“The House Studio” is putting out some great material these days. In particular, they are re-packaging some profound video footage from great American theologians and practitioners along with well written study guides for small group study. They are great – affordable, too. My friend Isaac Anderson wrote the study guide for the “Economy of Love,” which features Shane Claiborne. If you are looking for great small group material with a short video lesson and plenty of thoughtful discussion material – you should get these – I highly recommend the ones with Claiborne, Hauerwas, & Brueggemann.
The video below is from Sunday Asylum – which is the Hauerwas study.
Hauerwas pulls no punches in this clip – but, when has he ever? It’s one of the things I love the most about him. He puts his finger on one of the key issues for the evangelical Church in America: we have been shaped by our church, as well as our culture, to believe that religion is private; that our beliefs are a private thing, so they are only “true for me.” They are “just my opinion.” The only way a person can make this particular speech act, Hauerwas claims, is if they have built their entire faith upon the prior assumption that “religion” is only personal and private, and not upon the scriptures and the life of the church. Christians must never make this assumption – not if we wish to be true to the faith we have been given.
And we have been “given” this faith. That Christianity is not “merely private” is part of what the saints who have gone before us have taught us to believe. He says, “This is not work that can be done by yourself. It can only be done in a community through which you are made part of an ongoing history that you don’t get to make up… Too often American Christians – I think – think that they get to make Christianity up, but it’s received.” And what we have received is this claim about the Lordship of Jesus, which has a profound impact on every single part of life.
He goes on to say, “I don’t have any private life as a Christian, it’s all public… That “Jesus is Lord,” is going to make my life dysfunctional in relation to a good deal of American practice… I mean, being a Christian should just scare the hell out of us… like on Sunday we’ve got to rush together for protection and say, “Oh I’m not crazy!… That we believe God was in Christ reconciling the world is craziness… it’s going to make your life really weird.”
Being a Christian should scare the hell out of us. I feel this every single moment of every single day. I feel it so much less on Sunday when I gather with the people of God to imagine the future together. It’s why I serve the church & why I’m always so glad to be with the people of Redemption Church and my friends around the city/country who share this faith. The Christian faith makes such weird demands upon my life that I find it completely exhausting! I am convinced I could never do it without my church.
I feel like every single Hauerwas book, article, video or audio clip should come with some sort of consumer protection label. WARNING: what you are about to hear will ruin you for an ordinary normal American life.
So you have been warned! Here’s the clip:
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