Category Archives: Quotes

The Plight We Are In (Series on “Minding the Web”)

This is the second 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).

Here is Hauerwas drawing on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre to provide as clear an account as any of the plight that we find ourselves in under the reign of liberalism: Continue reading The Plight We Are In (Series on “Minding the Web”)

A New Series on “Minding the Web”

This past year I’ve had the great privilege of working with Stanley Hauerwas on his forthcoming book Minding the Web: Making Theological Connections (Cascade Books).  I served as something of a curator and editor of Hauerwas’s essays, addresses, and sermons, as well as contributing a couple of essays and sermons of my own to the volume.  The essays, I believe, feature some of best writing, so I am delighted that they have found a home in such a rich volume alongside of Hauerwas’s enduringly relevant and provocative investigations and sermons.  In addition to the gracious invitation to participate in the project, Stanley has generously granted me permission to share some of my favourite quotes from the book in the days leading up to its publication.  Over the course of the next few weeks, I will draw attention to some of the turns-of-phrase, sentences and short passages that, for one reason or another, captured my imagination. Continue reading A New Series on “Minding the Web”

The Spirit of Early Christian Thought

I’m in the midst of reviewing some resources for a course I’m going to be offering on the Church Fathers in the winter and came across this quote from the introduction to Robert Wilken’s wonderful book The Spirit of Early Christian Thought that resonates with Robyn’s and Don’s comments on my previous post: Continue reading The Spirit of Early Christian Thought

The Virtue of Baseball

The most recent book from Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson, consists of letters that the theologian annually sent to his godson, Laurie Wells, over a fifteen year period marking the anniversary of Wells’s baptism.  Each of the letters addresses a virtue that is important for the Christian life.  As a result, the book can be read as an engaging entry point into and accessible distillation of Hauerwas’s forty plus years of prodigious scholarship and writing.  The book, which seems ideally situated to become a classic, also contains an eloquent introduction by one of Hauerwas’s most insightful interpreters, who also happens to be the father of the recipient of the letters, the pastor-theologian Sam Wells.  One of my favourite passages involves a discussion of the training in patience that is baseball. Continue reading The Virtue of Baseball