die a horrible and miserable death. And to rub salt in the wound, that death was meant for us. Christ was the ultimate sacrifice. Without blemish, totally perfect and without sin his death and agony was meant for us. And he went to it willingly.

And if God would allow his only beloved Son to suffer so, why wouldn't allow us to expirience that suffering. No, God does not like war or any type of violence; however, the sacremental suffering His Son went through is something we all must get a taste of -even if it is just a small taste. For God can take something as hideous as war, unjust murder, rape, and horrible violence and sanctify it. Yes, suffering, if it is joined with the suffering on Golgatha, can sanctify. St Paul alluded to this, as did the martyrdom of St Stephens. St Therese of Liseux as well as St Faustina and St John of the Cross is replete with joining personal suffering with that of Christ's suffering.

In this way, Hauerwas misses the point entirely. Christ's death and resurrection supercedes the affairs of men. Violence will always be here; it is a natural condition of Sin. Justice, and the protection of the innocent is also a natural given. And it has been in the Christian theology until very recently that violence at times is needed to see to Justice. Suffering that comes about because of war is a consequcence of Man's fallen nature; but it was never considered to be the last word. Hauerwas turns our gaze to only the here and now and not eternity. Final Justice will eventally be rendered; not in this world, but in the next. Hauerwas and his ilk wish to create a new Dogma that has no connection to Man's fallen nature or to Christ's santifying grace.

Matt| 5.25.10 @ 12:58AM

That's absurd... how about we just sit back and "let Jesus take care of it" then? Is there no sense in which we WORK OUT OUR SALVATION?

Brian Gee| 12.19.09 @ 5:29AM

To Brian (and Erich)..... I wouldnt worry too much about what Mr. Kofmel has to say. As you can see at our website (http://kofmel.blogspot.com/?ref=AMSP) while Mr. Kofmel is under the pretense of an academic, he is an internationally wanted criminal who has been a fugitive on the run from the police for over a year. You can watch the BBC TV documentary about the same on our website...... or just google "Erich Kofmel".

Richard Baker| 12.19.09 @ 9:48AM

All well and good. But what will Mr. Hauerwas's response be when Arab/Moslem killers are murdering his family in his presence? War is an awful event in the life of man, true, but does this mean that this "theologian" advocates laying down when your enemy says convert to Islam or die? Wonder what his thoughts on that choice would be? Remember, Jesus never condemned being a Soldier. Wonder why?

Matt| 5.25.10 @ 1:02AM

These questions are actually taken up in Yoder's "What would you do?" book. And why do you put quotes around "theologian" as if Hauerwas is not one? All because he may not follow through with pacifism if his family is attacked? I think you miss the point of his theology altogether; the idea is that "safety" and "health" have become imperatives in a culture that denies death. Instead of denying death, perhaps we should take the eucharist as an alternative to the sacrifices of war and violence that become necessary under the mandates of such a culture.

Mary Louise| 12.19.09 @ 4:29PM

Hauerwas understands that in order for the faith to be able to be successfully propagated antithesis needs to be apparent. He attempts to make it apparent through a pacifism that he seems to believe places the risen and ascended Christ right here on Earth. There are definitely glorious Christian, pacifist, martyrs, but they’re outnumbered by those Christians who served in the Military since the time of Diocletian.

His stance on homosexuality is in keeping with his own counsel and those who agree with him, but it’s not the stand the Church has ever taken or should ever take. I say this as someone who thinks homosexuality, to some degree, is physiological in nature and/or a combination of that and a smashing, however inadvertent, of the chrysalis by the same-sex parent. But that’s not really relevant when homosexuals seek to raise homosexuality to parity with heterosexuality. It’s anomalous and out of order, and that should remain significant.

The Jesus I find the most convincing is the Jesus of St. Mark. The very Hebraic Jesus, who calls on the Father in prayer. Who openly asks ’why should I give to the dogs what belongs to the Children?’ The Jesus of the Twelve Tribes.

I like the Jesus of St. Matthew too. The Sermon On The Mount, so misused, in my opinion, is just majestic. In Pope Benedict’s book on Christ he offers up the idea that The Sermon is the purview of Monks and ascetics, lest economies collapse and poverty, disease, want and envy rule unopposed. The whole world a Third World.

Jesus doesn’t seem to me -ambiguous and sparse as the chronicle of him is- to carry water for anyone’s status quo. And if He's God made man, then that would stand to reason.

Where is Jesus? It’s not an impious question. But I think that’s at the heart of the loss of confidence in revelation. It’s not a question that demands he answer, it’s a question of longing and desire. And it’s up to theologians (God help us, if Hauerwas is considered top-notch) to hear the cries of the distressed, as Herman Sasse put it once, a long time ago.

Cardinal Bellarmine (I think it was him and I think he was a cardinal) said that the greatest heresy of the period of the Reformation was ‘assurance.’ When I first read that, it rankled but I rejected it. But now I see that he was right. Assurance is the opposite of faith because it’s a demand to know the decree however camouflaged by lofty rhetoric or exegesis. And you have no right to demand to know the decree. The quest for God should be done even if you end up in Hell. That’s the faith of the greatest saints, I think.

The passivity that JBFA engenders, however true the doctrine is that you can’t buy God’s favor, is part of the reason for the death of the Living Christ. Man is made for action, not passivity. Action that follows upon the heels of knowing, per this essay, what virtue lies in protecting women and children from the barbarous and uncivilized advance of those who would hurl us back into the last century in which they prevailed.

Hauweras can write as he does because he is protected. The scent of braver and greater men than he -who have sacrificed so much, sometimes all- linger around Hauerwas’s words and person.

Andy Rowell| 12.19.09 @ 4:53PM

1. Even Hauerwas's fans acknowledge he is provocative and at times difficult to understand. Richard Ranger says it well in his comment above: "Hauerwas' theology is prophetic, which means that he frequently pushes an argument to its outer edges." It is therefore difficult to unravel what he is saying in sound bites. Perhaps this comment thread is a good example of what he does. He creates conversations about what it means to be a Christian in America. Unfortunately the comments are all over the place because Hauerwas is not as clear as one might hope. And I think Tooley's commentary muddies a few things which skew the conversation a bit.
2. The most important thing to assert about Mark Tooley's post here is that Hauerwas himself would claim to be orthodox--that is right in the center of the catholic tradition. He is a Methodist but Thomas Aquinas is his greatest influence and he often says he disagrees with the Roman Catholic Church about ordaining women but very little else. In essence, Hauerwas wants Christians to primarily see their role in terms of obeying Jesus and being an example to the world of how Christians live differently. He worries that for too many Christians in the United States do not live at all differently because they are Christians. They sue one another, live for material wealth, protect themselves, have sex with whoever they want to, cheer for the military when the US seems to be winning, and do not look much like Jesus.
3. John Howard Yoder tried to root his beliefs in Scripture above all else. Tooley writes above that he "sought to re-interpret the Crucifixion as primarily a rejection of all violence." It is more accurate to say that he emphasized the nonviolence of the cross. At least Tooley softens his statement with a "primarily."
4. Hauerwas would not say he "favors acceptance of homosexuality." He has a chapter about this in his book "A Better Hope" called "On Marriage and Homosexuality."
5. Tooley writes above that "Karl Barth, who implicitly inclined towards universal salvation, and accordingly portrayed the church as an otherworldly communion that critiques civil society but supinely does not seek specifically to shape it." Karl Barth did not promote universalism but rather emphasized God's autonomy. He also was the drafter of the Barmen Declaration--the main protest document of the church against Nazism. At least Tooley softened these statements with "inclined" and "specifically."
6. Tooley writes, "Is uncompromising pacifism the key to Christianity's spiritual and cultural restoration?" Actually, this is not what Hauerwas is arguing for. He is sympathetic to just war. He rather wants to point out that "just wars" are too easily rationalized in almost any circumstance which just war theorists readily admit. He critiques Obama's Nobel speech on just war grounds at: http://hopeofalltheworld.blogs.....s-war.html
7. Tooley's insights are strongest in the last paragraph when he writes, "And how does Hauerwas's nonviolence meld with support for the Welfare State, which is innately coercive and sustained ultimately by the threat of force? Is state "violence" wrong if deployed against terrorism but correct if enforcing government health care?" Hauerwas entirely agrees with Tooley here. He is is disturbed at American faith in government as their salvation whether it be the right who trusts their government for military protection or the left for their welfare.

Dean from Ohio| 12.19.09 @ 11:17PM

On a tour of Turkey, one of our guides was another Yoder (also a pacifist from what I could tell), who went on about how the Palestinians were being ground under the boot of the Israelis. I asked him what would happen if the Israelis gave the Palestinians everything they asked for. He immediately replied, "There would be peace." I then asked him if there is any difference, from the perspective of the Bible and prophecy, if there was any difference whatsoever between the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis in the Holy Land and the recent conflict between the Hutus and the Tsutsis in Rwanda. "None," he replied, and departed the next day to guide a tour in the Holy Land.

So what, the reader says. Here is the point: for pacifists llike John Howard Yoder, and Hauerwas, and the Yoder I met, the Bible's plain statements that humans have an incurable sin problem (Romans 1-3), that God has an eternal purpose for the Jews (Romans 9-11) and that God himself has appointed the state as his servant with the explicit duty and authority to carry out capital punishment when necessary (Romans 13) can be discarded like so much junk email.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1).

Mary Louise| 12.20.09 @ 7:40AM

Where Christianity is spreading and where new Christians are trying to avoid Muslim opposition they cling to the Hebrew Yahweh as they cling to the Cross and the Resurrection. Yahweh offers the hope of continuing in this life, and Christ offers the hope of continuing in the Next. They seem to know the difference between being stalked by someone who wants to stone and kill you, and being stalked by the cancer in your genes.

I’m not divesting myself of King David or Moses or Isaiah. If I have to do that, something is really off.

In the Gospels, Jesus sometimes uses violent imagery. Why use the imagery of a sword even if that imagery is used only as metaphor? Why does The Forerunner tell soldiers who want to be baptized to repent and not to rob, but he doesn’t command them not to soldier? Why does Jesus tell the woman caught in adultery not to do it anymore, but he doesn’t tell the Centurion to get out of that line of work?

I‘m partial to a theologian somewhere in Kansas: Husband and father, lawyer, farmer, poet, who reminds us that “The Devil Loves Air Conditioning.”

gregg patten| 12.21.09 @ 12:00PM

Enjoyed your review and commentary. I cherish my Amish friends and their faith, but believe that they could not survive as pacifist separatists if my family had not been willing to go to war to protect their religious freedoms. I see it as cowardly for liberals of all stripes to first not agree that men are totally depraved, and then to be critical of those who do, and who make the free choice to go out and save their sorry asses anyway.

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They put up with a false god for precisely the reason they project onto others; they subsume God to their politics because to a leftist politics is their god.

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jamesbind| 1.6.10 @ 2:51AM

Hauerwas is no more than a deconstructionalist. Deconstructing 2000 years of Tradition and Scripture and reconstructing it as some Ghandi like New Age philsophy is big business.

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ameneer| 1.6.10 @ 11:42AM

Hauerwas' theology is prophetic, which means that he frequently pushes an argument to its outer edges. So much of organized 'conservative' Christendom in this country - however well-intentioned - is largely about making peace with Caesar, so long as Caesar is chasing down various bad guys, foreign or domestic.

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He has taught at the University of Notre Dame and is currently the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Law.

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cable| 1.9.10 @ 4:46AM

Stanley Hauerwas is contemporary theology’s most well-known and provocative voice for pacifism.

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Hauerwas harshly condemns the United States as a political project ... partly because the U.S is purportedly based on abstract ideas rather than organic culture.
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Hauerwas' theology is prophetic, which means that he frequently pushes an argument to its outer edges.

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tress| 1.14.10 @ 5:53AM

Professing to be sort of theologically orthodox, Hauerwas has become a preeminent voice among neo-orthodox American Protestants and some left-leaning evangelicals by rejecting the ostensible conflation of American nationalism with Christianity.
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pamelazz| 1.21.10 @ 12:18PM

(There is the Kingdom of Man and the Kingdom of God and Christians are essentially citizens of the Kingdom of God and merely wayfarers in the Kingdom of Man. Does Hauerwas vote? Most Mennonites don't.) As you imply that Christians have particularly Christian duties to cary out in the civil sphere.

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Individuals like John Dewey, who had a strong influence on all three institutions named above, started the ball rolling in a major way, though he had forerunners such as Rousseau and Hegel.
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Hauerwas' theology is prophetic, which means that he frequently pushes an argument to its outer edges.

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Don| 1.30.10 @ 10:08AM

I wonder how many people in history have died in the name of religion. Religion is for those who can't accept their own mortality. The church is just another form of control.

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darkvince| 2.8.10 @ 9:48AM

Hauerwas is no more than a deconstructionalist. Deconstructing 2000 years of Tradition and Scripture and reconstructing it as some Ghandi like New Age philsophy is big business.

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Luke| 2.8.10 @ 2:48PM

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I agree. A genuine mistake or lack of research? Either way, the interpretation of such a theological or philosophical stance must be poor. I share an interest in philosophy and metaphysics, so details such as this are very important to me.

alyssa| 2.21.10 @ 12:40PM

The entire article is a "wait, WHAT?" response on my part. How can a Christian NOT believe in substitutionary atonement? Christ's crucifixion as a mere rejection of violence?

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mikex231| 2.27.10 @ 10:24PM

While there are some things I like about pacifists like Hauerwas, I can't bring myself to even read more about or listen to what he says. I can't get past his take on the crucifix. cheap textbooks

Shane| 3.2.10 @ 8:51PM

It's funny, because what most people are arguing about Hauerwas is not true; he does not believe in "pacifism"; he uses the term to get across the message, which is being faithful unto death to Christ and His ways. He's not a leftist, and to call him that shows you believe in an American-centric belief, rather than a Christ-centric belief; Hauerwas also doesn't believe in the two kingdoms; there is one kingdom, God's, and he wants to prevent enroachment on that. Seriously, read his work and don't rely on poor, 2 dimensional interpretations.

Oh, and yes, I agree with him on Christianity and the state: One cannot be a faithful American and a faithful Christian. And most of the people who claim to be both have really just chosen America wrapped in Christian clothing.

mikeyd| 3.17.10 @ 12:28AM

Ok, for the most part I can see his argument. But "War is a moral necessity for America because it provides the experience of the 'Unum' that makes the 'pluribus' possible," Someone please tell me just what that is supposed to mean? boat repairs ft lauderdale

Teeth Home| 3.22.10 @ 7:15PM

I cherish my Amish friends and their faith, but believe that they could not survive as pacifist separatists if my family had not been willing to go to war to protect their religious freedoms. I see it as cowardly for liberals of all stripes to first not agree that men are totally depraved, and then to be critical of those who do, and who make the free choice to go out and save their sorry asses anyway.

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sara| 5.12.10 @ 1:12PM

"War is America's central liturgical act necessary to renew our sense that we are a nation unlike other nations," I think that war is not a solution to anything.Bloggy Media

Matt| 5.25.10 @ 2:55AM

I think this is basically Hauerwas' point.. well, at least that war is not a solution to anything particularly significant for the life of Church.

Timothy A Trautman| 8.3.10 @ 12:55AM

have you actually read Hauerwas in any depth?

paul white| 10.1.10 @ 4:25PM

I'm afraid that God doesn't exist. All religion is a nonsense. Read Richard Dawkins.

Joshua Penduck| 10.28.10 @ 2:04PM

I'm afraid, Paul, that Dawkins' book, 'The God Delusion', is a philosophical embarrassment. His grasp of all the subtlety within many of these philosophical arguments is cringe-worthy: he mocks terms like 'simplicity', 'causation', 'substance' and 'essence' without seemingly realising that these have different meanings within the philosophical linguo. What angers me most, though, is that he misinforms people - such as yourself - through his ignorance. I'm not even an atheist (I'm a dedicated Christian), but I'm going to recommend 'Against all Gods' by Quentin Smith, because I'd rather you'd have a proper knowledge of atheist philosophy than be misled by a charlatan like Dawkins. This is a book of all the best atheist arguments, by a renowned (though non-fundamentalist) atheist philosopher.

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Hennry| 12.25.10 @ 6:13AM

It's funny, because what most people are arguing about Hauerwas is not true; he does not believe in "pacifism"; he uses the term to get across the message, which is being faithful unto death to Christ and His ways. Venapro He's not a leftist, and to call him that shows you believe in an American-centric belief, rather than a Christ-centric belief; Hauerwas also doesn't believe in the two kingdoms; there is one kingdom, God's, and he wants to prevent enroachment on that. Seriously, read his work and don't rely on poor, 2 dimensional interpretations.

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DSH| 6.28.11 @ 4:10PM

This article massively distorts of Hauerwas' and Yoder's views, but perhaps more importantly, it is written in such a sneering and condescending manner that it does great damage to the Church's witness. Just look at the mean-spirited comments it has elicited!

The author doesn't mean to foster dialogue or persuade, but to passive-aggressively tear down Hauerwas. The article really contributes nothing -- it is a one-sided assault on a prominent strand of Christian thought.

To be clear, both Hauerwas and Yoder exuberantly confess the crucifixion as primarily serving to reconcile man to God. Pacifism is part of their theology --- an important part, to be sure -- but it's not everything to them.

It's unclear whether the author has read any of Hauerwas' or Yoder's work -- all he cites is the one obscure speech at Houghton -- but for those interested I'd recommend Hauerwas' The Peaceable Kingdom and Yoder's The Politics of Jesus.

chiropractor chattanooga| 7.1.11 @ 9:31AM

It is really funny, because what most people are arguing about Hauerwas is not true but he does not believe in "pacifism"; he uses the term to get across the message,