Stanley Hauerwas | |
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Born | Stanley Martin Hauerwas July 24, 1940 |
Spouse | Paula Gilbert (m. 1989) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | Moral Character as a Problem for Theological Ethics [2] [3] (1968) |
Doctoral advisor | James Gustafson |
Influences | |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Theology |
Sub-discipline |
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School or tradition | |
Institutions | |
Doctoral students | William T. Cavanaugh [5] |
Notable works |
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Influenced |
Stanley Martin Hauerwas (born July 24,1940) is an American theologian,ethicist,and public intellectual. Hauerwas originally taught at the University of Notre Dame before moving to Duke University. Hauerwas was a longtime professor at Duke,serving as the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Law. In the fall of 2014,he also assumed a chair in theological ethics at the University of Aberdeen. Hauerwas is considered by many to be one of the world's most influential living theologians and was named "America's Best Theologian" by Time magazine in 2001. He was also the first American theologian to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in over forty years. His work is frequently read and debated by scholars in fields outside of religion or ethics,such as political philosophy,sociology,history,and literary theory. Hauerwas has achieved notability outside of academia as a public intellectual,even appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show .
Though Hauerwas is most well known for his work related to ethics and political theology,he has written widely on a range of subjects,including philosophical theology,political philosophy,the philosophy of social science,law,education,bioethics,and medical ethics. Hauerwas is known for his fierce criticism of liberal democracy,capitalism,and militarism. He is also a critic of both Christian fundamentalism and liberal Christianity. He is commonly cited as a member of the evangelical left. Hauerwas's work draws from a number of theological perspectives,including Methodism,Anabaptism,Anglicanism,and Catholicism. Among his most important contributions to modern theology are his advocacy of and work related to virtue ethics and postliberal theology. Hauerwas's book,A Community of Character:Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic,was named as one of the one hundred most important books on religion in the 20th century by Christianity Today . His most widely known book,however,is likely Resident Aliens:Life in the Christian Colony ,which was co-written with William Willimon.
Stanley Hauerwas was born in Dallas,Texas,on July 24,1940,and was raised in nearby Pleasant Grove,in a working-class family. He attended both Pleasant Grove High School (1954–56) and W. W. Samuell High School (1956–58). [9] As the son of a bricklayer,Hauerwas was early on apprenticed to the craft of bricklaying under his father. [10] The experience was extremely formative for his later life,as he himself has often compared the skill and hard work that bricklaying requires with both his own approach to theological work and the challenges of living a fully Christian life. [11]
Hauerwas's family attended Pleasant Mound Methodist Church,where he experienced baptism,confirmation,and communion. At the age of 15,he presented himself for ministry at a Sunday night worship service,presuming then that he would be saved. [12]
After leaving Pleasant Grove,Hauerwas matriculated at Southwestern University,a liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. [13] He received a Bachelor of Arts degree there in 1962. He was also a member of Phi Delta Theta while at Southwestern University. He went on to earn Bachelor of Divinity,Master of Arts,Master of Philosophy,and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Yale University. Upon delivering the Gifford Lectures in 2001,Hauerwas was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Edinburgh.
Following his graduation from Yale University,Hauerwas taught first at Augustana College in Rock Island,Illinois,before joining the faculty at the University of Notre Dame in 1970. [14] He was later invited to assume a faculty position at the Divinity School of Duke University in 1983, [15] where he taught in the area of theological ethics until his retirement in 2013,though he continues to write and speak at Duke as a senior research fellow. [16] In 2014 he was appointed to a chair in theological ethics at the University of Aberdeen. [17]
Hauerwas was influenced by a wide range of thinkers,including Aristotle,Thomas Aquinas,Søren Kierkegaard,Karl Barth,Ludwig Wittgenstein,John Howard Yoder,Alasdair MacIntyre,Michel Foucault,and William James. [18]
Time magazine in 2001 named him "America's Best Theologian". [19] He responded by saying,"'Best' is not a theological category." [20]
In 2001 Hauerwas was also invited to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland,which were published as With the Grain of the Universe,a text in which Hauerwas argued that Karl Barth was the foremost "natural theologian" of the Gifford Lectures. Such an argument is controversial since Karl Barth is well known as an enemy of natural theology. For Hauerwas,however,Barth argued that Christian convictions about the world describe God's good creation as it is while emphasizing that such convictions cannot be understood apart from Christian witness. [21] This,according to Hauerwas,is what makes Barth a proper natural theologian in comparison to Reinhold Niebuhr and William James,who were also featured in the lectures.
Earlier in 1997 he gave the Scottish Journal of Theology lectures at Aberdeen,published as Sanctify Them in Truth (1998).
Hauerwas has long been associated with narrative theology and postliberal theology (which are closely related but not necessarily synonymous movements). [22] Both of these movements are attached to Yale biblical scholars Brevard Childs,Hans Frei,and George Lindbeck. His Reforming Christian Social Ethics:Ten Theses, [23] published in 1981,serves to summarize the key presuppositions of his alternative to what was the dominant account in Christian ethics at that time. The ten theses are listed as follows:
Hauerwas writes of narrative as "the necessary grammar of Christian convictions" in that Christian claims are inextricably linked to what God has done in history and to the ongoing story of God's people as they move through time. This sense of a "hypertemporal God" Hauerwas claims to have gotten from John Howard Yoder,who impressed upon him the need of always locating God's actions in the "timeliness" of the created order as witnessed by the Bible. [24] He has explained this understanding of a people (i.e.,church) constituted by their ongoing story with God in terms of a pointed and oft-repeated aphorism:
My claim,so offensive to some,that the first task of the church is to make the world the world,not to make the world more just, is a correlative of this theological metaphysics. The world simply cannot be narrated - the world cannot have a story - unless a people exist who make the world the world. That is an eschatological claim that presupposes we know there was a beginning only because we have seen the end ... [C]reation names God's continuing action,God's unrelenting desire for us to want to be loved by that love manifest in Christ's life,death,and resurrection. [24]
As indicated in the quotation above,Hauerwas believes that the strong distinction between the church and the world is a necessary mark of the Christian life. He collaborated with William H. Willimon (now a retired bishop in the United Methodist Church) in 1989 to offer an accessible version of his vision of the Christian life in the book Resident Aliens:Life in the Christian Colony . [25] This understanding of the church is based on both his narrative and postliberal approach to theology,as well as his reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein's understanding of language and language games. [26]
Hauerwas works from within the tradition of virtue ethics,having been deeply influenced by Alasdair MacIntyre and his work After Virtue . [27] [28]
Hauerwas is a critic of liberal democracy. [29] In recent years,however,Hauerwas has become conversant with the tradition of radical democracy. In 2007 he collaborated on a book on the subject with political theorist and ethicst Romand Coles entitled Christianity,Democracy,and the Radical Ordinary:Conversations Between a Radical Democrat and a Christian. [30]
Among Hauerwas's most well-known critics are Jeffrey Stout of Princeton and Nicholas Wolterstorff of Yale,though both have often praised his work as well. [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]
In January 2017,Hauerwas wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which he argues that US President Donald Trump is an exemplar of American civil religion and distorted theology. [36]
Hauerwas's theological views may be best illuminated by his engagement with the work of Reinhold Niebuhr and H. Richard Niebuhr,often considered two of the most influential American theologians of the 20th century. Hauerwas frequently discusses the work of both Niebuhr brothers,mentioning them in some form in most of his books. Reinhold was also one of the primary subjects of Hauerwas' 2000–2001 Gifford Lectures,which were later republished in book form under the title With the Grain of the Universe. [37] [38]
In the early years of his career Hauerwas was influenced by the work of both brothers. Later,primarily as a result of encountering the work of John Howard Yoder,he came to disagree with fundamental elements of their theology,while continuing to affirm other elements of their work that he found important. [39] [40]
While many believe that the Niebuhrs' advocacy of Christian realism represents a rejection of liberal Christianity,Hauerwas argues that the brothers actually belong to that theological tradition. For him,while they both placed a strong emphasis on the sinfulness of humanity (which stood in stark contrast to most liberal thinkers),he believes that the Niebuhrs based their theologies on the presuppositions of secular philosophy rather than those of Christianity,thus placing them in the liberal tradition of modern Christian thought. [41] In particular,Hauerwas argues that Reinhold Niebuhr was deeply influenced by William James,accepting a pragmatist epistemology. [42]
For Hauerwas,the Niebuhrs are important figures in part because the flaws in their thinking represent the same flaws which are endemic to much of modern Christianity,with the Church often being shaped more by the culture of liberal democracy than the message of Jesus. [43] [44] In Hauerwas' view,this has led the Church (and Christians in general) to compromise their values and place too much faith in secular political ideologies,often leading to a misplaced passion for political power. This represents the thesis of Hauerwas in his most popular book, Resident Aliens (which was co-written by William Willimon). In the book,Hauerwas and Willimon argue that the Church's accommodation to secular culture has led to tragedies like the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima [45] [46] Hauerwas,therefore,believes that the Niebuhrs' thinking is subject to the same flaws as Jerry Falwell,with Hauerwas and Willimon stating that "few books have been a greater hindrance to an accurate assessment of [the Church's] situation" than H. Richard Niebuhr's famous book Christ and Culture. [47] Thus according to Hauerwas,while they may have disagreed when it comes to policy,both the Niebuhrs and Falwell fell prey to the notion Christians have a duty to use the political process as a means to enact "Christian" legislation or pursue justice.
In his book The Peaceable Kingdom Hauerwas offers commentary on two classic essays written by the Niebuhrs for The Christian Century on the subject of the Conflict in Manchuria. In the first essay,entitled "The Grace of Doing Nothing",H. Richard Niebuhr argues that humans are self-interested and egoistic and that Christians,because they are subject to these same flaws,should remain non-violent even in a time of war. In his essay in response,entitled "Must We Do Nothing?",Reinhold Niebuhr argues that Christians must have a self-awareness about their own sinfulness and self-interestedness,but must sometimes use force to protect certain ideals and people. In his commentary Hauerwas acknowledges that both brothers make important points,but critiques Reinhold's view,ultimately agreeing with H. Richard Niebuhr. [48] [49]
One of Hauerwas views on modern theology is its relation to ethics. Most notably his belief that theology shouldn't be separated from ethics. [50] According to Hauerwas,there was a time when Christian ethics couldn't be distinguished from their beliefs and their behaviors. [50] Before Christianity became the imperial religion with the conversion of Constantine the Great there were very few Christians,thus how they differed from the main population made all the difference. [50] After the conversion of Constantine the Great,everyone was “born”Christian,thus the difference between Christians and everyone else became unclear. [50] Hauerwas continues his argument,stating that in this era,moral behavior became secondary to theological belief. [50] He believes that this was the original point in which theology and ethics diverged. However,he has been a rather vocal advocate of these two areas no longer being considered separate. [50]
One of the common messages that Hauerwas always seems to return to is the importance of the Church,some often calling his views ecclesiological. [50] Certain scholars,such as Nigel Biggar and Nicholas Healy,have even accused him of going too far and focusing more on the Church than God. [50] [51] Despite his critics,Hauerwas still believes the church is one of the most important aspects of Christianity. [51] Believing that it acts as “a community of character that forms Christians in the likeness of Christ.” [51] Hauerwas believes that in modern times the church has shifted away from this ideal form,believing that this has caused Christians to become less outspoken and avoid saying what they believe to be true. [52]
Hauerwas believes that there is a difference between the concept of death and the criteria for death. The concept of death "involves a philosophical judgment of a significant change that has happened in a person" [53] and therefore "is a correlative of what one takes to be the necessary condition of human life,e.g., ... the potential for consciousness". [53] The criteria of death,however,are "those empirical measurements that can be made to determine whether a person is dead,such as cessation of respiration or a flat EEG". [53] Thus,brain death is a criterion of death that may serve "as a symbol of when it is time to die". [54]
Hauerwas is a prolific writer. Many of his books are collections of essays;some are structured monographs.
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America's leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. A public theologian, he wrote and spoke frequently about the intersection of religion, politics, and public policy, with his most influential books including Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man.
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary The Epistle to the Romans, his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship of the Barmen Declaration, and especially his unfinished multi-volume theological summa the Church Dogmatics. Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of Time on 20 April 1962.
Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry was an American evangelical Christian theologian who provided intellectual and institutional leadership to the neo-evangelical movement in the mid-to-late 20th century. He was ordained in 1942 after graduating from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and went on to teach and lecture at various schools and publish and edit many works surrounding the neo-evangelical movement. His early book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947), was influential in calling evangelicals to differentiate themselves from separatist fundamentalism and claim a role in influencing the wider American culture. He was involved in the creation of numerous major evangelical organizations that contributed to his influence in Neo-evangelicalism and lasting legacy, including the National Association of Evangelicals, Fuller Theological Seminary, Evangelical Theological Society, Christianity Today magazine, and the Institute for Advanced Christian Studies. The Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity International University seek to carry on his legacy. His ideas about Neo-evangelism are still debated to this day and his legacy continues to inspire change in American social and political culture.
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a private ecumenical liberal Christian seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with Columbia University. Columbia University lists UTS among its affiliate schools, alongside Barnard College and Teachers College. Since 1928, the seminary has served as Columbia's constituent faculty of theology. In 1964, UTS also established an affiliation with the neighboring Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Despite its affiliation with Columbia University, UTS is an independent institution with its own administration and Board of Trustees. UTS confers the following degrees: Master of Divinity (MDiv), Master of Divinity & Social Work dual degree (MDSW), Master of Arts in religion (MAR), Master of Arts in Social Justice (MASJ), Master of Sacred Theology (STM), Doctor of Ministry (DMin), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
In Christianity, Neo-orthodoxy or Neoorthodoxy, also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology, was a theological movement developed in the aftermath of the First World War. The movement was largely a reaction against doctrines of 19th century liberal theology and a reevaluation of the teachings of the Reformation. Karl Barth is the leading figure associated with the movement. In the U.S., Reinhold Niebuhr was a leading exponent of neo-orthodoxy. It is unrelated to Eastern Orthodoxy.
John Howard Yoder was an American Mennonite theologian and ethicist best known for his defense of Christian pacifism. His most influential book was The Politics of Jesus, which was first published in 1972. Yoder was a Mennonite and wrote from an Anabaptist perspective. He spent the latter part of his career teaching at the University of Notre Dame.
William Henry Willimon is a retired American theologian and bishop in the United Methodist Church who served the North Alabama Conference for eight years. He is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry and Director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Duke Divinity School. He is former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University and is considered by many as one of America's best-known and most influential preachers. A Pulpit & Pew Research on Pastoral Leadership survey determined that he was one of the two most frequently read writers by pastors in mainline Protestantism alongside the Roman Catholic writer Henri Nouwen. His books have sold over a million copies. He is also Editor-At-Large of The Christian Century. His 2019 memoir Accidental Preacher was released to wide acclaim, described by Justo L. Gonzalez as "An exceptional example of theology at its best."
Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony is a 1989 book authored by the theologians Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon. The book discusses the nature of the church and its relationship to surrounding culture. It argues that churches should focus on developing Christian life and community rather than attempting to reform secular culture. Hauerwas and Willimon reject the idea that America or any other country is a Christian nation, instead believing that Christians should see themselves as "resident aliens" in a foreign land, using the metaphor of a colony to describe the church. Instead of conforming the world to the gospel or the gospel to the world, they believe that Christians should focus on conforming to the gospel themselves.
Postliberal theology is a Christian theological movement that focuses on a narrative presentation of the Christian faith as regulative for the development of a coherent systematic theology. Thus, Christianity is an overarching story, with its own embedded culture, grammar, and practices, which can be understood only with reference to Christianity's own internal logic.
Helmut Richard Niebuhr is considered one of the most important Christian theological ethicists in 20th-century America, best known for his 1951 book Christ and Culture and his posthumously published book The Responsible Self. The younger brother of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard Niebuhr taught for several decades at the Yale Divinity School. Both brothers were, in their day, important figures in the neo-orthodox theological school within American Protestantism. His theology has been one of the main sources of postliberal theology, sometimes called the "Yale school". He influenced such figures as James Gustafson, Stanley Hauerwas, and Gordon Kaufman.
Wolfhart Pannenberg was a German Lutheran theologian. He made a number of significant contributions to modern theology, including his concept of history as a form of revelation centered on the resurrection of Christ, which has been widely debated in both Protestant and Catholic theology, as well as by non-Christian thinkers.
Christian realism is a political theology in the Christian tradition. It is built on three biblical presumptions: the sinfulness of humanity, the freedom of humanity, and the validity and seriousness of the Great Commandment. The key political concepts of Christian realism are balance of power and political responsibility. This political-theological perspective is most closely associated with the work of the 20th-century American theologian and public intellectual Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr argued that the Kingdom of God cannot be realized on earth because of the innately corrupt tendencies of society. Due to the injustices that arise among people, we must be willing to compromise the ideal of Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Niebuhr argued that human perfectibility was an illusion, highlighting the sinfulness of humanity by naming labor disputes and race riots in industrial hubs like Detroit, Michigan where he pastored, the horrors of the Second World War, the Communist and Fascist totalitarian regimes, and the Holocaust. Christian realism was in part a reaction to the 20th-century Social Gospel movement.
Hans Wilhelm Frei was an American biblical scholar and theologian who is best known for work on biblical hermeneutics. Frei's work played a major role in the development of postliberal theology. His best-known and most influential work is his 1974 book, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, which examined the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century biblical hermeneutics in England and Germany. Frei spent much of his career teaching at Yale Divinity School.
Max Lynn Stackhouse was the Rimmer and Ruth de Vries Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the United Church of Christ and was the president of the Berkshire Institute for Theology and the Arts.
Political theology is a term which has been used in discussion of the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term is often used to denote religious thought about political principled questions. Scholars such as Carl Schmitt, a prominent Nazi jurist and political theorist, who wrote extensively on how to effectively wield political power, used it to denote religious concepts that were secularized and thus became key political concepts. It has often been affiliated with Christianity, but since the 21st century, it has more recently been discussed with relation to other religions.
Gabriel Joseph Fackre (1926–2018) was an American theologian and Abbot Professor of Christian Theology Emeritus at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts. He was on the school's faculty for 25 years before retiring in 1996. Previous to that he was Professor of Theology and Culture at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, teaching there from 1961 through 1970. Fackre has also served as visiting professor or held lectureships at 40 universities, colleges, and seminaries. His papers are housed in Special Collections at Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries, Princeton, New Jersey.
Wilhelm Pauck was a German-American church historian and historical theologian in the field of Reformation studies whose fifty-year teaching career reached from the University of Chicago and Union Theological Seminary, to Vanderbilt and Stanford universities. His impact was extended through frequent lectures and visiting appointments in the U.S. and Europe. Pauck served as a bridge between the historical-critical study of Protestant theology at the University of Berlin and U.S. universities, seminaries, and divinity schools. Combining high critical acumen with a keen sense of the drama of human history, in his prime Pauck was considered the Dean of historical theology in the United States. In the course of his career he became associated with Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich as friend, colleague, and confidant.
Brian Brock is an American theologian. He holds a Personal Chair in Christian Ethics at the School of Divinity, History, and Philosophy, University of Aberdeen.
Vigen Guroian is an Orthodox Christian theologian and professor who has written widely on ethics, politics, culture, literature, education, and gardening. He taught for many years at Loyola University Maryland, St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New York, and the University of Virginia. In his retirement he continues to publish, lecture, and lead seminars in North America, Europe, and the Near East. He lives in Culpeper, Virginia.
Bruce D. Marshall is a Catholic theologian and Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at Southern Methodist University. His work focuses primarily on Trinitarian theology, Christology, the relation of philosophy and theology, and the links shared between Judaism and Christianity.
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