“Unless Jesus is the only way to the Father, the martyr cannot exist. For the martyr’s death is her confession that Jesus is Lord, the Messiah of God. The martyrs are those who have died in a manner that make the cross of Christ unmistakable as God’s victory over death. Therefore just as the Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies those who suffer for his sake. That is why it is so important that we remember the martyrs, that we remember Stephen. (more…)
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The Importance of Novels (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“Yet the novel is all-important for me exactly because it forces one to imagine other lives. In short, novels are an exercise in the enrichment of the imagination through which we develop empathy that is crucial for the acquisition of the virtues.”[1. Stanley Hauerwas, “In Defense of ‘Our Respectable Culture’: Trying to Make Sense of John Howard Yoder,” Minding the Web: Making Theological Connections, edited by Robert J. Dean (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2018), 153.]
This is the thirteenth 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 edited by Robert J. Dean (Cascade).
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Hope Beyond Optimism (Series on “Minding the Web”)
In the essay “Minding the Gaps, or, Theologians Writing Memoirs,” Stanley Hauerwas examines the similarities and divergences between the British theologian A.E. Harvey’s memoir and his own, Hannah’s Child. In addition to belonging to the subset of “memoirs written by theologians,” both works also reflect upon a shared reality of life with a spouse suffering from mental illness. Here is an illuminating quote from near the end of the essay: (more…)
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The Siren of Safety (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“Shockingly there remain to this day Christians who support Trump’s anti-migration policies because they believe his policies will “keep us safe.” Surely one could not wish for a more misleading understanding of what it means to be Christian. Christians worship at the church of martyrs; they seek fellowship with the crucified Lord. Being a Christian is not about being safe, but about challenging the status quo in ways that cannot help but put you in danger. (more…)
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The Failure of Political Imagination (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“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. (more…)
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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. (more…)
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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. (more…)
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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. (more…)
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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. (more…)
