From time to time, when there’s nothing interesting enough about my life to journal for others, I’d like to introduce you to great minds and lives that have in some way impacted my own. Today: Stanley Hauerwas.
This introduction is from The Progressive…
“As a theological ethicist, Duke University Divinity School professor, and as a writer cruising through his forties and fifties, Stanley Hauerwas enjoyed the twin blessings of personal achievement and professional obscurity. Then, in 2001, the assessors of talent at Time magazine declared him “America’s best theologian.” Oprah Winfrey gave him air time. Invitations to talk, exhort, and entertain poured in.
Hauerwas, a Texan who speaks in the twangy cadences of Jim Hightower and is as adept with the barbs and jibes, guffaws when recalling the praise from Time: ‘Best is not a theological category! Faithful or unfaithful are the right categories. The last thing in the world I’d want to be is the best.’ “
Hauerwas is full of quotable quips that provoke us to anger and holiness. Here are a few that have made me think:
“I do not have a foreign policy. I have something better--a church constituted by people who would rather die than kill.”
(On the movement he calls religious conservatism) “Christianity is defended not so much because it is true, but because it reinforces the `American way of life.’ Such movements are thus unable to contemplate that there might be irresolvable tensions between being Christian and being `a good American.’ “
“Generally, I think the strongest argument against pacifism is it’s immoral. Namely, we abandon the innocent who should be protected. Just war is committed to believing that you cannot commit an evil that a good may come. You cannot bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s better for more people to die on the beaches of Japan than to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That’s murder. So we are people, those committed to just war and non-violence equally, who often have to watch the innocent die for our convictions.”
“The problem with capitalism is it makes us wealthy, and being wealthy is not a very good thing for Christians to be, if we believe the Gospels.”
To read more about Hauerwas check out this list of links.
Our church got a new pastor when I was eighteen. He wasn’t like the old one. Sure his hair was regulation for a Baptist minister; short and parted to one side. His suit was pressed and usually blue and his shoes were wing-tipped and shiny leather. But he was different I soon found out.
I discovered it the night I first rang his doorbell. I wasn’t there to pay him a visit though. It was one of his daughters I was interested in. I didn’t care which one. Any one of the three would do. I was meeting up with several other rival suitors (and a few girls from church we’d grown too accustomed to having around to be attracted to) to watch a movie with the preacher’s kids at their house.
They were always having people over. And we all came I suppose because they, the sisters, were the only remotely new things in Tyler, TX that Summer after high school. So I rang the doorbell, excited to meet these rumored sisters and the new pastor face to face for the first time.
I was early, too early to be cool at all. I was nervous. I’d spotted the oldest sister at church that morning and really hoped she was home that night. She was a few years older than me. RIght out of college. I wondered if she’d taken a job in Dallas or left to get an advanced degree somewhere like I’d heard she wanted to. I wondered and hoped. I rang the doorbell again.
And waited.
And waited.
And when the door opened there he stood. My formerly suited pastor. Scratching his stomach. No suit. No shirt. No shoes. No pants. Just socks. And underwear. And a grin that gave away the joke.
My father-in-law was - is - like no other pastor I’ve ever met. A head full of theology, enough to make him a Doctor of something-or-another, but a desk drawer full of fart machines and a mouth spilling stories that all end the same way: with a laugh that borders on a scream.
My mother-in-law needs prayer. She lives with the man and the desk drawer and the mouth that came with him. And she raised three beautiful and giving daughters somehow in spite of him. And then gave one away, the oldest one, to a musician as irreverent as her husband. Poor woman.
I’m consoling her and humoring him this week. They’ve taken our bedroom and sent me to the couch and Becky to a kid’s floor. But in exchange my mother-in-law is cooking - and she’s the best cook - and my father-in-law is helping me ready the house for sale - painting the deck. And I’m grateful today for in-laws that tell jokes instead of being the butt of mine. And for family that plays and thinks and works together after all this time. That’s a rare thing.
Why are you here at SHLOG.COM? You’re probably goofing off instead of working. Well, you can do better. Here are some better places to go to waste time:
BLOGS TO READ:
Lord Vader’s Blog
This is Lord Vader’s blog. Read about his daily activities and thank God for your job. It’s hard defending an evil empire against rebels with bad hair.
How I Am Becoming An Astronaut
This woman is an astronaut in training. Read the realtime development of the right stuff.
Bring Back The Couch
The best I can figure this is a blog by the former couch of the Daily Show on Comedy Central, recently replaced by a chair and not thrilled about it.
Casual Friday
Read the 10 highlights of a guy’s every day - things like “Sniffed fingers aggressively in crowded elevator” and “Regained the record for who can hold their breath under water the longest at the pool...I beat Jaimie (9 yrs. old) by 5 Mississippi’s”
STUFF TO WATCH:
Vintage21’s “Jesus Videos”
StrongBad’s e-mail at homestarrunner.com ("Guitar" is my favorite one.)
T-SHIRTS TO BROWSE:
Threadless.com
People upload their shirt designs. You vote on them. The best get manufactured. You can buy one for $10. Fashion for the people, by the people, at a price the people can afford.
RandomShirts.com
Random shirts sold for $10. And the money goes to a good cause.
FONTS TO DOWNLOAD:
DaFont.com
FontDiner.com
HUH?:
Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers
That oughtta last you ‘til lunch. Happy goofing off. Glad I could help.
”I believe that, at this present time, we are in great danger of being burdened with a crowd of so-called converts who do not really know anything as it ought to be known. They attended a revival meeting, were much excited, and thought they were converted; but just ask them to explain to you the simplest truths of the gospel, and you will soon discover how little they know. Could they explain the three R’s, ruin, redemption, and regeneration Do they know what the ruin is? Do they know what the remedy for that ruin is? Do they understand at all what it means to be born again? Do they comprehend what the new nature is, or what “justification by faith” means. Perhaps someone says, “They do not comprehend your theological terms.” I do not mind whether they know the meaning of the terms that are familiar to many of us; but do they know the truths themselves? There is a certain degree of Christian knowledge which is absolutely necessary to salvation.”
--Charles H. Spurgeon
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CHARLES SPURGEON:
Many resources at Spurgeon.org
Buy books by Spurgeon
Christianity Today profile on Spurgeon
One fourth of us SHLOGGERS don’t care a bit about denominations. But the vast majority (82%) say that while no one denomination owns the market on truth they do prefer one denomination over others for themselves. The Church of Christ folks chimed in with 5% of the vote, believing they’re the only ones that are right. (Please, no hate mail from the Church of Christ folks. It’s a joke.)
And for the 1% who said they don’t know what a denomination is let me explain it like this. Denominations are factions of Christianity. They’re like brands of the same product. (Wow, we could take that analogy some scary directions couldn’t we?) These denominations were usually created by one group of people leaving another denomination to start their own because of some issue that at the time seemed like a big deal and the right thing to pout about.
Southern Baptists for instance, the denomination whose logo is on the sign in front of the church I currently attend, were formed to keep slavery alive. The American Baptists became the against slavery group and the Southern, who wanted to stay rich and white, did not accept African-Americans as human but as property. And we’re still pretty much rich and white while American Baptists are still very racially diverse.
Free Methodists didn’t like Methodist churches selling assigned seats for the church service so they broke off and did their own thing: open seating, first come first served. Just two examples of the kinds of things that have created these schisms that still exist today. Some divisions formed around weighty life and death issues and others over making church a non-ticketed event. How did your denomination get it’s start? You might be surprised when you find out.
From time to time, when there’s nothing interesting enough about my life to journal for others, I’d like to introduce you to great minds and lives that have in some way impacted my own. Today: Stanley Hauerwas.
