Better Hope

Stanley Hauerwas

Description

By his own admission never one to duck a good fight, Stanley Hauerwas has in the past three decades established himself as one of our most important and most disputatious theologians. With A Better Hope, he concentrates on the constructive case for the truth and power of the church and its faith, "since Christians cannot afford to let ourselves be defined by what we are against. Whatever or whomever we are against, we are so only because God has given us so much to be for."Hauerwas here crystallizes and extends profound criticisms of America, liberalism, capitalism, and postmodernism, but also identifies unlikely allies (such as Chicago Archbishop Francis Cardinal George) and locates surprising resources for Christian survival (such as mystery novels). Interlocutors along the way include Reinhold Niebuhr, John Courtney Murray, and, in a significant and previously unpublished essay, social gospeller Walter Rauschenbusch.Never boring and often telling, A Better Hope demonstrates how a thinker so often accused of being "tribal" and "sectarian" is at the same time one of few contemporary theologians read not just by other theologians, but by political scientists, philosophers, medical ethicists, law professors, and literary theorists.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2000
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585586011
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 2000 by Stanley Hauerwas
Published by Brazos Press a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.brazospress.com
Ebook edition created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-58558-601-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.
C ONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Preface
Introduction

P ART 1. T HE C HURCH IN THE T IME C ALLED A MERICA
1 On Being a Christian and an American
2 The Christian Difference: Or, Surviving Postmodernism
3 Resisting Capitalism: On Marriage and Homosexuality

P ART 2. C HRISTIAN E THICS IN A MERICAN T IME
4 Christian Ethics in America (and the Journal of Religious Ethics ): A Report on a Book I Will Not Write
5 Walter Rauschenbusch and the Saving of America
6 Not Late Enough: The Divided Mind of Dignitatis Humanae Personae
7 Only Theology Overcomes Ethics: Or, What “Ethicists” Must Learn from Jenson
8 Why The Politics of Jesus Is Not a Classic

P ART 3. C HURCH T IME
9 Why Time Cannot and Should Not Heal the Wounds of History, But Time Has Been and Can Be Redeemed
10 Worship, Evangelism, Ethics: On Eliminating the “And”
11 Enduring: Or, How Rowan Greer Taught Me How to Read
12 Captured in Time: Friendship and Aging (with Laura Yordy)
13 Sinsick
14 McInerny Did It: Or, Should a Pacifist Read Murder Mysteries?

Appendix: The Ekklesia Project: A Declaration and an Invitation to All Christians
Notes
Index
P REFACE
I WOULD LIKE TO BLAME THIS BOOK on Rodney Clapp. He certainly deserves part of the blame, but unfortunately I had begun to imagine the book before Rodney imagined Brazos Press. I had told myself that Sanctify Them in the Truth would be the last book I would publish until I had finished the Gifford Lectures. But then I began to think that some of the essays I had written over the past few years were interconnected. Alex Sider and Richard Church helped me think through those connections. This book is the result of our combined efforts.
I have dedicated this book to those who have thrown in their lot with The Ekklesia Project. Most of you reading this have never heard of The Ekklesia Project, which is one of the reasons I have dedicated this book to them. I want what we are about to be better known, so I have appended the Declaration of The Ekklesia Project to this book. Yet I would not want anyone to assume that The Ekklesia Project and what I am about are one and the same. Those who constitute the Project come from quite different ecclesial backgrounds, some are academics and some are not, and we bring quite different agendas to the work of the group. Yet as the Declaration makes clear, we are united in our commitment to reclaiming the church as an alternative people for the good of the world. At least for me The Ekklesia Project is a reminder that theology is not just another set of ideas to be considered by bored intellectuals.
I am honored that this book is one of the initial publications of Brazos Press. Over the years I have learned the importance of editors. Rodney Clapp is not only a wonderful editor but a friend. The venture he and his friends have begun with Brazos Press is a sign of hope. Another sign of hope for me are the extraordinary graduate students who continue to come to Duke to become theologians. Alex Sider and Richard Church, who helped me with this book, are but representatives of these wonderful people.
Sarah Freedman, the most interesting “secretary” in the world, did the hard work to get this book ready for publication. She never fails to surprise me. Her observations often make my work harder, but the results are worth the extra effort. The divinity school at Duke is a better place because of Sarah Freedman.
I know I am a better theologian because of Paula Gilbert. God has never been just “there” for me. God is “there” for Paula. Her willingness to share that “thereness” with me makes all the difference. God is great.
I NTRODUCTION
O N B EING H OPEFUL
I HOPE A B ETTER H OPE will be read as a hopeful book. John Howard Yoder observed that I have maximized the “provocative edge of the dissenting posture with titles like Against the Nations or Resident Aliens .” [1] I do not deny that I love a good fight, but I also know that it is a mistake, at least if you are a Christian, to have your life or theology determined by who you think are your enemies. Christians know we will have enemies because we are told we must love our enemies. That we are commanded to love our enemies is not a strategy to guarantee that all enmity can be overcome, but a reminder that for Christians our lives must be determined by our loves, not our hates. That is why Christians cannot afford to let ourselves be defined by what we are against. Whatever or whomever we are against, we are so only because God has given us so much to be for.
A Better Hope is my attempt to make the “for” more determinative than the “against.” Of course I should like to think that books like After Christendom? and Against the Nations , polemical though they may be, are so only because of what I have been for. I have, of course, mounted what I hope are crushing criticisms of political and theological liberalism. I have done so, however, not because I think political liberalism is peculiarly perverse in comparison to other political options. My problem has never been with secular political liberals but rather with the widespread assumption shared by many Christians that political liberalism ought to shape the agenda, if not the very life, of the church. My attacks on liberalism, and in particular the results of liberal practices for the church, but reflect—or at least I hope they reflect—the love that God has made possible in and through the church.
I am not suggesting that the reader will find in A Better Hope a kinder, gentler Hauerwas. I am getting older, but I do not think my increasing age is making me more “mellow.” A Better Hope is not without polemics. Nor do I think the anger that shapes not only what I write about but how I write is missing from this book. I am still mad as hell at Christians, which certainly includes myself, for making the practice of the Christian faith so uninteresting. Yet I do hope the reader will find in this book, as the title indicates, resources for resisting the powers that threaten our lives as Christians—resources as simple as knowing how, as we grow older, to be friends with ourselves and with one another. To the extent I am able to show that such resources are still available, A Better Hope may appear less polemical and more “positive” than some of my past work.
In truth, as I indicate in the first chapter of this book, I have simply grown tired of arguments about the alleged virtues or vices of liberalism. In the first chapter I again criticize John Rawls’s account of liberalism, even though I know my criticisms will only invite the normal response from defenders of liberalism: that is, I have not got Rawls right, or even if I have, he does not represent the most defensible liberal position. That the argument for or against liberalism is interminable does not mean that we cannot learn much from its various mutations. Arguments about liberalism, however, can become a distraction for Christians just to the extent that our agenda is first and foremost set by the church.
We learn from the Book of Hebrews that the church is “a better hope.” [2] Our hope as Christians is in an altera civitas of which we believe we already have substantive intimations in the church. Unfortunately, many Christians in America have confused the light that comes from the church with America. They have done so because many of the main cultural and political symbols that have shaped American life were “borrowed” from the church. America becomes the intercessor that determines our relationship to God and accordingly shapes our understanding of God. Yet the better hope “by which we draw near to God” is Jesus, who has become the “guarantee of a better covenant” (Heb. 7:18–22). That is why the most determinative criticism of America must be theological. Accordingly I hope the criticism that I mount in this book reflects the great hope that is the church.
T HE A RCHBISHOP S PEAKS
I hope the positive character of this book will at least make those who are convinced I am a “sectarian, fideistic tribalist” think twice. I confess I do not expect that hope to be fulfilled. However, it does give me hope that the kind of critique I have tried to mount over the years is now showing up in some quite surprising places. For example, Francis Cardinal George, archbishop of Chicago, gave a speech entitled “Catholic Christianity and the Millennium” in the series “Frontiers of the Mind in the 21st Century” sponsored by the Library of Congress; it exemplifies what I think a theological critique of America should entail. George, and the office he holds, is not usually identified as a representative of “sectarian Christianity.” Yet what he says about America and the church’s relation to America is quite similar (or at least it seems so to me) to arguments I have made in the past and continue in this book. So I cannot resist rehearsing the main outlines of George’s argument: his speech provides a wonderful introduction to what this book is about.
George begins by noting it is fitting that a representative of the church—which traces i