Hauerwas Quotes & Refs

A collection of resources re Stanley Hauerwas which grew out of my studying theology.

[hauerwas]

[ernmarie]

Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person. We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary challenge of marriage is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.

Stanley Hauerwas (via ernmarie)

[hauerwas]

[scottxstephens-deactivated20150]

Post-GRE celebration with chips, hot sauce, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jean Vanier. This is infinitely more enjoyable than quadratics, absolute values, and ranges will ever be. (at Armando’s Mexican FOOD)

[hauerwas]

Marriage

We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary problem is ... learning to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married. Hauerwas quoted by Tim Keller in: The meaning of marriage, 2012.

[hauerwas]

Disrupting Time: Sermons, Prayers and Sundries (Online Book)

[hauerwas]

Devious

Devious, dear God, are we devious. We believe we can hide from you. We even believe we can hide from ourselves. “I’m not really who you think I am” is a play we play on a daily basis. For better or for worse, and usually it is for the worse, we even end up becoming what we pretend to be. As a result, we begin to hate ourselves, our neighbors, and You. In particular, we hate because you refuse to believe we are who we pretend to be. Help us learn to trust your perfect love. Help us accept the joy that comes from the honesty your love makes possible. Forgiven, by God, you have forgiven the pretense that nailed your Son to the cross. Forgiven, you have given us a way to go on in a lie-shaped world. As your forgiven people, make us your salvation, that the world may see how wonderful it is to be no more or less than we are, that is, your creatures. (from: Disrupting Time: Sermons, Prayers and Sundries)

[hauerwas]

Performing the Faith – Hauerwas on Pacifism

by Janneke de Groot, Theological University Apeldoorn (in Dutch)

“Waarlijk, op de studeerkamer kan men gemakkelijk filosoferen over de oorlog, maar wie hem meemaakte, spreekt er met afschuw over.”

Herman Bavinck

Bibliografie

Herman Bavinck, “Het probleem van de oorlog”, in J. van den Berg e.a. (red.), Christendom en oorlog. Gereformeerde stemmen over het oorlogsvraagstuk, (Kok: Kampen, 1966), 26.

Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith. Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence, (Brazos Press: Grand Rapids 2004)

Rowan Williams, Writings in the Dust, 2002. http://quest.quaker.org/issue7-1-hauerwas.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/09/04/on-war-pope-francis-says-never-again/

[hauerwas]

[hauerwas]

http://quest.quaker.org/issue7-1-hauerwas.htm

[jamesataylor]

Our stories

[hauerwas]

“For the truth is that since we are God’s good creation we are not free to choose our own stories. Freedom lies not in creating our lives, but in learning to recognize our lives as a gift. We do not receive our lives as though they were a gift, but rather our lives simply are a gift: we do not exist first and then receive from God a gift. The great magic of the Gospel is providing us with the skills to acknowledge our life, as created, without resentment and regret. Such skills must be embodied in a community of people across time, constituted by practices such as baptism, preaching, and the Eucharist, which become the means for us to discover God’s story for our lives.”

— Stanley Hauerwas, “Preaching As Though We Had Enemies” http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/09/003-preaching-as-though-we-had-enemies (via jamesataylor)

[milkboydotnet]

The most creative social strategy we have to offer is the church. Here we show the world a manner of life the world can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.

Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens (via thatofgodineveryone)

[hauerwas]

[azspot]

To learn to follow Jesus is the training necessary to become a human being. To be a human being is not a natural condition, but requires training. The kind of training required, moreover, has everything to do with death. To follow Jesus is to go with him to Jerusalem where he will be crucified. To follow Jesus, therefore, is to undergo a training that refuses to let death, even death at the hands of enemies, determine the shape of our living.

Stanley Hauerwas (via churchfu)

[lucid222reveries]

Social Strategy

“Theologian Stanley Hauerwas has correctly observed: “The church doesn’t have a social strategy; the church is a social strategy.” Instead of trying to force change upon the wider society through means of legislation, we are to exemplify the beautiful alternative of the kingdom of God by actually living it! We make a terrible mistake when we tell the wider society something like this: “We have the truth, so let us run society by setting the rules.” That is a kind of tyranny, no matter how well intended. Instead we should simply be the alternative we seek to produce. We should be a righteous and just society. We should be the beautiful expression of the kingdom of God attracting people by the unique aesthetic of our gospel. Our form is the cruciform, and our beauty is the mysterious aesthetic of the crucified Savior.”

— Brian Zahnd, Beauty Will Save the World

[hauerwas]

Change of Scope

This has been a blog collecting quotes and links related to Stanley Hauerwas. I now wish to widen my scope to include other authors. I therefore started a new blog called Theo-Logic. So take a quick look to see the quotes and refs I am collecting there! http://Theo-Logic.tumblr.com To start with, an important subject is cross-culturality in the christian faith.

[hauerwas]

The art of communication through preaching and worship.