Stanley Hauerwas is a prominent American theologian that has written volumes in the last 50 years. Here at the sunset of his writing he has brought together thoughts from many of his works under the title “Jesus Changes Everything.” It will be interesting to dialogue with Hauerwas and his provocative and often unorthodox views on Faith.

June 30, 2025

Select Quotes from Hauerwas

This will be our last post with theologian Stanley Hauerwas for a while. He has helped us touch one of our five points of focus in this blog, especially at the launch --- The Need for Renewal in the Church. 

Check out these 5 quotes from Hauerwas. I hope he does not step on your toes as much as he steps on mine! 😊

Hauerwas Quotes for Thought (p. xxi)

Let’s give some thought to a few quotes from Hauerwas that may surprise us:

Bad theology makes us ‘admirers’ of Jesus rather than ‘disciples’ of Jesus

Following Jesus is never safe

The wealth of the church is the poor

The worst unkindness is to rob others of their right to suffer

What has to end is the habit of Christians asking non-Christians to do what we cannot get Christians to do (p. xxv)

On the disciples quote it seems common today to read statements about the failure of the contemporary church to make disciples. If that is indeed a fact then there is nothing left but for Christians to be ‘admirers.’ Disciples will follow, they will emulate, they will adopt the mission and vision of the Master, they will practice what they have seen and received. So it is no surprise when the polls repeatedly come back with the secular response, “We love Jesus but we do not like the church.”

On the ‘safe to follow Jesus’ quote, many voices are now saying Christianity has domesticated Jesus. In other words, Christianity can comfortably follow a tame and safe Jesus. We would all agree that the Jesus we read about in the Gospels is quite radical and surprising as he shows up in places we would not expect, with people we would not consider, doing things that surprise us. If Christians today were following that Jesus life would cross the safety red line on many occasions. 

On the ‘poor being the wealth of the church’ quote, I love it. Since God moved my personal walk into direct contact with the poor I have been drawn to agree with this statement. As the church serves the poor she wins the respect of society. As the church touches the poor she finds the most receptive harvest. As the church ministers to the poor the most attractive traits come to light. As the church lifts up the poor social transformation takes place. As the church gives priority to the poor the more fortunate folks are attracted. As the church walks with the poor she walks with Christ.

On the quote about robbed of the right to suffer, we will have to admit that security is one of the highest priorities of our culture, many would say the highest. That may be part of the reason the cross is the favorite jewelry of Christians and our favorite sentimental theme. Yet few want to take up that hideous instrument of death to self, as we hope to follow Jesus.

On the quote on asking non-Christians to do things, think about our ideas about government, what we debate the government should do and so on. In the first three hundred years the early church did not have any influence with the government (the Roman Empire) yet their lives of influence resonated through the empire and brought radical results. 

From these quotes we can see how Hauerwas challenges the church with provocative insights that make me feel the pinch as well. Ouch!

A little side story on toe stepping.

In the first church I pastored in West Virginia there was the sweetest little Pentecostal lady and saint. Naturally from her background she had come to love good old hard and hot preaching. By that she meant the kind where her toes got stepped on properly. I loved this precious saint and her sweet face in the church carried me through many sermons as a young ministers. But the truth was, I was from a new generation and I just could not preach it as hard and hot as she liked. Now decades later I don’t even think Hauerwas could have scratched that itch for her. Smile.

June 10, 2025

Turning the Other Cheek

Hauerwas notes that “some Christians explicitly say that turning the other cheek doesn’t work anymore, that we have to fight back now.” But Hauerwas makes it clear that “turning the other cheek has never worked, if by “working” we mean creating a nice life for us and our children that is free of suffering and sacrifice, a life that fits neatly into the cultural expectations and political categories of our moment.” (p. xii)

Hauerwas goes on to say, “to deprive Christians of suffering is to tell them that they cannot follow Jesus to the cross.” He understands we often “use whatever means necessary to avoid the cross.” On the other hand, he writes, “Jesus is the Kingdom enfleshed, and he demonstrates this, surprisingly, through his utter vulnerability.”  (p. xiii)

Hauerwas dares (and dares us) to take the scriptures seriously enough to be disturbed by them. He has seen that “most of us Christians, particularly in the west, often contort the teachings of Jesus to fit into our own quest for the good life.”

Certainly turning the other cheek is not a popular and often used sermon text these days. But Hauerwas uses it to step on my toes, reminding me how this consumeristic culture has been woven into my perspectives and lifestyle choices. Ouch! 

What do you see and/or think after reading his thoughts?

June 27, 2025

Hauerwas on Social Ethic

The American (Texas) theologian tends to stir the pot for us on the journey of this blog. Listen.

Hauerwas proclaims, “The church does not have a social ethic, the church is a social ethic.”

“Our ability to welcome the vulnerable, the disabled, and children; to speak truth; to practice generosity; to honor the limits and holiness of human bodies; to live ‘out of step’ with the world; and to love our enemies is the embodiment of an ethic birthed out of the resurrection. This kind of discipleship isn’t a strategy for winning an election, having a picture-perfect family, or getting a raise.” (p. xiv)

Like the eagle taking the comfortable fluff out of the nest to prod the eaglets to fly, Hauerwas makes it uncomfortable for Christians like me that aimed to raise a picture-perfect family, and thought an election needed to be won by the correct side, and so on. Perhaps culture has had more influence on contemporary Christianity than we would like to confess. Perhaps returning to the social ethic of Jesus would rearrange some of our priorities and practices. Before reading this man, I was quite comfortable in all that warm fluff lining the nest. 

I had a ‘cagin’ friend from Louisiana that loved to say, “Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” It is possible God sent Stanley Hauerwas on that mission as well. I do appreciate the list he mentions for the social ethic that forms the church. In the last dozen years or so I have been drawn to some of these elements as heaven’s call for the Kingdom; welcome the vulnerable, practice generosity, live ‘out of step’ with the world, and ‘love our enemies.’

Click on the Anakainosis graphic below and read the rest of ‘Today’s Post’ with thoughts from Stanley Hauerwas.

Hauerwas’ aim is to “foment a modest revolution by forcing Christians to take themselves serious as Christians.” He hopes to “shake them out of their customary ways of thinking and living, so they can be more faithful to Christ.” (p. xxi)

One of Hauerwas’ more well known titles is “Resident Aliens.” This is his description of Christians, we are resident in this world but our world view is Alien to everything about this fallen world and broken culture. From this platform he says, “Attempts to Christianize the social order in the name of furthering God’s Kingdom or being politically responsible lead the church to…” He lists several catastrophic consequences to this. (p. xxvi) From the ‘Moral Majority’ fifty years ago this temptation has been strong for Christians to resist. No doubt such things have helped our culture call us “Unchristian.” (See the book ‘unChristian: What a new generation really thinks about Christianity’ by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons.)

Hauerwas does believe “following Jesus is a public affair with cosmic consequences. To worship Him is itself a politics, a politics that subverts the status quo.” (p. xxvi) He says, “This isn’t just any politics. It is a politics of hospitality toward the other and toward the stranger, [a politics of] patience and long suffering with one’s enemies, [a politics of] caring for the injured and oppressed, and [a politics of] peaceableness that is truthful.” (p. xxvii) Clearly this is a Jesus kind of politics that the contemporary church may want to review once again.