I wrote down this quote a long time ago and want to throw away the clipping of paper. So, why not post it? The quote offers a great window into Stanley Hauerwas’ project. For Hauerwas, ecclesiology is important because individuals can’t be disciples without the liturgical training that takes place in the worshiping community. (This is the central claim of the extremely expensive recent volume he edited with Samuel Wells, The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics). The church is the place where we gather in order to learn what sin is. As we train our eyes on God we come to discover all the arcane ways our lives are incoporated into the sinful “powers of this present darkness.” Thus the church is the foretaste of that eschatological reality breaking into the present that offers us participation in the triune life of God. In the gathered community of Christ we come to see our salvation as the Spirit exposes the networks of self-destruction that ensnare us. So, our participation in the body of Christ is our future salvation made present, and this infusion of grace shows us what freedom from sin looks like. Enough of my hasty summaries…. Here’s the quote:
“We’re all captured by it in various ways. But we’re captive to a power. That’s the way I want us to think about sin: not as something so much that I do as something that I’m captured by and that I don’t even recognize as captivity.” (Books&Culture, Nov/Dec 1998; interview by Rodney Clapp)
And how about a follow up quote along the same lines?
“Another hallmark of Christianity is that salvation is not individualistic—it’s not something one person receives for himself or herself. Salvation is the reign of God. It is a political alternative to the way the world is constituted. That’s a very important part of the story that has been lost to accounts of salvation that are centered in the individual. But without an understanding that salvation is the reign of God, the need for the church to mediate salvation makes no sense at all.” (The Hauerwas Reader, p. 533).
But there are just so many good quotes:
“I don’t have any faith in myself of living a virtuous life; but if I am surrounded by other people who are also formed by the same commitments, then we’ve got a better chance. We need one another to live up to the wonderful invitation we’ve been given to be other than we are.” (534).
12 responses so far ↓
1 Scott // Jan 5, 2006 at 10:00 am
I’ve always thought if people would just read Hauerwas, they’d understand a lot better why quotes like these matter. One of my friends heard Hauerwas speak recently at UNC, and they said the students there really didn’t understand what he was talking about when he made claims like “if you have a flag in your sanctuary…or your church celebrates mothers day…(etc, ad infinitum)...then I question your salvation.”
My friend said when someone asked Hauerwas what me meant by salvation, he used the example of a son of a Methodist minister who was going to be a lawyer until one of the faculty at Duke got a hold of him, and then he became a theologian. “That’s salvation,” Hauerwas said. This is the same example he used a couple of times in our Bonhoeffer / Yoder seminar this fall. I get the point – salvation is that concrete, requiring a politics (church) that manifests the Spirit in all areas of our life, even occupation.
But I also know how examples like these taken in themselves often don’t explain his position clearly to people not familiar with his work. As he’d probably say however, all statements are descriptions that require further explanation.
I guess my point is – he’s got a hell of a lot of good one liners, so hopefully they’ll be interesting enough to make people want to read him!
Peace,
Scott
(PS – Isaac, I finally posted on my blog.
2 David // Jan 6, 2006 at 9:04 am
Thanks Isaac for the post & Scott for his comments. I enjoyed both and will link to it on my blog. I was aware of Cavanaugh’s Political Theology, but not Hauerwas’ Ethics. Thanks for alerting me to it.
3 isaac // Jan 6, 2006 at 9:33 am
David, thanks for linking us. Yeah man, don’t forget “Stan the Man”—that’s actually the title of an essay Cavanaugh wrote about Hauerwas (it’s included in the Hauerwas Reader). There are lots of connections with Hauerwas and Cavanaugh. You probably already know this, but Cavanaugh was a Hauerwas student. He wrote Torture and Eucharist as a ph.d dissertation under Hauerwas’ direction. When I think “Hauerwasian” (even though Hauerwas doesn’t like the thought of training Hauerwasians), I think of people like Cavanaugh and Dan Bell (just two that come to mind at the moment).
4 David // Jan 6, 2006 at 11:16 am
Yes I was aware of this connection between Hauerwas, Cavanaugh, Bell & others. The fruit of Hauerwas’ teaching are these great thinkers. It’s amazing to me.
I have a favor to ask. Could you add my site to your blogroll as well. Thanks!
On a separate note – I printed out your de Lubac paper and will read it. Which seminary are you attending?
5 David // Jan 6, 2006 at 11:38 am
I guess Duke, correct?
6 isaac // Jan 7, 2006 at 5:14 am
David, thanks for taking a look at my paper on Henri de Lubac. Please feel free to post your reactions and engagements. Yeah, I’m at the Divinity School at Duke University. It’s a great place, but I’ll be graduating soon without a place to go! Hopefully jobs possibilities will start coming. Lastly, so I put your site back on our links.
7 Mathew Bartlett // Apr 11, 2006 at 2:25 am
Thanks for the quotes.
8 isaac // Apr 12, 2006 at 4:31 am
Matthew, thanks for stopping by the site. If there are other Hauerwas quotes that strike your fancy, please post them and let the rest of the world partake. That goes for anyone else out there who may stumble across this post.
9 Caliban // Mar 12, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Hauerwas said in class one day that if you can claim Jesus on a different basis then his own claim, then, you should worship that basis (or system). He was talking particularly about fundamentalism and inerrancy. However, Hauerwas’s theology does not work without Wittgenstein or Aristotle. He is so indebted to Wittgenstein’s “language game” and Aristotle’s vision of ethics. So, you draw the logical conclusion . . .
10 isaac // Mar 13, 2007 at 3:02 am
Caliban, thanks for sharing your concerns about Hauerwas with us. I’m afraid I need some help to “draw the logical conclusion.” Can you spell out a little more how your analogy works? thanks.
11 cittadipace // Mar 13, 2007 at 7:27 am
Caliban, when Hauerwas made the point to which you were referring, he was talking about more about modern (predominantly liberal) trends in theology to speak about Jesus as ‘symbol’ or ‘embodiment’ of some more determinative, more universal human reality. He was explicitly rejecting the notion that Jesus is merely the best example of an ontologically intrinsic relation to God that humanity has. I’m sure you’re right that ‘fundamentalism’ has come close to that view as well, but I thought since you were raising a potential problem with Hauerwas’s though – to which I’m more than open – I’d try to clear that up.
Like Isaac (Hi Isaac, by the way!), I need help to see what your concern is. I assume Hauerwas would agree with you that if Wittgenstein or Aristotle determines his understanding of God or Jesus more than the biblical narrative (which can’t be isolated from Church), something is wrong – if that is indeed the point you’re making.
So I guess if you want to make that point, the debate to be had is whether or not, and how, those figures over-determine his thought.
Peace,
Scott
12 isaac // Mar 17, 2007 at 3:56 am
Scott, it’s good to see you still visit the blog. I hope you are doing well.
peace,
Isaac
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