I like Stanley Hauerwas. I like the way he writes a paper called 'Why gays (as a group) are morally superior to Christians (as a group).' I like the way he writes, showing that theology is always ethical. He has been described in the following way:
Stanley is a loud, blustery, locomotive of passion for the Gospel; his eyes deep, intense, penetrating, full of sparkle and fire; his discourses passion-filled, spluttering with expletives, crashing into everyone else's opinion in the room, his thoughts thundering into your consciousness - sometimes against your will, often making you angry at his lack of ... well ... senstivity. And yet. And yet ... You realize this is man who is so in love with the Gospel - so in its grip - that he must say what he says or the rocks will say it for him. There is such clarity about Stanley Hauerwas. You have no doubts about what he thinks, about what he believes. And, there is no question in our minds that his clarity often leaves him alone, isolated from those whose ideas are of the mind and not of the heart. There are times when he spoke that a kind of holiness filled the room and you knew you were hearing the words of a prophet, and when the interview was over there were tears in the eyes of the interviewers'
('The Door Interview', 1993, quoted in 'Stanley Hauerwas: Where Would We Be Without Him?' by Mark Thiessen Nation in Faithfulness and Fortitude, 2000, pp.19-20)
I like that description. Part of me wants to be like that, although without the need for the expletives. Part of me already is. These Hauerwasian traits though can get me into trouble. They can serve to make me appear uncomprising (which hopefully when it comes to the gospel I am), aggressive, argumentative and passionate. There's a bluntness and a truthfulness about Hauerwas' words which I like and admire. In a time where often the church appears to resemble nothing like or even pretend to resemble the gospel to which it claims to follow, the theology of Hauerwas unmasks the shallow and fakeness of the church's life and demands (as Bonhoeffer and Barth before him) that the gospel is more demanding and more costly than we want it to be. Too many characters like Hauerwas would dishearten the church, but without him and others, the church will continue to live in a type of Disneyland, entertaining but not discipling. I encountered Hauerwas first through the writings of John Colwell, who writes like a British version of Hauerwas, slightly softer, but no less blunt. Shall I continue to see Hauerwas as someone to emulate as a witness to the gospel or should I look for more tactful and diplomatic witnesses?
It is pleasant to know I'm not the only person who has a tendancy to lapse into expletives when passionate (or tired/injured). Yes, I have stood before a congregation and sworn, and not just my home-church. However, it is something that I should, and do strive to avoid, when I remember.
As to tact and diplomacy... Most of the heroes of the Bible were a bit in-yer-face, really. Christ and Paul were not exactly tactful all the time- Yes, they were not uneccesarily brash, nor did they ever intend to harm anyone (well, often); but they also did not shy away from the truth, even when that did hurt. That was their higher calling.
The same was true of many of the Prophets: they said what had to be said, regardless of whether it was offensive. The test of character is in their normal dealings with people- were they constantly offensive, or only when it was the only way?
Posted by: ash | June 12, 2006 at 11:50 PM
I'd love to be more like him (though I probably swear enough already)!
Sometimes I kid myself that I am a mini-Hauerwas, but I just don't think I have it in me. At best, I'm a wishy-washy watered-down Colwell! ;-)
Posted by: graham | June 21, 2006 at 10:21 AM