Saturday Afternoon Book Review: Hauerwas, Wells and friends

Positions vs. Practices: The Necessity of Being a Christian

Wesley Vander Lugt

PhD Candidate, University of St Andrews

A review of Stanley Hauerwas, Sam Wells, and friends, Living Out Loud: Conversations About Virtue, Ethics and Evangelicalism, edited by Luke Bretherton and Russell Rook (Milton Keyes: Paternoster, 2010).

What would a conversation be like between Stanley Hauerwas, Sam Wells, Luke Bretherton, Steve Chalke, Jo Bailey Wells, and Shane Claiborne? Rather than imagine such a conversation, Living Out Loud allows us to listen in as these Christian leaders and scholars discuss a range of topics, including virtues ethics, evangelicalism, money, marriage, social justice, dying, capital punishment, and war. Sandwiched between two chapters transcribing this varied conversation are previously published essays by Hauerwas and Wells, ending with a newly published sermon by Wells on “How to Die.”

In the first “Roundtable on Evangelicalism and Virtue Ethics,” Luke Bretherton suggests that a common evangelical approach to theology and ethics is positional: individuals, churches, and denominations define themselves by what they believe and what positions they take on various issues. For example, the Evangelical Theological Society defines their boundaries by belief in the Trinity and biblical inerrancy. Denominations often define themselves by subscription to a particular Reformation confession or a statement of beliefs. And although many younger evangelicals may question confessional identity, they increasingly identify themselves according to various ethical positions related to issues of social justice.

But in all of these examples, identity is about beliefs and positions rather than behaviors and practices. The unfortunate result of the priority of positions is that Christianity becomes a matter of beliefs plus behaviors, or positions that may or may not actually be practiced. Hauerwas laments this feature of contemporary Christianity in several of his essays, insisting that communities that practice rather than just proclaim the truth are demonstrating true Christianity. Christians are those who embody a particular vision of reality through particular virtues. The point is not just believing the gospel, but “living the gospel out loud.”

The destructive separation of belief and behavior is exactly why Hauerwas claims the church does not simply have a social ethic, for this represents a merely positional approach to Christian identity. Rather, the church is a social ethic, a community embodying a different way of living together in the world. In fact, in the second roundtable, Hauerwas mentions that he doesn’t even like the language of social justice or restorative justice. In his opinion, “if it’s justice, it’s justice.” We like to add fancy adjectives to qualify the positions we take, but in reality, the vision-informed practices that define us are either aligned with the Jesus way or taking us in another, self-centered direction.

For example, Christians might believe (or take the position) that giving money generously is a good and right thing to do, but does the practice of giving generously actually define our communities? In other words, it is far more important to have the communal practice, as Sam Wells says, of receiving money “as a gift for making us dependent on one another and dependent on God” than having particular positions or rules about a 10% tithe. It’s not that Christians should jettison all rules, but these rules should be situated within the overall story of God’s salvation and the practices of vulnerable, others-centered communities.

The same is true with positions and practices related to war, non-violence, and sexuality. Are Christian more content to have a just war or pacifist position than to become apprentices in the radical lifestyles of discernment and non-violence? Are Christians more concerned about possessing a well-formulated position on LGBT sexuality than practicing countercultural marriages, commitments to abstinent singleness, and grace-filled relationships? Of course, there are times when Christians should put a stake down on particular positions and hold firmly to beliefs. But as Bretherton observes, serious problems arise when “the stakes becomes a kind of procedural replacement for practices and habits that form you in ways that genuinely allow you to live a faithful life.”

This is wisdom that all Christians—evangelicals or non-evangelicals—desperately need to hear. Those who are not familiar with the writings of Wells and Hauerwas will be pleased to possess this collection of reprinted essays along with two valuable roundtable discussions. Those who are familiar with this work, however, may be flummoxed and feel like the essays are fillers between discussions they wish could have been longer. I admit that I expected the conversations to be more extensive, and found them a bit disjointed and unresolved, despite the nuggets of wisdom throughout. In addition, despite Hauerwas’s expressed concern for misleading or imprecise language, I was surprised that he refers to “homosexuality” rather than “LGBT sexuality” or LGBT lifestyle.” If we want to practice what we preach, we need to put a moratorium on words the LGBT community detests, and “homosexual” is on the top of that list.

Overall, however, there are some stunning insights in this short book, and the roundtable discussions demonstrate the kind of conversations Christian communities should be having about how to live the gospel out loud. The question is, are we just having the conversations, or are we actually being Christians?