RE: Hauerwas on rights-language
â[...] There is the question of whether âright-to-lifeâ language makes conceptual sense. We probably do have a ârightâ not to be put to death, but it is unclear that we have a right to life. âRightsâ language implies corresponding duties. It is extremely problematic whether anyone has a duty to keep me alive---to provide  life-enhancing acts over and above refraining from life-making acts.â- Quote 1 from Stanley Hauerwas âReflections: Suicide and Euthanasiaâ page 587 in The Hauerwas Reader
âFrom the beginning we Christians have made singleness as valid a way of life as marriage. What it means to be the church is to be a group of people called out of the world, and back into the world, to embody the hope of the Kingdom of God. Children are not necessary for the growth of the Kingdom, because the church can call the stranger in her midst. That makes both singleness and marriage possible vocations. If everybody has to marry, then marriage is a terrible burden.â- Quote 2 from, Hauerwas, Hauerwas Reader, âAbortion, Theologically Understood,â page 613
âWell, I want to know where Christians get the notion that life is sacred. That notion seems to have no reference at all to God. Any good secularist can think life is sacred. Of course, what the secularist means by the word sacred is interesting, but the idea that Christians are about the maintenance of some principle separate from our understanding of God is just crazy. As a matter of fact, Christians do not believe that life is sacred. I often remind my right-to-life friends that Christians took their children with them to martyrdom rather than have them raised pagan. Christians believe there is much worth dying for. We do not believe that human life is an absolute good in and of itself. Of course, our desire to protect human life is part of our seeing each human being as Godâs creature. But that does not mean that we believe that life is an overriding good.â- Quote 3 from Hauerwas, Hauerwas Reader, page 614Â
âThe church must address the abortion problem as church. Abortion is not fundamentally a question about the law, but about what kind of people we are to be as the church as a Christians.â- Quote 4 from Hauerwas, Hauerwas reader, 608.
âThe last thing the church wants is a bunch of autonomous, free individuals. We want people who know how to express authentic need, because that creates communityâ- Quote 5 from Hauerwas, Hauerwas Reader, 612.
âToo often we assume compassion means preventing suffering and think that we ought to prevent suffering even if it means eliminating the sufferer. In the abortion debate, the churchâs fundamental challenge is to challenge this ethics of compassion. There is no more fundamental issue than that. People who defend abortion defend it in the name of compassion. âWe do not want any unwanted children born into the world,â they say. But Christians are people who believe that any compassion that is not formed by the truthful worship of the true God cannot help but be accursed. That is the fundamental challenge that Christians must make to this world. It is not going to be easy.â- Quote 6 from Hauerwas, Hauerwas Reader, page 619.
âWe Christians do not believe that we have inalienable rights. That is the false presumption of Enlightenment individualism, and it opposes everything that Christians believe about what if means to be a creature. Notice that the issue is inalienable rights. Rights make a certain sense when they are correlative to duties and goods, but they are not inalienable. For example, when the lords protested against the king in the Magna Carta, they did so in the name of their duties to their serfs. Duties, not rights, were primary.â- Quote 7 from Hauerwas, Hauerwas Reader, page 608.Â
RE: Quote 1, Quote 3, Quote 7:
Hauerwas is curious to know where Christians get the idea that life is sacred. First having been a student of John Howard Yoder, Hauerwas would know  that the answer is found in the book of Genesis. Genesis 1:26-27 says that women and men are made in the image of God, and Genesis 9:5-6 (this is after the flooding of the world because of humanityâs wickedness), God tells Noah that murder is wrong because humanity is made in Godâs image. Human beings have inherent infinite worth in the sight of the Creator. Our value lies not in what ever possessions we may own (Hauerwas is correct in that part of his criticism of the Enlightenment view of rights), but human beings, and therefore human life is immeasureably precious. This is not of our own doing but because of Godâs grace as Triune and dynamically Sovereign Creator. God has gifted us with free will and bodies as an act of love. The reason why Christians affirm the Bodily Resurrection of Christ on Easter, as well as the Resurrection of the dead is because Godâs gift of our bodies is an eternal gift. What we choose to do with that gift is our responsibility, and has consequences that echo throughout eternity.Â
RE: Quote 6, Quote 3, Quote 4:Â
âTeacher,â said John, âwe saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us. âDo not stop him,â Jesus said. âFor no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me,  for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.â - Mark 9: 38-41
If Jesus is indeed King of Kings and LORD of Lords, let him then show us his servants how to deal with outsiders. Hauerwas takes issue with the abortion debate in part because many of its terms are secular. Secularism, as Hauerwas and others often fail to admit, Â was given birth to by Christianity. The Secular is a space within the confines of Christendoms. Secularism was not a develop separate from Christianity; it was molded by the Church. Â Jesus rejects THE Third Way[tm] and its feigning of nuance, and instead embraces fellow people as neighbors rather than labels. What makes Hauerwasâ commitment to his idea of primary Christian language is that there is a failure of recognition that Christian language has been influenced by Judaism, Greek philosophies, German idealism; and not only that, but also that Christianity has influenced mutually surrounding cultures. Christian doctrine is not some abstract, impermeable force. It develops over time, and what is deemed orthodox and heretical changes over time. The only person who doesnât change is Jesus, and we as Christians are striving to obey and follow him.Â
In addition to the theological argument above, let me point out that Jesus does take his teachings from Judaism, and that God does expect rulers even who even choose to remain outside the church to do justice. Look at the story of Nebuchadnezzar for example. Daniel the prophet interprets the emperorâs dream and pleads with Nebuchadnezzar at the end, â Therefore, Your Majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.â  (Daniel 4:27) The Law, the light of Godâs people, was not just for the lanterns of the Hebrew people; the light shined so that the Gentiles could see their good works, and glorify YHWH in heaven. James Cone in Black Theology, Black Power years ago used another example from the prophet Isaiah, Cyrus as someone who was âof the worldâ but still did Godâs will. There are more nuanced, intelligent ways of appropriating so-called âsecularâ ideas such as rights; we saw that the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached of such an experiment. The question for us today isnât how we should go back to pre-Christendom Christianity or even go back to the Civil Rightsâ Era marches. We should be asking today is, âhow do we move forward?, what kind of politics is Jesus pushing us toward in the here and now?â
Another problem with postliberal and NeoAnabaptist theology is that it is far from Trinitarian. Jesus, Augustine, and THE Church do not the Holy Trinity make. One can see that oftentimes The Church replaces Jesus and the Holy Spirit in their biblically appointed vocations. The church does not call anyone to itself; that job is Christ and the Holy Spirit for example.Â
This particular quote gives hints at an over-controlling  clerical body we see many theologians call âTHE Church.â In this instance, the Church replaces God, as believers find their dependence on THE  Church. Human autonomy is seen as a threat to the Churchâs power to control the life of the congregation. However, human freedom is a gift from God. Bodily autonomy is a part of this gift because human beings owe loyalty not to THE Church, but to the Blessed Trinity first and foremost. Yes, I agree with Hauerwas that God cares about the sin of adultery, the problem of rape culture, and the vocations of Christian singles just as much as God cares about âthe pots and pans,â the economy. Free will is given to us so that we may give praise to our Creator by freely living lives of holiness, self-control and justice. God took a risk and freely gave us these temples, and in what God desires in return is people who have consented to living lives of sanctification, co-operating with the Holy Spirit daily.Â
RE: Quote 7 and the Magna Carta:
The Magna Carta affirms inalienable rights. Thatâs why it was one of the inspirations for the U.S. Constitution. Itâs not perfect and left the hierarchy in tact, but it still undermined the Kingâs and therefore THE Church of Englandâs claim to absolute authority. Â
Lastly, the overriding concern for Hauerwas and his disciples, âabout what kind of people we want to be as the Church as Christiansâ makes Churches inward thinking and inwardly concerned and self-centered. The Churchâs place in the world is to die, to journey as Christâs body did. This death requires lives of service, a self-giving that rejects the self-serving egoism of diehard ecclesiocrats. Such moves such as Hauerwas et. al. make are continuations of the ill-compassion of the âlook no handsâ third way approach of Pontius Pilate
P.S., this idea really dependent on Hauerwasâ theology of baptism, which includes infant baptist which makes sense since at that time, he was a Methodist. The life of discipleship starts with persons freely choosing to repent. Baptism is an ordinance to be followed for women and men who choose to be baptized. This is my belief as me being part of the Radical Reformation tradition, while affirming other modes of baptism, I believe Soul Freedom to be a non-negotiable, as it is a gift from God.Â
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