Faith matters: intelligibly unintelligible

I am reading Stanley Hauerwas' Approaching the end: Eschatological reflections on Church, Politics and Life. It comes highly recommend.  I found the following quote so helpful in thinking about the 'shape' of my own faith.

For I take it to be crucial that Christians must live in such a manner that their lives are unintelligible if the God we worship in Jesus Christ does not exist.

- Stanley Hauerwas, Approaching the end (p.67).

Indeed, the character of our lives, not our confessions, but our very lives, must seem strange to a world that is so obsessed with power, wealth, class and fame.  The way of the Christ follower must seem nonsensical to those who do not understand the God whom we love and know.  Of course it makes sense to us only because we know God and have experienced God's grace and power that transforms life, brings wholeness and motivates our reason for being who and how we are in the world.

If our lives, and the expression of our lives (our homes, our bank accounts, our Churches) resemble too closely to conventions of our time we need to take stock and ask whether we have not given in to one of the many false God's of the age.  We should be different, since God's nature and ways are different.  But our difference should not be a reason for division, but rather a call to real life, a call to full life, a call to move closer to the life giver.

Becoming the best that you can be (and other myths)

The lenten journey is about becoming the kind of persons that God has designed us to be.  Lent is not about giving up chocolate or meat...  It is far more profoundly about 'becoming' a true person through the discovery of our need for Christ and others.

There must be more to being a Christ follower than giving up chocolate as the following tweet illustrates so aptly!

UthGuyChaz What if, for Lent, we gave up thinking that Jesus died so that we could go to church, hear a good sermon, and give up chocolate?

The wonderful quote below comes from Stanley Hauerwas.  It reminded me that my purpose in life is not become 'the best me'.  Rather, I am created to become the beloved of Christ, fully human because of His grace, love and power.

Without Jesus, Peter might have been a good fisherman, perhaps even a very good one. But he would never have gotten anywhere, would never have learned what a coward he really was, what a confused, then confessing, courageous person he was, even a good preacher (Acts 2) when he needed to be. Peter stands out as a true individual, or better, a true character, not because he had become “free” or “his own person,” but because he had become attached to the Messiah and messianic community, which enabled him to lay hold of his life, to make so much more of his life than if he had been left to…

—	Stanley Hauerwas (via @invisibleforeigner's tumblr blog)

And so my lenten journey begins.

On War and American Christianity

“If I am close to being right about the place of war for sustaining the American difference I find that as a Christian I wish America as a nation was more “secular” and the Christianity of America was less American. Put differently I wish America was more like Europe. For I fear the Christianity of America, a Christianity that from a European perspective seems vital, is not capable of being a political challenge to what is done in the name of the American difference. In short, the great difficulty is how to keep America, in the proper sense, secular.”

Stanley Hauerwas, War and the American Difference (via invisibleforeigner)

A powerful quote indeed.  I met Stanley Hauerwas when I was doing some teaching at Duke in 2005.  He is a remarkable man - I am currently reading his autobiography 'Hannah's child: a theologians memoir'.  Wonderfully encouraging and very 'real'.  I mean it is real in the sense that it tells the story of someone who came to be a theologian by living an authentic life with courage, and writing and thinking what he believed.

The quote above is deeply challenging to me.  I have often wondered whether a life lived in Christ demands radical pacifism.  Does living under the authority of Jesus, the 'Prince of Peace', demand that we should be peacemakers to the exclusion of participating in any form of violence?  Does it mean that we should not defend ourselves, or come to the aid of others (particularly those who are defenseless)?

As a South African I underwent military training - it was compulsory for all males at the time.  It was a deeply challenging time for me.  I struggled with many aspects of the 'formation' required for military service.

When I read Hauerwas I am convinced that war is not the answer to difficult and complex problems.  It is powerful to achieve one's aims quickly.  However, it is most often the poorer persons in society who become the casualties in achieving the ideologies of the wealthy and the powerful.

Well, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Getting into the theological journey of a lifetime! You could never be the same again.

A friend of mine (zoob) emailed me this morning to ask for some advice about getting into Stanley Hauerwas. I thought I would post my response here. Once again, I would suggest that you cannot be a serious contemporary theologian without reading some Hauerwas! Come on, engage me on this!

Thanks for the mail. Wow, you are in for a spectacular ride!!! I would suggest that you simply cannot get by without getting yourself a copy of the 'Hauerwas Reader' Check out Angus' review here There is also a direct link from his post to order it from Kalahari. This book has a representative selection of his own essays and chapters from books, so it will give you a superb insight into his theology... In particular you should read the chapter in it which is entitled something like "Why gays (as a group) are morally superior to Christians (as a group)"... I don't have my book here with me in the office to give you the exact title. However he makes an incredibly creative argument for pacifism based on sexual orientation and US's hunger for war! Incredible!!!

Hauerwas is a MIND BEND! He will revolutionize your theology in a way you have not yet thought possible.

Another exceptional read is his Gifford lecture series called "With the grain of the Universe" (SCM Press, 2001). I would also suggest some reading for Easter, "The cross shattered Christ" (2007).

A fourth book to read is his 'festschrift' called "God truth and witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas" - Neville wrote a chapter in the book!!! How incredle is that!? In this chapter he relates Hauerwas ethics (and his notion of community and expression of his eclessiology) to what is happening in the Church in South Africa. An incredible read - it was the first time that I actually began to want to Barth by the way! Up to this point I had been a firm Kung and Rahner person.

If anyone else has some suggestions to make here (Wessel, Angus, Neville?) please post a comment. Blessings, D.