« preaching wolves and lambs | Main | on DISMANTLING an atomic bomb »

hauerwas and theology live

tuesday night this week stanley hauerwas was here to help us kick off a process of thinking through our mission at the center for faith & culture.
47b4cf11b3127cce9d2dfa4a94e100000016108CaOHLRw0bo
(stanley, talking with wes avram, professor of communications at yale divinity)

the object of his visit was to kick off our project we've titled 'theology live' in order to capture our intention to learn about how one makes faith matter in all of life and not simply in the divinity school or the congregation. we're not only having theologians--actually specifically not--because we understand that in an important sense all christians are theologians. but among theologians there are few who have engaged broader issues that matter to us all, and from a distinctly christian voice, than stanley hauerwas. my first blush reaction was that i heard (of course) things he'd said before, either in writing or in other lectures. when one has had as long a public career as stanley that should be no surprise. but one thing struck me. he didn't like what we were doing when he came and when he left, he left enthusiastic.

he didn't like what we were doing because he thought it was 'public theology' or some such thing, which he considers a sort of tired grab for power on the part of the church. as if we ought to be trying to say better things on economics than economists or on medicine than doctors, etc. he said he had no idea how to do that well, and didn't want to anyway. but when he found out that our aim is to help christians to be stronger, deeper, more thoughtful christians not only at church, but more importantly (because of its neglect) in the rest of life, he got excited. that's all i've been trying to do, he said. quoting loosely, he said "people accuse me of trying to withdraw. hell, I want people to engage, but i just want them to engage as christians! if that's what you want to do, great. we need more of that."

for posterity, for those of you who know the history, here are a couple of nice pics of stanley talking to george lindbeck after the lecture.

47b4cf11b3127cce9d2dfa20948b00000016108CaOHLRw0bo


F-IOGTRs0aN39i4g1uiU86

Comments

If Hauerwas says the mission is ok, then it's ok with me. Me and my Mum think he's the best.

Post a comment

If you have a TypeKey or TypePad account, please Sign In

My Photo

writing . . . broken hallelujahs

Reading

  • Melissa Fay Greene: There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Her Country's Children

    Melissa Fay Greene: There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Her Country's Children
    an amazing writer and deeply moral human being, Melissa Fay Greene hooked me with Praying for Sheetrock, her first book. In this wonderful tale, she puts a heroic face on the struggle to respond to an overwhelming tide of AIDS orphans in Africa. She has also adopted four children from Ethiopia.


  • David F. Ford: Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love (Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine)

    David F. Ford: Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love (Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine)
    David Ford has become one of the most important theologians writing today, and he has been mulling this one for more than a decade. I heard him speak at Yale in 2003 in response to Miroslav and Dorothy Bass' book Practicing Theology and many of these themes regarding wisdom come up. Especially powerful engagement with scripture from which he draws the idea of "wisdom cries." A practical theologian at his best. Read!

  • Mary Oliver: Why I Wake Early: New Poems

    Mary Oliver: Why I Wake Early: New Poems
    Here I find a carnal theology, so deeply enmeshed in the glory of the ordinary. finitum capax infiniti. read her and you will not look at an ordinary day as ordinary again. Try, for starters, "This World," on page 27. It begins thus: "I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it nothing fancy./ But it seems impossible./ Whatever the subject, the morning sun glimmers it./"

  • Charles Taylor: A Secular Age

    Charles Taylor: A Secular Age
    My teacher, the sociologist Robert Bellah, says: "This is one of the most important books written in my lifetime." Okay, enough. Rush out and get this book, just out, from one of the best living philosophers and certainly the most important for Christians.

  • Wil Derkse: The Rule of Benedict for Beginners: Spirituality for Daily Life

    Wil Derkse: The Rule of Benedict for Beginners: Spirituality for Daily Life
    My lent book last spring and one of the best spiritual volumes I've read in a very long time--a lovely view of how the rule can matter for daily life and work written by an oblate of St. Willibrord's Abbey in the Netherlands

Blog powered by TypePad
Member since 03/2004