{"id":3624,"date":"2014-10-03T10:13:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T16:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=3624"},"modified":"2014-10-03T15:01:32","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T21:01:32","slug":"favorite-stanley-hauerwas-quotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2014\/10\/favorite-stanley-hauerwas-quotes.html","title":{"rendered":"Favorite Stanley Hauerwas Quotes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"hauerwas\"<\/a>If I had to pick one theologian who has had the most influence on my thinking\u2013probably my being and doing as well\u2013it would be Stanley Hauerwas. He has the ability to see the world the way I want to see it. He\u2019s unafraid to tell the truth about his own life, which seems to give him the freedom to tell the truth about almost anything.<\/p>\n

When I am in a rut or a quandary, when I\u2019m having trouble seeing the truth about the world or myself, when I\u2019m disillusioned or am just in a bad mood, I reach for Stanley Hauerwas. Most often I reach for Resident Aliens<\/em>, or A Peaceable Kingdom<\/em>, or I listen to a talk or lecture he\u2019s given. It nearly always makes me feel better\u2013not because he offers words of comfort, which is not his strong suit\u2013but because he tells me the truth.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t need everything to be okay in the world because I am not in charge of the world. I don\u2019t need everything to be fine, because when is that ever going to happen? And if it did happen, do you think I would feel better? I doubt it. Hauerwas taught me to say those things. I find that after reading or listening to Hauerwas, I can be patient. I can trust that God has me and has the church. My life makes more sense to me, and the parts that don\u2019t make sense seem to bother me less because his writing makes me want to worship. Worship is a deeply humanizing act. When I worship, I feel human again.<\/p>\n

Here are a few of the Hauerwas quotes I\u2019ve collected over the years.\u00a0My advice is nearly always: you need a little more Hauerwas in your life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeware when you hear a Methodist minister quote his twelve year old. When that happens you \u00a0know you\u2019re fixin\u2019 to hear some bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you ever think you\u2019ve got it right, you probably don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe courageous have fears that cowards never know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeace is a deeper reality than violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe church doesn\u2019t have<\/em> a social strategy, the church is<\/em> a social strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first task of the church is to be the church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heart of the gospel is that you don\u2019t know Jesus without the witness of the church. It\u2019s always mediated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe church therefore is a polity like any other, but it is also unlike<\/em> any other insofar as it is formed by a people who have no reason to fear the truth.\u201d APK 102<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus is Lord, and everything else is bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201c\u2026 over the years I have come to the judgment that Southern civility is one of the most calculated forms of cruelty.\u201d HC<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Christianity is assumed to be an \u2018answer\u2019 that makes the world intelligible, it reflects an accommodated church committed to assuring Christians that the way things are is the way things have to be.\u201d HC<\/p>\n

\u201cNowhere in scripture do we get a distinction between religious belief and behavior.\u201d APK 53<\/p>\n

\u201cI say I\u2019m a pacifist because I am a violent son of a bitch. I\u2019m a Texan. I can feel it in every bone I\u2019ve got. And I hate the language of pacifism because it\u2019s too passive. But by avowing it, I create expectations in others that hopefully will help me live faithfully to what is true. But that I have no confidence in my own ability to live it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur need to be in control is the basis for the violence of our lives.\u201d APK47<\/p>\n

\u201cChristians are called to live nonviolently not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but in a world of war as faithful followers of Christ, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cChurch growth strategies are the death gurgle of a church that has lost its way.\u201d (Shrink<\/em> blurb)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cChristians are not naturally born\u2026 Christians are intentionally made by an adventuresome Church.\u201d RA19<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce an interesting atheist in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe movement that Jesus begins is constituted by people who believe that they have all the time in the world, made possible by God\u2019s patience, to challenge the world\u2019s impatient violence by cross and resurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with the U.S. foreign policy is that we\u2019re just so unbelievably powerful. And when you\u2019ve got that kind of power, it\u2019s very hard not to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a Congregationalist with Catholic sensibilities. Which probably explains how I ended up in a Episcopal church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my perspective, \u2018postmodernism\u2019 merely names an interesting set of developments in the social order that is based on the presumption that God does not matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing wrong with making money, but it was just not in my family\u2019s habits to know how to do that. All we knew how to do was work, and we usually liked the work we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEthics\u2026 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.\u201d APK,33<\/p>\n

\u201cOur \u2018freedom,\u2019 therefore, is dependent on our being initiated into a truthful narrative, as in fact it is the resource from which we derive the power to \u2018have character\u2019 at all\u2026 The fundamental category for ensuring agency, therefore, is not freedom but narrative.\u201d APK43<\/p>\n

\u201cThe self is fundamentally a social self. We are not individuals who come into contact with others and then decide our various levels of social involvement. We are not \u201cI\u2019s\u201d who decide to identify with certain \u201cwe\u2019s\u201d; we are first of all \u201cwe\u2019s\u201d who discover our \u201cI\u2019s\u201d through learning to recognize the others as similar and different from ourselves. Our individuality is possible only because we are first of all social beings. After all, the \u201cself\u201d names not a thing, but a relation. I know who I am only in relation to others, and, indeed, who I am is a relation with others.\u201d APK 96-97<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I had to pick one theologian who has had the most influence on my thinking\u2013probably my being and doing as well\u2013it would be Stanley Hauerwas. He has the ability to see the world the way I want to see it. He\u2019s unafraid to tell the truth about his own life, which seems to give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[303,908,12],"class_list":["post-3624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-non-violence","tag-pacifism","tag-stanley-hauerwas"],"yoast_head":"\nFavorite Stanley Hauerwas Quotes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If I had to pick one theologian who has had the most influence on my thinking--probably my being and doing as well--it would be Stanley Hauerwas. 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