“Christian participation in politics starts with Christians first appraising the world in which they find themselves. This appraisal involves examining political situations as if God mattered for those situations. This is why for us ethics is a matter of seeing the world in such a way that one can accurately survey one’s available options. Those options, moreover, depend on the existence of a people who make options available because of the kind of people they are. Continue reading The Failure of Political Imagination (Series on “Minding the Web”)
Category Archives: Quotes
Losing the Plot in a Time Called Trump (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“For unless a people exist who have a narrative more determinative than the story shaped by the politics of the day, I fear we will continue to produce politicians like Donald Trump, people who not only seem to be dangerous but are dangerous. They are, moreover, all the more dangerous because no people seem to exist who are capable of telling them the truth. Continue reading Losing the Plot in a Time Called Trump (Series on “Minding the Web”)
On Growing Old in the United States (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“The substitution of technique for wisdom is one of the main reasons that we have no place for understanding the responsibilities and status of the elderly. In wisdom cultures the elderly are expected to remember the judgments made in the past about matters that can be other. Once a social order no longer depends on memory the old have no responsibility to younger generations. Continue reading On Growing Old in the United States (Series on “Minding the Web”)
Do Not Lie! (Series on “Minding the Web”)
The following is an excerpt from a delightful Graduation Address Stanley Hauerwas delivered at the University of Aberdeen in June 2017. The address to the graduates was shaped around one simple piece of advice: “Do not lie.” Continue reading Do Not Lie! (Series on “Minding the Web”)
The Failure of the Triumphant Church (Series on “Minding the Web”)
This is the sixth in a series of posts highlighting captivating, provocative, or simply entertaining quotes from the forthcoming book Minding the Web: Making Theological Connections by Stanley Hauerwas with Robert J. Dean (Cascade).
“In contrast to the triumphant church, the early church was a militant church. The militant church, moreover, alone is the church. The triumphant church, as well as the very concept of Christendom, is but vain conceit. Nowhere is that vanity more apparent than the triumphant church’s inability to produce martyrs. Continue reading The Failure of the Triumphant Church (Series on “Minding the Web”)
Kierkegaard and the Loss of Truth in Christendom (Series on “Minding the Web”)
This is the fifth in a series of posts highlighting captivating, provocative, or simply entertaining quotes from the forthcoming book Minding the Web: Making Theological Connections by Stanley Hauerwas with Robert J. Dean (Cascade).
Søren Kierkegaard has long lurked in the background of Stanley Hauerwas’s work. In this forthcoming volume, we are finally treated to a direct engagement with the “Great Dane,” as Hauerwas consults Kierkegaard to help think through what it would mean to teach theology as theology in the modern university. Here is the first of several quotes from this provocative essay. Continue reading Kierkegaard and the Loss of Truth in Christendom (Series on “Minding the Web”)