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Stanley Hauerwas (born July 24, 1940) is a Christian theologian and ethicist. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame and is currently the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Law.

Education and Influences

Hauerwas received a Ph.D. from Yale University and an honorary D.D. from the University of Edinburgh.

At Yale Divinity School, Hauerwas came under the influence of James Gustafson, one of the more well-known students of H. Richard Niebuhr. This contact distinctly discolored his perception of Niebuhr, despite his dependence upon The Meaning of Revelation and The Responsible Self.

Later teaching at Notre Dame, Hauerwas discovered Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder's work, which critiques the work of Reinhold Niebuhr whom Hauerwas frequently criticizes. Hauerwas frequently has drawn upon Yoder to question the modern philosophical foundations for just war thinking. Yoder is perhaps Hauerwas' greatest influence and he notes that his reading of Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship is probably the reason that Yoder's work so resonated with him.^[1]

Hauerwas has also been deeply influenced by Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who uses Thomist thought regarding virtue ethics to critique modern and postmodern culture.

Career

In his career, he has attempted to emphasize the importance of virtue and character within the Church. He has been an outspoken Christian pacifist and has vigorously promoted nonviolence. Hauerwas has also been an opponent of nationalism, particularly American patriotism, arguing that it has no place in the Church.

His theological writings occasionally veer into the area of paleo-orthodoxy, and he has also been associated with the narrative theology movement, which he learned in the 1960s at Yale Divinity School.

Honors

TIME Magazine in 2001 named him "America's Best Theologian". He responded by saying "Best is not a theological category."

That same year, he was invited to give the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews in Scotland, which were published as With the Grain of the Universe, (ISBN 1-58743-016-9) a text in which Karl Barth's interpretation of St. Anselm's analogy of faith was featured. In 1997 he gave the Scottish Journal of Theology lectures at Aberdeen, published as Sanctify Them in Truth (1998).

He speaks frequently at churches throughout North America, and gave the Slater-Maguire Lecture at St. Margaret's Anglican Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2006.

Religious affiliation

Hauerwas has been self-identified with the United Methodist Church for the bulk of his career. Yet in the introduction to Performing the Faith he notes that he now worships at The Church of the Holy Family, an Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.^[2]

Additionally, Hauerwas was influential in the formation of the Ekklesia Project, a multi-denominational Christian "think tank" and Renewal Movement.

Partial Bibliography

Many of his books are collections of essays; some are structured monographs. Among his more commonly known works are:

Vision and Virtue: Essays in Christian Ethical Reflection (1974)
Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics (1975)
Truthfulness and Tragedy: Further Investigations into Christian Ethics (1977)
A Community of Character (1981) ISBN 0-268-00735-7
The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (1983) ISBN 0-268-01554-6
Against the Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society (1985) ISBN 0-86683-957-7
Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped, and the Church (1986)
Christian Existence Today: Essays on Church, World, and Living in Between (1988)
Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (with William Willimon) (1989) ISBN 0-687-36159-1
Naming the Silence: God, Medicine and the Problem of Suffering (1990)
After Christendom: How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas (1991) ISBN 0-687-00929-4
Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America (1993) ISBN 0-687-31678-2
Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular (1994)
In Good Company: The Church as Polis (1995)
Where Resident Aliens Live (with William Willimon) (1996)
Christians Among the Virtues: Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics (with Charles Pinches) (1997)
Wilderness Wanderings: Probing Twentieth Century Theology and Philosophy (1997)
Sanctify Them in Truth: Holiness Exemplified (1998)
A Better Hope: Resources for a church confronting capitalism, democracy and postmodernity (2000)
With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology (2001) ISBN 1-58743-016-9
The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (with Samuel Wells) (2004)
Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Non-Violence (2004) ISBN 1-58743-076-2
That State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God (2007)
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary: Conversations between a Radical Democrat and a Christian (with Romand Coles) (2008)

References

^ Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith:Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004), 35.
^ Performing the Faith, 10.

External links

[1] Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith:Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004), 35.

[2] Performing the Faith, 10.

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