A Peaceable Kingdom

A few quotes from A Peaceable Kingdom by Stanley Hauerwas

“Ethics… is not primarily about rules and principles, rather it is about how the self must be transformed to see the world truthfully. For Christians, such seeing develops through schooling in a narrative which teaches us how to use the language of sin not only about others, but about ourselves.” 33 (this is part of why SH is so optimistic about virtues. They are not rules, but they give us a way to talk about the kind of people we ought to be to live among the people of God).

“Of course, Christians are not just asked to see themselves as sinners. We are to do something about our sin. We are called to be disciples and even to count ourselves as among the righteous. Our call is not a general admonition to be good, but a concrete and definite call to take up the way of life made possible by God’s redemptive action for us in the cross. To be redeemed, as I suggested above, is nothing less than to learn to place ourselves in God’s history, to be part of God’s people. To locate ourselves within that history and people does not mean we must have some special experience of personal salvation. Redemption, rather, is a change in which we accept the invitation to become part of God’s kingdom, a kingdom through which we acquire a character befitting one who has heard God’s call. Now an intense personal experience may be important for many, but such experiences cannot in themselves be substitutes for learning to find the significance of our lives only in God’s ongoing journey with creation.” p.33

“We cannot see the world rightly unless we are changed, for as sinners we do not desire to see truthfully. Therefore Christian ethics must assert that by learning to be faithful disciples, we are more able to see the world as it is, namely God’s creation.” (This is a key point. When we say that Christianity is always about seeing, we need to explore the negative side of that statement. Sinfulness, our brokenness extends to our vision of the world. Broken people do not wish to see truthfully because we have exchanged the truth for a lie. I think of watching old episodes of “the real world” on MTV. Watching people who have such a messed up way of seeing the world try to live together & have this super-shallow ethical discourse. It becomes so obvious to the viewer these poor people do not want to see the truth about themselves or the world. They want the lie, they’re holding onto it with both hands and won’t let go.)

“Christian convictions constitute a narrative, a language that requires a transformation of the self if we are to see, as well as be, truthful.” 30

One of the key movements Hauerwas is describing is a commitment to an ongoing discipleship. Part of discipleship is to understand ourselves as sinners. Not in not-pious personal offense terms, but to recognize “We are not sinful because we participate in some general human condition, but because we deceive ourselves about the nature of reality and so would crucify the very one who calls us to the KOG.” 31