Thinking After

Tag: Hauerwas

  • Killing Compassion

    A short quote from Stanley Hauerwas’s Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism of Karl Barth (University of Virginia Press, 2022):

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  • Speaking Christian

    My Homiletics students are reading Stanley Hauerwas’s essay “Speaking Christian” for our next class on Wednesday.  It contains the following prescient gem of a quote.  Keep in mind the address was published over twelve years ago. (more…)

  • Recent Hauerwas Podcasts

    In Minding the Web, I suggested that future scholars interested in the life and legacy of Stanley Hauerwas will have to somehow account for the significant number of public lectures, interviews and podcasts that are now circulating on the internet.  Two notable examples of the latter that have recently appeared are Hauerwas’s conversation on the theme of suffering with Kate Bowler on her podcast Everything Happens and his appearance on the Theology on Mission podcast with David Fitch and Mike Moore.  In the latter, I receive a generous shout-out from Stanley.  Kate Bowler, who was born in Winnipeg and now teaches at Duke, has quickly become a prominent public pastoral figure with respect to the subject of suffering.  David Fitch remains a significant neo-Anabaptist voice in evangelical circles and provided a gracious endorsement of Minding the Web.

  • Review of Taylor’s “Reading Scripture as the Church”

    The following is a review of Derek W. Taylor’s Reading Scripture as the Church: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Hermeneutic of Discipleship that I contributed to Studies in Christian Ethics 35(2) (May 2022): 418-421.

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  • Congratulations Dion!

    Congratulations to Dion Gingerich, an MA student under my supervision, who recently completed his thesis “Plainly Becoming: An Examination of Early Anabaptist Simplicity in Light of Stanley Hauerwas’s Account of Virtue for Community Formation.”  Dion will be leaving Manitoba to take up the role of Dean of Students at Rosedale Bible College in Ohio.  Dion’s thesis will eventually be available through the William Falk Library at Providence, but if you’d like to read it let me know, as I’m sure he’d be willing to share it.  Here is his abstract: (more…)

  • “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid”

    Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt offers an insightful diagnosis of the divisions and stunted intellectual discourse that have characterized American public life in recent years in his essay “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid” appearing in The Atlantic.  It is a longer read, but it does reward those who put in the time.  (For that matter, there is also an audible version of the article available on The Atlantic’s website.  I was able to listen to the essay while driving today.)  Haidt compares the fallout of developments such as the “share” and “like” buttons in Facebook and Twitter to the splintering of the ancient peoples into different language groups at the Tower of Babel.  There is much to ponder here for those of us who reside in Canada, who face similar, but not identical social dynamics.  Russell Moore, the former SBC ethicist, reflects upon Haidt’s piece in a column, “Fragmentation is Not What’s Killing Us.”  Moore agrees that there is much to learn from Haidt’s analysis, but suggests that a theological reading of the Tower of Babel story might suggest a different framing of the problem and understanding of the solution than Haidt proposes.  For my part I could not help but think of Stanley Hauerwas’s important essay “The Church as God’s New Language,” which juxtaposes Babel with the Spirit’s animating of the Church at Pentecost.

  • Review of “The Church in a Secular Age”

    I have contributed a review of Norwegian theologian Silje Kvamme Bjørndal’s book The Church in a Secular Age: A Pneumatological Reconstruction of Stanley Hauerwas’s Ecclesiology (Pickwick, 2018) to Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion.  For those interested, the review can be accessed here.

  • Some Short Lenten Reading

    In the midst of the final stretch of the semester, with Holy Week approaching next week, posts have been few and far between.  In the midst of the busyness, I wanted to share a couple of timely articles that have come on to my radar in the past few days. (more…)

  • Worship Issue of Didaskalia – Special Promotion

    I am incredibly grateful for the breadth, depth, and overall quality of the forthcoming issue of our re-imagined theological journal Didaskalia on the theme of worship.  You can view the full table of contents below  I am also pleased to announce that we have made special arrangements to make the issue available to all interested readers for the mere cost of postage.  You can sign up to receive the first issue at this special promotional rate here. (more…)

  • New Issue of Didaskalia

    In addition to my responsibilities in the classroom, I am also serving as the editor of Didaskalia, the theological journal of Providence Theological Seminary.  Alongside of a new editorial board, I have been engaged in the work of reimagining the journal and what it might look to publish interdisciplinary theological reflection in service of the church.   The first issue of the relaunched Didaskalia journal is on the theme of worship and will be appearing within the next week or so. (more…)