Stanley Hauerwas
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Stanley Hauerwas (b. July 24, 1940) is a United Methodist theologian, ethicist, and professor of law. He received a PhD from Yale University and a D.D. from University of Edinburgh, and 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.
In his career, he has attempted to emphasize the importance of virtue and character within the Church. He has been an outspoken Christian pacifist and has promoted nonviolence, having been mentored by Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder. Hauerwas has also been an opponent of nationalism, particularly American patriotism, arguing that it has no place in the Church. His writings occasionally veer into the area of paleo-orthodoxy, though Hauerwas himself might refute this claim. He has also been associated with the narrative theology movement.
TIME Magazine in 2001 named him "America's Best Theologian". He responded by saying "Best is not a theological category." That same year, he was invited to give the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews in Scotland, which were published as With the Grain of the Universe, (ISBN 1-58743-016-9) a text in which Karl Barth's interpretation of St. Anselm's analogy of faith was featured.
Hauerwas is a prominent and influential theological ethicist in the United States. As John Howard Yoder had attempted to demonstrate what he felt were problems with Reinhold Niebuhr's ethics in his 1972 book The Politics of Jesus (ISBN 0-8028-0734-8), Hauerwas attempted the same with the positions of both H. Richard Niebuhr (particularly his 1951 book Christ and Culture ISBN 0-06-130003-9) and Paul Tillich, thus calling into question the modern philosophical foundations for just war thinking. Hauerwas has also been deeply influenced by Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who uses Thomist thought regarding virtue ethics to critique modern and postmodern culture.
As a teacher and lecturer, Hauerwas is known for his wit, sharp criticisms of positions he disagrees with, breadth of reading, and (more than) occasional use of profanity, which he explains as being the result of having a brick-layer father. Hauerwas often wears jeans with his dress shirt and tie.
Hauerwas' theology is colored by a deep love of the church. As such, he speaks frequently at churches throughout North America, and gave the Slater-Maguire Lecture at St. Margaret's Anglican Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2006.
While Hauerwas has been self-identified with the United Methodist Church for the bulk of his career, as of his latest work, he has begun to identify himself as an Anglican and attends Church of the Holy Family, an Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill, NC.
Additionally, Hauerwas was influential in the formation of the Ekklesia Project, a multi-denominational Christian "think tank" and Renewal Movement, also supported by many of his former graduate students, such as Joel Shuman, Rob J King, Brent Laytham, Tobias Winright and others. Hauerwas, although a controversial figure is well-loved by colleagues, former students and Church members alike. His most prominent former student is Greg Jones, current Dean of the Divinity School of Duke University.[citation needed]
[edit] Publications
Many of his books are collections of essays; some are structured monographs. Among his more commonly known works are:
- Vision and Virtue: Essays in Christian Ethical Reflection (1974)
- Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics (1975)
- Truthfulness and Tragedy: Further Investigations into Christian Ethics (1977)
- A Community of Character (1981) ISBN 0-268-00735-7
- The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (1983) ISBN 0-268-01554-6
- Against the Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society (1985) ISBN 0-86683-957-7
- Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped, and the Church (1986)
- Christian Existence Today: Essays on Church, World, and Living in Between (1988)
- Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (with William Willimon) (1989) ISBN 0-687-36159-1
- Naming the Silence: God, Medicine and the Problem of Suffering (1990)
- After Christendom: How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas (1991) ISBN 0-687-00929-4
- Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America (1993) ISBN 0-687-31678-2
- Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular (1994)
- In Good Company: The Church as Polis (1995)
- Where Resident Aliens Live (with William Willimon) (1996)
- Christians Among the Virtues: Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics (with Charles Pinches) (1997)
- Wilderness Wanderings: Probing Twentiethe Century Theology and Philosophy (1997)
- Sanctify Them in Truth: Holiness Exemplified (1998)
- A Better Hope: Resources for a church confronting capitalism, democracy and postmodernity (2000)
- With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology (2001) ISBN 1-58743-016-9
- The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (with Samuel Wells) (2004)
- Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Non-Violence (2004)
[edit] Quotes
- "Consider the problem of taking showers with [Christians]. They are, after all, constantly going on about the business of witnessing in the hopes of making converts to their God and church. Would you want to shower with such people? You never know when they might try to baptize you." ("Why Gays (as a Group) are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group)" in The Hauerwas Reader (2001) eds. John Berkman and Michael Cartwright)
- "[W]e must first experience the kingdom if we are even to know what kind of freedom and what kind of equality we should desire. Christian freedom lies in service, Christian equality is equality before God, and neither can be achieved through the coercive efforts of liberal idealists who would transform the world into their image." ("The Servant Community: Christian Social Ethics" (1983) in The Hauerwas Reader (2001) eds. John Berkman and Michael Cartwright)
