A cynic might say that the secret of Hauerwas's vast influence in the church in the 1980s and 1990s lay in the imprecision of the sacrifice he appeared to be demanding of his followers. Surely he was not proposing that the strength of one's sentimental identification with the church could by itself secure noncomplicity with the evils of the world. His favourite patristic text appears to be Origen's Exhortation to Martyrdom. [Actually, here Stout is taking a piece of O'Donovan's rhetoric in Desire of the Nations rather literalistically! - a bit of a schoolboy error. MJ] But in the absence of a clear statement of the price Christians must be willing to pay, his audience was able to indulge itself in fantasies of martyrdom without experiencing
actualy poverty or persecution at all. (p. 158)
Ouch - harsh but fair. Tenure at Duke hardly seems like persecution, now, does it? He charges Hauerwas with inconsistency over his reading of Scripture. Hauerwas wants to make non-violence thee central feature of the Christian message. But is the pacificist case really convincing on the basis of Scripture? And how come he is such a rigorist on this issue, but not on others - say, on remarriage after divorce? As Stout says:
It is hard...to escape the conclusion that his ethics rests on an extremely selective reading of the Bible. (p. 160)
And further, Stout articulates a point I had thought of but not really expressed before: Hauerwas's church, his 'peaceable kingdom', doesn't seem to exist. When he says 'the church', which church is he talking about? What does he mean? As Stout says,
The actual church does not look very much like a community of virtue, when judged by pacificist standards. (p. 161)
11 comments:
Hello Michael,
I appreciate Stout's criticisms as a call for clarity, but I think the "your church doesn't exist" trope is a bit unfair. Hauerwas's own position is more nuanced than that - he doesn't identify, without remainder, the historical church with "the peaceable kingdom", as you suggest. Nor is he unaware that the church that exists is sinful, and shot through with violence.
Even so - on several occasions I've heard the "your church doesn't exist" charge be put to him in person, and his response is always to name names. "It has to exist", he says, and then he'll tell you people and congregations in which it does. He can do that, I think, only because he's not after an ideal church at all - but rather he's trying to help us see the body of Christ, and be faithful to that, in the midst of our unfaithfulness.
I'm also unconvinced by the "biblical selectivism" charge; when that's not backed up with a display (even a summary one) of how scripture says otherwise, it seems simply a rhetorical move.
But again, I appreciate several of Stout's criticisms and his work on democracy in particular (as Hauerwas himself does). Thanks for posting these quotes.
Thanks Scott. Actually, Stout gives a reasonable account of how Hauerwas is selective in his own text. In particular, he notes that Hauerwas is rigorist on pacificism, and not on other things in scripture about which one might be rigorist. Divorce, for example.
That's true, and important to remember. But Stout doesn't himself give a reading of scripture (as scripture) that shows why one should not be a "pacifist". That's all I meant,I think.
hmm... there is at least a summary in the footnotes...
Right, but given that Hauerwas's own theological pacifism is rooted in Christological convictions, etc., that can't be derived simply from prooftexts, my point is that neither can a rebuttal. In other words, Stout needs to get theological to show that Hauerwas is "wrong" in emphasizing this point -- don't you think?
Well to be fair you started off by saying it was about Scripture. I have read quite a bit of Hauerwas: I think his lack of engagement with scripture at any serious level is quite troubling for a major theologian (Matthew commentary notwithstanding). A significant weakness in the pacificist case to my mind is precisely that scripture - even the gospels - just doesn't support it with anything like the clarity that Hauerwas assumes.
Yes, I agree with you that the lack of engagment with scriptural texts in his overall body of work is a problem. But an appeal to the biblical text itself doesn't warrant a disagreement with (a theologically grounded) pacifism, when the case being made is one that argues from a set of theological (i.e., Christological, ecclesiological, soteriological, and eschatological) presuppositions.
It's true that Hauerwas would have a weightier case if he showed how his theological presuppositions - which entail a kind of "pacifism" - were biblically grounded. But one would need to show why those theological commitments which ground his pacifism are not correct, why they are inadequate to the bibical witness, to have a serious rebuttal. I just don't think Stout's done that (yet), because as you say - he's not working as a theologian.
That doesn't mean, though -- as you rightly point out -- that he can't raise the surface question about whether the texts are "on his side".
Yes, that's fair: Stout is interested in the political/social side as opposed to the theological side. His cheekiness is that he questions whether Hauerwas is being true to his own sources. And, he enjoys noting that Hauerwas's influence has been through his critique of liberalism: his pacificism seems to have been passed over by American Christians as a curio. So, Hauerwas (he says) actually makes a better critic then he does an affirmer of anything. It is a telling point.
I find your opening sentence curious: surely if a strong scriptural case can be made against pacificism, then the account of theological presuppositions that gives rise to it is in need of revision. (I still mightn't have understood your point here).
For mine, the theological presuppositions issue is a problem for pacificism, too. One can't help feeling that pacificist conclusions drive particular readings of soteriology, Christology and even the doctrine of God rather than the other way around - and with unsatisfactory results.
Sorry, I re-read the second paragraph and now I get you. Oops.
Sorry, I re-read the second paragraph and now I get you. Oops.
I have known Stanley Hauerwas for years. It would be nice is Stout and his little cronies had anything to say that wasn't in the end rooted in trite languages about where he happens to serve. Suffering is not always about poverty or position sometimes it is about experience. Stout should be ashamed of himself.
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