April 24, 2025 • 47 mins
What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? Charles Moore joins us to discuss a radical picture of truthful, peaceable, subversive allegiance to Jesus. The conversation is framed around Stanley Hauerwas’s latest book which Moore helped him produce. Moore also reflects on the significance of Hauerwas’s work for his own Christian journey and for the American church.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Ethics is always within a story.
So which story are you living out?
Are you living out the narrativethat the world says leads
to prosperity, fulfillment,and happiness to the good life?
Or are you going to adopt Jesus’ story,as your own?
And only within that storycan we make sense of his teaching,
(00:21):
because you can't separate the teachingfrom the teacher.
And this is really important.
Jesus didn't teach some universal truths
that smart people contemplate and go,oh yes, that's right.
Turn the other cheek.That's a good strategy.
No, we don't really understandwhat that means, apart from who Christ is
and how he lived.
(00:41):
That out.
welcome,
Charles, to Anabaptist Perspectivespodcast.
And yeah, todaywe're going to be reflecting on,
some of the challengethat was presented to the church
in this age by Stanley Hauerwas,some of his writings, and,
(01:04):
especially this collectionthat you worked on, helped
put together calledJesus Changes Everything.
But yeah, as an introduction to that,I'd like to know a little bit,
who you are and how how Hauerwashas influence you personally.
I'm going to read a little quote,that you wrote
in the introduction to this volumeand let you go from there.
(01:29):
So you wrote Stanley Hauerwasand his writings were a large reason
why 30 years ago,I left a professorship at a seminary
and moved 2000 miles with my wifeto join the Bruderhof,
a Christian communitythat shares possessions
in common in accordancewith the sermon on the Mount.
Disillusioned with Christianity as usual,we wanted to live like
(01:49):
the first Christians where no one was inneed and everyone belonged.
So yeah, tell us a little more.
Well, good to be with you.
Marlin, thank you for this opportunity
to share about our latest publicationfrom Plough.
It's, good to be with you.
And, yeah, I can tell you a little bitmore about my background.
(02:11):
I became a Christian in the Jesus movementin California.
And, my introduction to the faith was,by and large,
from within an evangelical context.
But as I grew in my faith and,immersed myself in the scriptures,
I came to the awareness of how,
personalized,hyper individualized and spiritualized.
(02:35):
The evangelical perspectivewas, on the faith.
And, this, caused meto have to take stock of my faith
and ask myself, is all there,to the message of Jesus, of salvation.
And, eternal
life in some other, by and by.
(02:59):
And, I began reflecting and reading more
and, and I came across, Stanley Hauerwas’writings at the time.
I was a doctoral student.
I had finished seminary,and I was, doctoral student,
at the University of Colorado in Boulder,studying ethics and public policy.
(03:20):
And, I had great hopes for that program.
But after reading, Hauerwas’ early works,I began to realize that the liberal
ideal of objective, universal ethics,
was, based on a myth of, freedom.
And this idea of neutrality.
(03:40):
And so, I delved more into his writings.
And when his book, The Peaceable Kingdomcame out, I was thoroughly liberated from
this idea that you can only do ethicsfrom a rational, objective point of view.
And, so I actually left that programand then went on
to, study, theology.
(04:01):
And in that process, I became convinced
that, the,the nature of the Christian life was such
that it had to be livedwithin a communal or community context.
And, so my wife and I startedseeking more about that.
(04:22):
And after an attempt at an inner cityministry and community
and in Denver, which failed in the end,
we had come across, the Bruderhofand the publication of The Plough,
and we started exploring, that community.
And eventually we joined,and shortly thereafter,
(04:45):
I, was assigned a task to workin our small publishing house, The Plough
And it was then I started upa correspondence with with Stanley.
Who supported our efforts over the last, 30 years.
And, so he's been very influentialin my journey,
and he's been a great support.
(05:05):
To us as a community.
And our publishing efforts.
So it was interesting.
The first.
The first kind of stage you mentionedwas philosophical.
Like you say,you were in a public policy program.
And so
kind of first stage was leaving that
and then eventually went further into,
(05:28):
I guess, intentional Christian community.
That's right. I had gone to seminary.
And actually,
eventually went back to that seminaryand taught for about ten years.
And, what Hauerwas convinced me of
is that you can't do ethicsapart from Christ and the story of Christ.
(05:50):
But then, he also arguedthat you can't really, understand
who Jesus is apart from Israel,the people of God.
And so you can't do ethicsapart from the church.
And and so I had to grapple with, well,what church, which church?
The, psychotherapeutic church,the social justice church,
(06:10):
the seeker friendly church,the Bible believing church, which church?
And, after really grappling with that,
none of those options were viablefor my wife and I.
And we we wanted to live outan alternative, community.
As depicted, in the scriptures,
(06:30):
and described, and that's
what propelled us to a thicker,kind of life of community with others.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah. I'm.
I'm anxious to to dive into some of the,the content of this book.
Jesus changes everything and that pictureof discipleship and so on.
(06:51):
But also I'd like to ask a few,
kind of questionsabout Stanley Hauerwas,
you know, this enormously well known
figure and.
Like you said, he supported
your publishing efforts at the Bruderhof.
A lot of his themes on violence.
(07:15):
And things like that.
Even the way he talks about church soundvery familiar to,
you know, most Anabaptist groups.
At the same time,
2001 time magazine named him
America's best theologian.
And the stuff
(07:37):
he advocateddoes not seem very American, at least
as I read it.
So any backstory on that?
Well,I think that's quite ironic, actually.
You know, I think it was Dorothy Day
who said that, a radical.
The way you tamea radical in the faith is to,
(07:57):
name them a saint.
And I think this was one way,
the American mainstream, tried to tameStanley Hauerwas.
He often says that the, word
or termbest is not a theological category.
(08:19):
So. So why was he picked on?
Well, the fact of the matter is, is thathis writings had become so influential.
And they actually dislodgeda lot of people
from the liberal attempt to justify
Christianity in a Western context.
And, many,
(08:39):
many young students from, all across the,
the spectrum, including a good numberof evangelical students,
came to study at Duke
purposely just to study with whatStanley Hauerwas.
And and one of the reasonswhy that is, is that,
I think the evangelical subculturewas beginning to implode,
(09:01):
that this pietistic vertical notion of,
Christianity, was no longer, viable.
And, it committed Bible believingChristians
believe that the gospelhad impact on the here and now.
And there is a social dimensionof Jesus's, message.
(09:23):
And yet they were also, allergic
to, the politicization of the faith.
So you had the Moral majority,
and the beginning of the politicizingof the evangelical faith.
And there was an increasing number of,
evangelicals that were not
satisfied with that, culturewar approach.
(09:44):
And again, Stanley, was giving, languagean, a paradigm in which to live out
a social gospel that was rooted
in Scripture and centered on Christ.
And, no longer was faith to be justprivatized,
character mattered, but so did
community,because you could not really grow
(10:06):
into the character of Christ apartfrom a community.
So this attracted, quite a number.
And of course, he was controversialamong fellow theologians and academics
because he was questioningthe fundamental presuppositions
of what the academy, had been,
(10:27):
working with for a long time.
So he attracted a lot of attention.
And I think that'swhy time, you know, dubbed him
as, America's best theologian.
Yeah.
And ironically, that
that piece came out in September of 2001.
Like,
(10:48):
right when the Twin Towers
came down and America responded with,
let's just say a responsethat was not nonviolent by any means. And.
Yes. And he he, vehemently reacted to that
and rebuked the, automatic retaliatory,
measures that our country engaged in.
(11:12):
So, he was also very prophetic.
So if if the time magazine had
said the most prophetic theologian,
of of the century, that would have beena little bit more befitting.
Although I think Stanley, knowing him
quite well,would have also reacted against that,
(11:33):
because he does not see himselfor try to be in any way a prophet.
He just seeks to speakwhat he understands to be the truth.
Yeah.
No, thanks for sketching that out.
I'm curious.
Do we have any way of sensing, like,
(11:54):
kind of how wide the impact has has gone?
Has this affectedAmerican Christianity? Like it?
So it clearly made a big impactin at least certain
intellectual or academic spheres.
People found a way of talkingabout things that was helpful.
It seems to me like,
you know, some of these Anabaptist ideashave become
(12:17):
much more popular in American Christianityor certain segments of the church.
Yeah, I don't know.What are your thoughts?
Well, Yes, I, I, I think we can trace,
How was his influence?
In some direct ways.
I think that the new monastic movement,
(12:39):
back in the early 2000s,
they were heavily influenced by Hauerwas.
And ShaneClaiborne quotes him, profusely.
And, and and part of that was,
gathering people in a more disciplinedrule governed,
(13:02):
meaning a set of disciplinesand practices,
a new set of, a living,
a liturgical life in community together.
And so I think,
there was an influence in the mainline,
tradition,which I, I grew up in, in a mainline
church, but,have not really been involved, but,
(13:26):
movements, like fresh expressionsoften refer to Stanley's writings.
So,
and of course, among evangelicals,as I mentioned, so,
I think that's had some a hands and feet,
in fact, this is one of the complaintsagainst Hauerwas
because many people have been influencedby him and made significant changes.
(13:51):
And, and in a way, have decidedly turned
either away from the institutional church
or call it into question.
They find out thatStanley is a relatively staid
individualwho is a part of a mainline church.
And he doesn't live particularly radical,
(14:14):
not like the red letterChristians or, many
who are attractedto, like Shane Claiborne early.
He, he, so, some have wondered,you know,
you write these things and,and how exactly do you live them out?
But, that's another subject.
I don't think any of us fully live out,what we confess,
(14:37):
but, he's the first to admit that,
he, doesn't fully put into practice
or has not found a way to fully realizethe implications of his own teaching.
Yeah.
I mean, the one point on thatI do want to.
The follow up.
You know, he writessome pretty strong things about, you know,
(14:58):
there's no second generation Christians.
Involuntary discipleship and all of that.
And in
in my tradition,we would tie that idea pretty closely
to, you know, baptismis upon your own confession of faith.
We don't bring anybody into the churchautomatically and so on.
(15:19):
But he, from what I know, grew up
and remained in traditions where,
you know, infant baptism was the norm.
And I guesshe also has a very strong sense of,
you know, bringing up childrenas Christians and so on.
Yeah.
I'm a little curioushow he puts them together.
(15:41):
Obviously he does.
But, you know, for some of us,those things jar a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, I'm not Stanley Hauerwas.
I'm not sure if he's fullyput it together, Or not.
It's interesting.
I think one of the reasonswhy he has remained,
(16:03):
in the mainline is that
he is as a strong allergic reaction
to any kind of ecclesial sectarianism.
He really believesin the unity of the church
and that we should seekfor a greater unity, in the church,
(16:24):
the Anglican traditionin which he is part of Methodist
previous gives wiggle room
for a greater sense of unity.
And so I think,
that has caused him to kind of remain,
in the broader historic tradition.
(16:46):
and then he speaks, paradoxically,that neither
the church nor the faithis something we ultimately choose.
We are chosen,
and we are formed,
in and through, the church,
or even understanding of the faith.
If we think we just freely adopt a faith
(17:07):
because we alone with our Biblesand in our own personal prayer closet,
come up with an understanding of Christ,that's a myth.
There's always some versionof Christianity that we're introduced to.
And so, if we come to Christ inand through the church
(17:27):
that we don't adopt,we are adopted by that.
Now granted,we still have to, give our assent.
And give ourselves to that.
So I think there's a bit of a paradox.
He often uses the, analogy of marriage.
Because we are traditions,storied people,
(17:50):
and the gospel always comes through,a tradition.
We, maybehave a lot less choice than we think of.
And so he uses the, the, analogy of marriage.
She said, really?
Actually, you don't fall in love.
And then, learn to be married.
(18:10):
You get marriedand then you learn the way of love.
And so this idea of somethingthat is over
and aboveand against you, is the posture.
And then we learn and growinto our understanding of what
discipleship is and what the faith isand what it means to bear witness.
(18:31):
So it's, there's a historic objectiveaspect of the church.
And yet it also has to be owned.
And there's a subjectivedimension to it as well.
Yes. And I mean, to be fair,
all of us have to, to figure outhow we navigate that as well, right?
(18:55):
I mean, and
what I mean by that is thingsthat we understand our own responsibility
for God and then being with otherswho may understand things differently and
and different pieces.
Yeah.
that's true for my wife and I.
We had already been Christiansfor quite a long while.
And then when we felt the callto join the Bruderhof as an example,
(19:19):
we thought before thatwe knew what dedicated self sacrifice was.
We thought we knew what submission was.
We thought we knew what it meantto be free
from mammon possessions.
We thought we knew a lot of things.
And we realized that only once we joined
did we really learn what it meant to bea true brother and sister,
(19:44):
to humble, to live a humble
way, to learn to to serve.
So it it was actually only
once we committed ourselves to a community
did we actually grow inthe depths of our, our faith.
(20:04):
When I read
this book and read through it,much too quickly.
Jesus changes everything.
Is a collectionof very well worth savoring.
But the predominant theme for mewas like,
here's a picture of what it meansto be a disciple of Jesus.
Both. You know, in a community.
(20:27):
In a community, in,
you know, my own kind of before the Lord.
And that'sreally what I want to tease out.
I have a number of of questions,but they're trying to come at that.
What's this picture of discipleship?
From different ways.
But maybe even by introduction, like.
(20:48):
Yeah.
What does it mean to be, a disciple as asHauerwas is helping us think about it?
Well, I think it's starting point is that,
You can't be a disciple
without joining othersalong the road of discipleship.
So this idea of a lone RangerChristian is just automatically ruled out.
(21:10):
But then I think, secondly,
because Jesus is full of grace and truth,he is the way, the truth and the life.
To be a disciple means to live truthfully,
and to own up
where we, are duplicitous,
(21:30):
where we're hypocritical,where we compromise.
And it's not just,
receiving the blessings of the faith.
It's being disciplined.
Discipleship,being disciplined by God to be transformed
into the way of Christand into his image personally.
(21:53):
So part of that pictureis learning the way of peace
because Jesus showed us the way to peacewith God and one another on the cross.
It shows,
or discipleship is about forgiveness,
not just forgiveness from God,but forgiving one another.
(22:15):
For every vertical dimension of faith,there is a course
spawning horizontal implication,
a practice,
I think he, Hauerwas rightly,
puts a great deal of emphasison the sermon on the Mount, in his works.
And he, has many sermons on the sermonon the Mount, a couple of books.
(22:39):
And for, Stanley,this is not some kind of strict ethic.
It's actually good news.
Good news?
You can be liberated from your lust.
Good news.
You can be liberated from, procuring,
your security,you can be free from worry.
(23:02):
Good news.
You can be freed from your anger.
This is a good newsdeclaration of what it looks like
to be a, a citizen of his kingdom.
good news.
You can be freedfrom the dictates of mammon.
So, and
and this sermon onthe Mount is given to his community.
(23:25):
To the disciples.
Yes. There were crowds listening in,
but this is what the new Israelis to be about.
And this isn't a ethic,
of gloom and doom and obligationand hardship.
It's actually, a message of liberation.
So the Christian, the visionof the Christian life is, is very full.
(23:48):
Orbed, it's total it has impact now,
it's not just a personal piety.
It's it's, it affects every dimension of life.
I he is not quoted Augustine,
that I know of, but Augustine's hehe once said,
(24:11):
if Jesus is not Lord of all,he is not Lord at all.
And I think that generates, Stanley'sthought
that the lordship of Christ encompassesevery dimension of life.
And that'swhat the sermon on the Mount, does.
In the chapters,
they, you know,he does go into more specifics, of what,
(24:35):
you know, would look like and,and give some very nice,
poignant examples from his own lifeand, and whatnot.
But, so it's not just some abstract ideal.
So you mentioned
the emphasis on truthfulnesswhich I picked up on a very thoroughgoing
truthfulnessand also a very thoroughgoing emphasis on
(25:02):
peace with others and not peace
in a sort of non-confrontational way, but
peace and seeking relationship.
Is there a way in which
I think he sees a deep connectionthere, those almost
two sidesof the same coin or interrelated?
(25:26):
Oh, I thinkI think they're definitely interrelated.
There's a chapter in this collection,where Stanley reflects
on Matthew 18, where Jesus says, hey, if,
if someone has sinned, against you,go to him directly.
If they listen, you’ve won a brother.
If not, bring another brother.
And if not, if you haven'tgotten through, bring it to the church.
(25:51):
And he says, you know, it's paradoxical.
You think, well, if you do that,you're going to ignite a firestorm.
But he actually, says
this is key, being truthfulbut truthfulness
with the readiness to forgiveand to be forgiven,
that leads to peace.
(26:11):
When we're not truthful,we may have, declared truce.
We may live,parallel lives with one another,
but we do not have the fullnessof Christ's peace.
And the fullness of Christ'speace is far more than just the absence
of a conflict or avoiding each other.
So we don't have further conflict.
(26:32):
It's a matter of really enteringinto the fullness, the wholeness,
of God's shalom,which restores everything,
makes everything well and right,where people and relationships flourish.
I recently asked, Stanley, I said,you know,
why do you think the especiallythe mainline Protestant churches is dying?
(26:58):
And he said, well, itbecause God's killing it.
And I thought about, well,then why is killing?
Why is God killing?
Is it because we don't live truthfully
and we don't speak truth to one another?
And, and he uses many different kindsof examples.
One of his favorite ones is that,
(27:19):
you know, can we be truthful with,
how much, capitalism has a grip on our life
and, consumer capitalism and, in particular,
what about before you becomea member of the church, you declare
what your annual income isand how much you spend on yourself?
(27:40):
And the
spending choices,are we willing to be disciplined?
And Jesus speaks quite a bitabout the dangers and afflictions
of mammon and and so forth,and you can't serve God and mammon.
But he says quite realistic.
People would probably rather talkmore about their sex lives
than about their pocketbook.
We're afraid to tell the truthabout how much in bondage we are
(28:05):
to the American nightmare of,making money.
Spending moneyand spending it on ourselves.
So we they are, inextricably bound together
because Mammon separates us from oneanother.
The haves and the have nots, thosewho are upper class
and lower class, paying servicesfor one another.
(28:27):
We're in the church.
Why should we be paying, personal services to one another?
This should be voluntary,out of love and service to one another.
I mean, so that leads us
maybe to the question of,you know, how he sees
how the church fits in,
to this picture.
(28:48):
I think you've already startedto illuminate it with those ideas of,
yeah, truthfulnesswith each other and, and peace.
But yeah, that's another theme,
throughoutthis book is the importance of that
close community.
(29:08):
Yeah.
And we, if we want, to be,
accountable to Christ,who is the head of the church,
then we need to be accountable toand for one another, in his body.
And so, the church is crucial.
The church is where we learn,who Jesus is in the scriptures
(29:33):
through our worship in our liturgy.
But it's it's where we meet
Christ in our brotherand sister to, in unto the least of these.
Jesus said, I'm in your midst.
And so, the church is critical
not only for personal formation,
but to bear witness to God's kingdom.
(29:55):
And and for Hauerwas,Jesus is not just a personal Savior.
He's the AutoBasilea, the kingdom of God in person.
Jesus
preached the gospel of the kingdom,the gospel of God's new order
here on earththat breaks in to our midst and transforms
not just our personal lives,but the existing social order.
(30:19):
And if we don't have a way to live
that out as the church, then we have
we don't have much to bear witnessto above the power of Christ.
We reduce Christ, to being somebody
who died for our sinsand made us right with God.
And then we're just waiting to meet God,in the afterlife.
(30:42):
And and that that'snot really great news for here and now.
It might be great news,at some other point.
So it's it's also vitalthe church is really vital
because this is where we learn to be free.
Not America, not not the, marketplace.
(31:02):
Not in entertainmentand personal choices,
we learn true freedom in the context
of being a committed body,one to another, ready
to lay our lives down, one for another.
And and if we can't do that,then the world can't see
(31:22):
what is possible in Christ.
It can't even see what it is,he often says
that the world needs the church,
so that the world can see what it is
apart from God.
And, so,
it's vital that we,we figure out what it means to be the body
(31:43):
to to be the alternative, to a worldthat is trying to operate,
on very fundamentals from, a life apart from God.
You know, we're in rebellion against God.
This illusion of self-sufficiency.
We don't need God.
(32:04):
And the confusion
and the corruption and the heartacheand the war and the violence and so forth.
So the church
models demonstratesthis is the kind of world,
that that is possible in Christ.
Yeah.
That also helps to tie in some of the earlier
(32:26):
emphasis on
you know you can't make sense
of Christianity as well.
Here's a set of ethicsthat you can put out to the world.
Just as this is the way to livebecause they don't
they don't actually make senseor they can't be understood until it's,
you know, here is Jesus himselfand the people who
(32:51):
who belong to him and each other.
And there's that picture.
Yeah, yeah.Ethics is always within a story.
So which story are you living out?
Are you living out the narrativethat the world says leads
to prosperity, fulfillment,and happiness to the good life?
Or are you going to adopt Jesus’ story,as your own?
(33:12):
And only within that storycan we make sense of his teaching,
because you can't separate the teachingfrom the teacher.
And this is really important.
Jesus didn't teach some universal truths
that smart people contemplate and go,oh yes, that's right.
Turn the other cheek.That's a good strategy.
(33:33):
You know,any rational person can discover that
and other religious traditionsalso maybe, assert the same thing.
No, we don't really understandwhat that means, apart from who Christ is
and how he lived.
That out,the particularity of following Jesus.
That out,the particularity of following Jesus.
And that's whythis book centers on discipleship.
(33:55):
It's not an, the A book on Jesus's ethic.
It is.
It's about Jesus and the kingdom
that, breaks in through him
and into the church today.
Yeah.
And you mentioned strategy there.
(34:15):
So, Hauerwas tells us
that nonviolence is not optional for us.
But nonviolence is also not a strategy.
He says, you want to clarify that?
Yes. For for him, nonviolence is
is not a way to improve the world.
(34:39):
It is not a way to end, war or,
lessen on the likelihood of war.
Nonviolence is the fruitof being faithful to the way of Jesus.
It will bear fruit,but it can also bear great suffering.
There's no guaranteethat you will get your, head cut off.
(35:03):
It doesn't always workin a worldly point of view,
but we are faithful, to the way of Christ
because this is how God conquers evil.
We don't have to be in control.
God is in control.
We take up arms because we feel it'sit's up to us to make things right.
And we take desperate measuresto make things right.
(35:27):
Our faithis, is placed in the one who sovereignly,
restores all things through the cross.
He doesn't skirt the cross.
It's always through the crossof self-sacrificial love.
So it's not a strategy.
It doesn't meanwe can't lend, a word of advice,
(35:50):
or some wisdom to the world
to help lessen, the cycle of violence.
It doesn't meanwe ignore the need of the world.
But, it is not a strategy.
And that's not why we follow it.
We we follow.
We don't actually don'tfollow nonviolence.
(36:10):
We follow the way of Christ.
We follow Christ.
And part ofthat is also rooted in our love of enemy.
While we were yet sinners, God loved us.
And so, the the way to to win the enemy
or the way to express God's love tothe enemy
(36:31):
is to actually love the enemy.
Whether they are won by that loveor not is up to God that this is,
an unconditional, wayto give witness to to the love of God.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks for that.
(36:51):
So and I think, you know,thinking back to my own
own circles and,
and tradition,you know, Anabaptist, Mennonite,
you know,we've had a sense of a similar emphasis.
We said we don't go to war, but
we're not naive enoughto tell the government that, you know,
(37:14):
they they could have a strategy of peacethat would avoid,
avoid problems or difficulty or whatever.
And, you know, a couple, Well,one way that
that has come out iswe sometimes talk about being apolitical
and not being political, because
(37:35):
because we're not using those kindsof strategies of violence
or strategies of electoral politicsor whatever.
But then, a quote here from the book
and I'm picking up on this wordpolitical, Hauerwas writes,
to worship Jesus is itself a politics,
(37:57):
a politics that subverts the status quo.
So if we don't have strategiesand we're not exercising,
you know, Jesus teachings as a strategy,
what kind of politics is this?
Yeah. What kind of politics?
To subverts the status quo.
Well, Jesus models the politics. Okay?
(38:18):
He takes up a towel, and washes feet.
That's the beginning ofof God's politics.
The way of humility.
We don't, solve,
our problems with each other,nor do we solve our problems,
(38:41):
that we confront socially byby way of coercion or having power over.
It is actually in the humble service
of, considerate,
considering the interest of othersabove our own.
Now that's the so the exact oppositeof the world's politics.
(39:04):
Most people are voting, accordingto their perceived self-interest.
And what partywill serve their self-interest.
Now, some do think that,
serving a particular partywill serve the interest of the country,
not just their own, but, of course,implicit in that is that if it serves
the interests of the countrythat serves my own, and why that country,
(39:27):
Hauerwas is very criticalof any form of Christian nationalism.
Our allegiance is to KingJesus and the kingdom of God,
which is a transnational, rulership of Godon earth.
That not only transcends,but includes all peoples.
So to worshipJesus is a kind of politics.
(39:49):
It's not just a pious set of exercises
that are highly personal and removed.
It gives expression.
Another politics is that,
there will not be rich nor poor.
There's not going to be,social stratification.
(40:13):
This is quite differentthan the way the world operates.
And to say we worship Jesus means
we give our full allegiance to him
and to the wayin which he reigns in the world,
and that will incarnate itself in
very public, social, concrete ways.
(40:35):
And it will be in contradistinction.
And then sometimesit will come into conflict
with the governments of men.
And that's one and part of the reason
might come into overt conflict might be
whether the state it perceivessuch a witness as a threat or not.
(40:57):
And it's.
You refer to it as politics because it is
how we live together or what it means
to be a community and,
how we order our life,how we handle money, all of these things.
Yeah. How we make decisions together.
And and how we navigate a social lifetogether.
(41:19):
That is a kind of politic.
But it's not Partizan politics.
It's not power politics.
So it's very different,
than how we usually use the wordpolitics.
Yeah.
I mean, as kind of closing here.
A couple quotes
and I'll read hereand then a few comments on them.
(41:43):
The one that struck me from this book,
disciples of Christare those who journey forth
from the conventional to basetheir lives on the nature of God
to be perfectas your heavenly father is perfect.
And then the other one that
that really caught my attention, was.
(42:05):
We believe that
the revolution has happened,and we are It.
Yeah, both of those are kind of.
They're enigmatic.
They're very bold claimsabout what it means
to be a Christian and the effect on it.
Effect on us.
Yeah.
And I think it's important to understandthat when.
(42:28):
When House talks about perfection, he'sreferring to the perfection
that Jesus is referring to.
And if you look in the sermon on theMount, be perfect as your heavenly father.
Be indiscriminate in your love.
The sun shines on both the goodand the evil.
We are called to lovenot just our friends who pay us back,
(42:50):
but our enemies be indiscriminate,unconditional in your love.
It's not about being sinless.
It's not, about, being, impeccable.
Morally, we still stand under the cross.
And I think that, unfortunately,in some Anabaptist
traditions, the striving to be perfect,
(43:13):
there's, there's a misunderstandingof what
that is, and they,they miss, the essence.
And that is the the love of Christ.
And, and that's the revolution.
That is the revolution.
Here is a people who love,
and they take great sacrifice.
(43:35):
It takes great humility. It,
it it is something that really can
only come about by a perfectionthat is not of our own.
It's revealed in Christand through the Holy Spirit
that, remember, holy means set apartthe spirit that works in our midst,
(43:56):
that sets us apart, for a new world
that is possible gives us the powerand the grace to do that.
It's not from ourselves, but.
But this is,what we're not only called to,
but we are actually privilegedto experience in Christ.
And it's what we want to share withthe world.
There is a different new kind of worldthat is possible, but it's in Christ
(44:21):
because Jesus can and doeschange everything.
We don't change everything.
Our piety does not change everything.
Our theology does not change everything.
Christ changes everything and makesa new kind of life together possible.
(44:42):
And there we endedup right back at the title of the book,
which is Jesus Changes Everything,which we will be sure to link
in our description and all of that.
Yeah.
Thank you, Charles, for joining us.
And yeah, helping us to thinkthrough some of these things.
And yeah, for the work you put into,
(45:03):
arranging this,collection from Hauerwas.
I guess you took stuff he written,wrote earlier and then worked with him to,
kind of condense it and put it togetherinto this book, if I understand.
Right.
Yeah.
This book is not written for the Academy.
I worked with Stanleyon a lot of his other writings, and we.
(45:24):
We rework them.
It made them a bit more accessible.
And we made sure that,
the theme of followingJesus, the theme of Jesus changing
everything really comes through,the entirety of these, these pages.
So, and
(45:45):
just for your listeners,we do have a, a group study
guide online through Ploughthat they can download to help them.
So it's, it's a, it's a great bookto read personally, but it's even better
if you can find a group of people to,to to read it together.
The chapters are short, as you know.
(46:07):
They're they're crisp.
But they're packed full.
And you will feel, the heart of Stanley Hauerwas,
not just the brilliance of his mindand his ability to articulate
who Jesus is and and,what he, lived for.
Yeah.
(46:28):
Thank you.
Thanks again for joining us.
Well, thank you, for this chanceto to be with you.
I wish you all the best.
Thanks for joining us for this episodeof Anabaptist Perspectives.
Our mission is to encourage allegianceto Jesus sacrificial kingdom.
Our resources include this podcast,written essays,
a lecture series by Frank Reedwhich is called developing as a servant.
(46:52):
And we're currently producinga documentary series on the history
of Anabaptism, specifically the originsin the Reformation era,
which will be filmed on siteat various locations in Europe.
You can find these resources and moreinformation at AnabaptistPerspectives.Org.
Ethics is always within a story.
So which story are you living out?
Are you living out the narrativethat the world says leads
to prosperity, fulfillment,and happiness to the good life?
Or are you going to adopt Jesus’ story,as your own?
And only within that storycan we make sense of his teaching,
(00:21):
because you can't separate the teachingfrom the teacher.
And this is really important.
Jesus didn't teach some universal truths
that smart people contemplate and go,oh yes, that's right.
Turn the other cheek.That's a good strategy.
No, we don't really understandwhat that means, apart from who Christ is
and how he lived.
(00:41):
That out.
welcome,
Charles, to Anabaptist Perspectivespodcast.
And yeah, todaywe're going to be reflecting on,
some of the challengethat was presented to the church
in this age by Stanley Hauerwas,some of his writings, and,
(01:04):
especially this collectionthat you worked on, helped
put together calledJesus Changes Everything.
But yeah, as an introduction to that,I'd like to know a little bit,
who you are and how how Hauerwashas influence you personally.
I'm going to read a little quote,that you wrote
in the introduction to this volumeand let you go from there.
(01:29):
So you wrote Stanley Hauerwasand his writings were a large reason
why 30 years ago,I left a professorship at a seminary
and moved 2000 miles with my wifeto join the Bruderhof,
a Christian communitythat shares possessions
in common in accordancewith the sermon on the Mount.
Disillusioned with Christianity as usual,we wanted to live like
(01:49):
the first Christians where no one was inneed and everyone belonged.
So yeah, tell us a little more.
Well, good to be with you.
Marlin, thank you for this opportunity
to share about our latest publicationfrom Plough.
It's, good to be with you.
And, yeah, I can tell you a little bitmore about my background.
(02:11):
I became a Christian in the Jesus movementin California.
And, my introduction to the faith was,by and large,
from within an evangelical context.
But as I grew in my faith and,immersed myself in the scriptures,
I came to the awareness of how,
personalized,hyper individualized and spiritualized.
(02:35):
The evangelical perspectivewas, on the faith.
And, this, caused meto have to take stock of my faith
and ask myself, is all there,to the message of Jesus, of salvation.
And, eternal
life in some other, by and by.
(02:59):
And, I began reflecting and reading more
and, and I came across, Stanley Hauerwas’writings at the time.
I was a doctoral student.
I had finished seminary,and I was, doctoral student,
at the University of Colorado in Boulder,studying ethics and public policy.
(03:20):
And, I had great hopes for that program.
But after reading, Hauerwas’ early works,I began to realize that the liberal
ideal of objective, universal ethics,
was, based on a myth of, freedom.
And this idea of neutrality.
(03:40):
And so, I delved more into his writings.
And when his book, The Peaceable Kingdomcame out, I was thoroughly liberated from
this idea that you can only do ethicsfrom a rational, objective point of view.
And, so I actually left that programand then went on
to, study, theology.
(04:01):
And in that process, I became convinced
that, the,the nature of the Christian life was such
that it had to be livedwithin a communal or community context.
And, so my wife and I startedseeking more about that.
(04:22):
And after an attempt at an inner cityministry and community
and in Denver, which failed in the end,
we had come across, the Bruderhofand the publication of The Plough,
and we started exploring, that community.
And eventually we joined,and shortly thereafter,
(04:45):
I, was assigned a task to workin our small publishing house, The Plough
And it was then I started upa correspondence with with Stanley.
Who supported our efforts over the last, 30 years.
And, so he's been very influentialin my journey,
and he's been a great support.
(05:05):
To us as a community.
And our publishing efforts.
So it was interesting.
The first.
The first kind of stage you mentionedwas philosophical.
Like you say,you were in a public policy program.
And so
kind of first stage was leaving that
and then eventually went further into,
(05:28):
I guess, intentional Christian community.
That's right. I had gone to seminary.
And actually,
eventually went back to that seminaryand taught for about ten years.
And, what Hauerwas convinced me of
is that you can't do ethicsapart from Christ and the story of Christ.
(05:50):
But then, he also arguedthat you can't really, understand
who Jesus is apart from Israel,the people of God.
And so you can't do ethicsapart from the church.
And and so I had to grapple with, well,what church, which church?
The, psychotherapeutic church,the social justice church,
(06:10):
the seeker friendly church,the Bible believing church, which church?
And, after really grappling with that,
none of those options were viablefor my wife and I.
And we we wanted to live outan alternative, community.
As depicted, in the scriptures,
(06:30):
and described, and that's
what propelled us to a thicker,kind of life of community with others.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah. I'm.
I'm anxious to to dive into some of the,the content of this book.
Jesus changes everything and that pictureof discipleship and so on.
(06:51):
But also I'd like to ask a few,
kind of questionsabout Stanley Hauerwas,
you know, this enormously well known
figure and.
Like you said, he supported
your publishing efforts at the Bruderhof.
A lot of his themes on violence.
(07:15):
And things like that.
Even the way he talks about church soundvery familiar to,
you know, most Anabaptist groups.
At the same time,
2001 time magazine named him
America's best theologian.
And the stuff
(07:37):
he advocateddoes not seem very American, at least
as I read it.
So any backstory on that?
Well,I think that's quite ironic, actually.
You know, I think it was Dorothy Day
who said that, a radical.
The way you tamea radical in the faith is to,
(07:57):
name them a saint.
And I think this was one way,
the American mainstream, tried to tameStanley Hauerwas.
He often says that the, word
or termbest is not a theological category.
(08:19):
So. So why was he picked on?
Well, the fact of the matter is, is thathis writings had become so influential.
And they actually dislodgeda lot of people
from the liberal attempt to justify
Christianity in a Western context.
And, many,
(08:39):
many young students from, all across the,
the spectrum, including a good numberof evangelical students,
came to study at Duke
purposely just to study with whatStanley Hauerwas.
And and one of the reasonswhy that is, is that,
I think the evangelical subculturewas beginning to implode,
(09:01):
that this pietistic vertical notion of,
Christianity, was no longer, viable.
And, it committed Bible believingChristians
believe that the gospelhad impact on the here and now.
And there is a social dimensionof Jesus's, message.
(09:23):
And yet they were also, allergic
to, the politicization of the faith.
So you had the Moral majority,
and the beginning of the politicizingof the evangelical faith.
And there was an increasing number of,
evangelicals that were not
satisfied with that, culturewar approach.
(09:44):
And again, Stanley, was giving, languagean, a paradigm in which to live out
a social gospel that was rooted
in Scripture and centered on Christ.
And, no longer was faith to be justprivatized,
character mattered, but so did
community,because you could not really grow
(10:06):
into the character of Christ apartfrom a community.
So this attracted, quite a number.
And of course, he was controversialamong fellow theologians and academics
because he was questioningthe fundamental presuppositions
of what the academy, had been,
(10:27):
working with for a long time.
So he attracted a lot of attention.
And I think that'swhy time, you know, dubbed him
as, America's best theologian.
Yeah.
And ironically, that
that piece came out in September of 2001.
Like,
(10:48):
right when the Twin Towers
came down and America responded with,
let's just say a responsethat was not nonviolent by any means. And.
Yes. And he he, vehemently reacted to that
and rebuked the, automatic retaliatory,
measures that our country engaged in.
(11:12):
So, he was also very prophetic.
So if if the time magazine had
said the most prophetic theologian,
of of the century, that would have beena little bit more befitting.
Although I think Stanley, knowing him
quite well,would have also reacted against that,
(11:33):
because he does not see himselfor try to be in any way a prophet.
He just seeks to speakwhat he understands to be the truth.
Yeah.
No, thanks for sketching that out.
I'm curious.
Do we have any way of sensing, like,
(11:54):
kind of how wide the impact has has gone?
Has this affectedAmerican Christianity? Like it?
So it clearly made a big impactin at least certain
intellectual or academic spheres.
People found a way of talkingabout things that was helpful.
It seems to me like,
you know, some of these Anabaptist ideashave become
(12:17):
much more popular in American Christianityor certain segments of the church.
Yeah, I don't know.What are your thoughts?
Well, Yes, I, I, I think we can trace,
How was his influence?
In some direct ways.
I think that the new monastic movement,
(12:39):
back in the early 2000s,
they were heavily influenced by Hauerwas.
And ShaneClaiborne quotes him, profusely.
And, and and part of that was,
gathering people in a more disciplinedrule governed,
(13:02):
meaning a set of disciplinesand practices,
a new set of, a living,
a liturgical life in community together.
And so I think,
there was an influence in the mainline,
tradition,which I, I grew up in, in a mainline
church, but,have not really been involved, but,
(13:26):
movements, like fresh expressionsoften refer to Stanley's writings.
So,
and of course, among evangelicals,as I mentioned, so,
I think that's had some a hands and feet,
in fact, this is one of the complaintsagainst Hauerwas
because many people have been influencedby him and made significant changes.
(13:51):
And, and in a way, have decidedly turned
either away from the institutional church
or call it into question.
They find out thatStanley is a relatively staid
individualwho is a part of a mainline church.
And he doesn't live particularly radical,
(14:14):
not like the red letterChristians or, many
who are attractedto, like Shane Claiborne early.
He, he, so, some have wondered,you know,
you write these things and,and how exactly do you live them out?
But, that's another subject.
I don't think any of us fully live out,what we confess,
(14:37):
but, he's the first to admit that,
he, doesn't fully put into practice
or has not found a way to fully realizethe implications of his own teaching.
Yeah.
I mean, the one point on thatI do want to.
The follow up.
You know, he writessome pretty strong things about, you know,
(14:58):
there's no second generation Christians.
Involuntary discipleship and all of that.
And in
in my tradition,we would tie that idea pretty closely
to, you know, baptismis upon your own confession of faith.
We don't bring anybody into the churchautomatically and so on.
(15:19):
But he, from what I know, grew up
and remained in traditions where,
you know, infant baptism was the norm.
And I guesshe also has a very strong sense of,
you know, bringing up childrenas Christians and so on.
Yeah.
I'm a little curioushow he puts them together.
(15:41):
Obviously he does.
But, you know, for some of us,those things jar a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, I'm not Stanley Hauerwas.
I'm not sure if he's fullyput it together, Or not.
It's interesting.
I think one of the reasonswhy he has remained,
(16:03):
in the mainline is that
he is as a strong allergic reaction
to any kind of ecclesial sectarianism.
He really believesin the unity of the church
and that we should seekfor a greater unity, in the church,
(16:24):
the Anglican traditionin which he is part of Methodist
previous gives wiggle room
for a greater sense of unity.
And so I think,
that has caused him to kind of remain,
in the broader historic tradition.
(16:46):
and then he speaks, paradoxically,that neither
the church nor the faithis something we ultimately choose.
We are chosen,
and we are formed,
in and through, the church,
or even understanding of the faith.
If we think we just freely adopt a faith
(17:07):
because we alone with our Biblesand in our own personal prayer closet,
come up with an understanding of Christ,that's a myth.
There's always some versionof Christianity that we're introduced to.
And so, if we come to Christ inand through the church
(17:27):
that we don't adopt,we are adopted by that.
Now granted,we still have to, give our assent.
And give ourselves to that.
So I think there's a bit of a paradox.
He often uses the, analogy of marriage.
Because we are traditions,storied people,
(17:50):
and the gospel always comes through,a tradition.
We, maybehave a lot less choice than we think of.
And so he uses the, the, analogy of marriage.
She said, really?
Actually, you don't fall in love.
And then, learn to be married.
(18:10):
You get marriedand then you learn the way of love.
And so this idea of somethingthat is over
and aboveand against you, is the posture.
And then we learn and growinto our understanding of what
discipleship is and what the faith isand what it means to bear witness.
(18:31):
So it's, there's a historic objectiveaspect of the church.
And yet it also has to be owned.
And there's a subjectivedimension to it as well.
Yes. And I mean, to be fair,
all of us have to, to figure outhow we navigate that as well, right?
(18:55):
I mean, and
what I mean by that is thingsthat we understand our own responsibility
for God and then being with otherswho may understand things differently and
and different pieces.
Yeah.
that's true for my wife and I.
We had already been Christiansfor quite a long while.
And then when we felt the callto join the Bruderhof as an example,
(19:19):
we thought before thatwe knew what dedicated self sacrifice was.
We thought we knew what submission was.
We thought we knew what it meantto be free
from mammon possessions.
We thought we knew a lot of things.
And we realized that only once we joined
did we really learn what it meant to bea true brother and sister,
(19:44):
to humble, to live a humble
way, to learn to to serve.
So it it was actually only
once we committed ourselves to a community
did we actually grow inthe depths of our, our faith.
(20:04):
When I read
this book and read through it,much too quickly.
Jesus changes everything.
Is a collectionof very well worth savoring.
But the predominant theme for mewas like,
here's a picture of what it meansto be a disciple of Jesus.
Both. You know, in a community.
(20:27):
In a community, in,
you know, my own kind of before the Lord.
And that'sreally what I want to tease out.
I have a number of of questions,but they're trying to come at that.
What's this picture of discipleship?
From different ways.
But maybe even by introduction, like.
(20:48):
Yeah.
What does it mean to be, a disciple as asHauerwas is helping us think about it?
Well, I think it's starting point is that,
You can't be a disciple
without joining othersalong the road of discipleship.
So this idea of a lone RangerChristian is just automatically ruled out.
(21:10):
But then I think, secondly,
because Jesus is full of grace and truth,he is the way, the truth and the life.
To be a disciple means to live truthfully,
and to own up
where we, are duplicitous,
(21:30):
where we're hypocritical,where we compromise.
And it's not just,
receiving the blessings of the faith.
It's being disciplined.
Discipleship,being disciplined by God to be transformed
into the way of Christand into his image personally.
(21:53):
So part of that pictureis learning the way of peace
because Jesus showed us the way to peacewith God and one another on the cross.
It shows,
or discipleship is about forgiveness,
not just forgiveness from God,but forgiving one another.
(22:15):
For every vertical dimension of faith,there is a course
spawning horizontal implication,
a practice,
I think he, Hauerwas rightly,
puts a great deal of emphasison the sermon on the Mount, in his works.
And he, has many sermons on the sermonon the Mount, a couple of books.
(22:39):
And for, Stanley,this is not some kind of strict ethic.
It's actually good news.
Good news?
You can be liberated from your lust.
Good news.
You can be liberated from, procuring,
your security,you can be free from worry.
(23:02):
Good news.
You can be freed from your anger.
This is a good newsdeclaration of what it looks like
to be a, a citizen of his kingdom.
good news.
You can be freedfrom the dictates of mammon.
So, and
and this sermon onthe Mount is given to his community.
(23:25):
To the disciples.
Yes. There were crowds listening in,
but this is what the new Israelis to be about.
And this isn't a ethic,
of gloom and doom and obligationand hardship.
It's actually, a message of liberation.
So the Christian, the visionof the Christian life is, is very full.
(23:48):
Orbed, it's total it has impact now,
it's not just a personal piety.
It's it's, it affects every dimension of life.
I he is not quoted Augustine,
that I know of, but Augustine's hehe once said,
(24:11):
if Jesus is not Lord of all,he is not Lord at all.
And I think that generates, Stanley'sthought
that the lordship of Christ encompassesevery dimension of life.
And that'swhat the sermon on the Mount, does.
In the chapters,
they, you know,he does go into more specifics, of what,
(24:35):
you know, would look like and,and give some very nice,
poignant examples from his own lifeand, and whatnot.
But, so it's not just some abstract ideal.
So you mentioned
the emphasis on truthfulnesswhich I picked up on a very thoroughgoing
truthfulnessand also a very thoroughgoing emphasis on
(25:02):
peace with others and not peace
in a sort of non-confrontational way, but
peace and seeking relationship.
Is there a way in which
I think he sees a deep connectionthere, those almost
two sidesof the same coin or interrelated?
(25:26):
Oh, I thinkI think they're definitely interrelated.
There's a chapter in this collection,where Stanley reflects
on Matthew 18, where Jesus says, hey, if,
if someone has sinned, against you,go to him directly.
If they listen, you’ve won a brother.
If not, bring another brother.
And if not, if you haven'tgotten through, bring it to the church.
(25:51):
And he says, you know, it's paradoxical.
You think, well, if you do that,you're going to ignite a firestorm.
But he actually, says
this is key, being truthfulbut truthfulness
with the readiness to forgiveand to be forgiven,
that leads to peace.
(26:11):
When we're not truthful,we may have, declared truce.
We may live,parallel lives with one another,
but we do not have the fullnessof Christ's peace.
And the fullness of Christ'speace is far more than just the absence
of a conflict or avoiding each other.
So we don't have further conflict.
(26:32):
It's a matter of really enteringinto the fullness, the wholeness,
of God's shalom,which restores everything,
makes everything well and right,where people and relationships flourish.
I recently asked, Stanley, I said,you know,
why do you think the especiallythe mainline Protestant churches is dying?
(26:58):
And he said, well, itbecause God's killing it.
And I thought about, well,then why is killing?
Why is God killing?
Is it because we don't live truthfully
and we don't speak truth to one another?
And, and he uses many different kindsof examples.
One of his favorite ones is that,
(27:19):
you know, can we be truthful with,
how much, capitalism has a grip on our life
and, consumer capitalism and, in particular,
what about before you becomea member of the church, you declare
what your annual income isand how much you spend on yourself?
(27:40):
And the
spending choices,are we willing to be disciplined?
And Jesus speaks quite a bitabout the dangers and afflictions
of mammon and and so forth,and you can't serve God and mammon.
But he says quite realistic.
People would probably rather talkmore about their sex lives
than about their pocketbook.
We're afraid to tell the truthabout how much in bondage we are
(28:05):
to the American nightmare of,making money.
Spending moneyand spending it on ourselves.
So we they are, inextricably bound together
because Mammon separates us from oneanother.
The haves and the have nots, thosewho are upper class
and lower class, paying servicesfor one another.
(28:27):
We're in the church.
Why should we be paying, personal services to one another?
This should be voluntary,out of love and service to one another.
I mean, so that leads us
maybe to the question of,you know, how he sees
how the church fits in,
to this picture.
(28:48):
I think you've already startedto illuminate it with those ideas of,
yeah, truthfulnesswith each other and, and peace.
But yeah, that's another theme,
throughoutthis book is the importance of that
close community.
(29:08):
Yeah.
And we, if we want, to be,
accountable to Christ,who is the head of the church,
then we need to be accountable toand for one another, in his body.
And so, the church is crucial.
The church is where we learn,who Jesus is in the scriptures
(29:33):
through our worship in our liturgy.
But it's it's where we meet
Christ in our brotherand sister to, in unto the least of these.
Jesus said, I'm in your midst.
And so, the church is critical
not only for personal formation,
but to bear witness to God's kingdom.
(29:55):
And and for Hauerwas,Jesus is not just a personal Savior.
He's the AutoBasilea, the kingdom of God in person.
Jesus
preached the gospel of the kingdom,the gospel of God's new order
here on earththat breaks in to our midst and transforms
not just our personal lives,but the existing social order.
(30:19):
And if we don't have a way to live
that out as the church, then we have
we don't have much to bear witnessto above the power of Christ.
We reduce Christ, to being somebody
who died for our sinsand made us right with God.
And then we're just waiting to meet God,in the afterlife.
(30:42):
And and that that'snot really great news for here and now.
It might be great news,at some other point.
So it's it's also vitalthe church is really vital
because this is where we learn to be free.
Not America, not not the, marketplace.
(31:02):
Not in entertainmentand personal choices,
we learn true freedom in the context
of being a committed body,one to another, ready
to lay our lives down, one for another.
And and if we can't do that,then the world can't see
(31:22):
what is possible in Christ.
It can't even see what it is,he often says
that the world needs the church,
so that the world can see what it is
apart from God.
And, so,
it's vital that we,we figure out what it means to be the body
(31:43):
to to be the alternative, to a worldthat is trying to operate,
on very fundamentals from, a life apart from God.
You know, we're in rebellion against God.
This illusion of self-sufficiency.
We don't need God.
(32:04):
And the confusion
and the corruption and the heartacheand the war and the violence and so forth.
So the church
models demonstratesthis is the kind of world,
that that is possible in Christ.
Yeah.
That also helps to tie in some of the earlier
(32:26):
emphasis on
you know you can't make sense
of Christianity as well.
Here's a set of ethicsthat you can put out to the world.
Just as this is the way to livebecause they don't
they don't actually make senseor they can't be understood until it's,
you know, here is Jesus himselfand the people who
(32:51):
who belong to him and each other.
And there's that picture.
Yeah, yeah.Ethics is always within a story.
So which story are you living out?
Are you living out the narrativethat the world says leads
to prosperity, fulfillment,and happiness to the good life?
Or are you going to adopt Jesus’ story,as your own?
(33:12):
And only within that storycan we make sense of his teaching,
because you can't separate the teachingfrom the teacher.
And this is really important.
Jesus didn't teach some universal truths
that smart people contemplate and go,oh yes, that's right.
Turn the other cheek.That's a good strategy.
(33:33):
You know,any rational person can discover that
and other religious traditionsalso maybe, assert the same thing.
No, we don't really understandwhat that means, apart from who Christ is
and how he lived.
That out,the particularity of following Jesus.
That out,the particularity of following Jesus.
And that's whythis book centers on discipleship.
(33:55):
It's not an, the A book on Jesus's ethic.
It is.
It's about Jesus and the kingdom
that, breaks in through him
and into the church today.
Yeah.
And you mentioned strategy there.
(34:15):
So, Hauerwas tells us
that nonviolence is not optional for us.
But nonviolence is also not a strategy.
He says, you want to clarify that?
Yes. For for him, nonviolence is
is not a way to improve the world.
(34:39):
It is not a way to end, war or,
lessen on the likelihood of war.
Nonviolence is the fruitof being faithful to the way of Jesus.
It will bear fruit,but it can also bear great suffering.
There's no guaranteethat you will get your, head cut off.
(35:03):
It doesn't always workin a worldly point of view,
but we are faithful, to the way of Christ
because this is how God conquers evil.
We don't have to be in control.
God is in control.
We take up arms because we feel it'sit's up to us to make things right.
And we take desperate measuresto make things right.
(35:27):
Our faithis, is placed in the one who sovereignly,
restores all things through the cross.
He doesn't skirt the cross.
It's always through the crossof self-sacrificial love.
So it's not a strategy.
It doesn't meanwe can't lend, a word of advice,
(35:50):
or some wisdom to the world
to help lessen, the cycle of violence.
It doesn't meanwe ignore the need of the world.
But, it is not a strategy.
And that's not why we follow it.
We we follow.
We don't actually don'tfollow nonviolence.
(36:10):
We follow the way of Christ.
We follow Christ.
And part ofthat is also rooted in our love of enemy.
While we were yet sinners, God loved us.
And so, the the way to to win the enemy
or the way to express God's love tothe enemy
(36:31):
is to actually love the enemy.
Whether they are won by that loveor not is up to God that this is,
an unconditional, wayto give witness to to the love of God.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks for that.
(36:51):
So and I think, you know,thinking back to my own
own circles and,
and tradition,you know, Anabaptist, Mennonite,
you know,we've had a sense of a similar emphasis.
We said we don't go to war, but
we're not naive enoughto tell the government that, you know,
(37:14):
they they could have a strategy of peacethat would avoid,
avoid problems or difficulty or whatever.
And, you know, a couple, Well,one way that
that has come out iswe sometimes talk about being apolitical
and not being political, because
(37:35):
because we're not using those kindsof strategies of violence
or strategies of electoral politicsor whatever.
But then, a quote here from the book
and I'm picking up on this wordpolitical, Hauerwas writes,
to worship Jesus is itself a politics,
(37:57):
a politics that subverts the status quo.
So if we don't have strategiesand we're not exercising,
you know, Jesus teachings as a strategy,
what kind of politics is this?
Yeah. What kind of politics?
To subverts the status quo.
Well, Jesus models the politics. Okay?
(38:18):
He takes up a towel, and washes feet.
That's the beginning ofof God's politics.
The way of humility.
We don't, solve,
our problems with each other,nor do we solve our problems,
(38:41):
that we confront socially byby way of coercion or having power over.
It is actually in the humble service
of, considerate,
considering the interest of othersabove our own.
Now that's the so the exact oppositeof the world's politics.
(39:04):
Most people are voting, accordingto their perceived self-interest.
And what partywill serve their self-interest.
Now, some do think that,
serving a particular partywill serve the interest of the country,
not just their own, but, of course,implicit in that is that if it serves
the interests of the countrythat serves my own, and why that country,
(39:27):
Hauerwas is very criticalof any form of Christian nationalism.
Our allegiance is to KingJesus and the kingdom of God,
which is a transnational, rulership of Godon earth.
That not only transcends,but includes all peoples.
So to worshipJesus is a kind of politics.
(39:49):
It's not just a pious set of exercises
that are highly personal and removed.
It gives expression.
Another politics is that,
there will not be rich nor poor.
There's not going to be,social stratification.
(40:13):
This is quite differentthan the way the world operates.
And to say we worship Jesus means
we give our full allegiance to him
and to the wayin which he reigns in the world,
and that will incarnate itself in
very public, social, concrete ways.
(40:35):
And it will be in contradistinction.
And then sometimesit will come into conflict
with the governments of men.
And that's one and part of the reason
might come into overt conflict might be
whether the state it perceivessuch a witness as a threat or not.
(40:57):
And it's.
You refer to it as politics because it is
how we live together or what it means
to be a community and,
how we order our life,how we handle money, all of these things.
Yeah. How we make decisions together.
And and how we navigate a social lifetogether.
(41:19):
That is a kind of politic.
But it's not Partizan politics.
It's not power politics.
So it's very different,
than how we usually use the wordpolitics.
Yeah.
I mean, as kind of closing here.
A couple quotes
and I'll read hereand then a few comments on them.
(41:43):
The one that struck me from this book,
disciples of Christare those who journey forth
from the conventional to basetheir lives on the nature of God
to be perfectas your heavenly father is perfect.
And then the other one that
that really caught my attention, was.
(42:05):
We believe that
the revolution has happened,and we are It.
Yeah, both of those are kind of.
They're enigmatic.
They're very bold claimsabout what it means
to be a Christian and the effect on it.
Effect on us.
Yeah.
And I think it's important to understandthat when.
(42:28):
When House talks about perfection, he'sreferring to the perfection
that Jesus is referring to.
And if you look in the sermon on theMount, be perfect as your heavenly father.
Be indiscriminate in your love.
The sun shines on both the goodand the evil.
We are called to lovenot just our friends who pay us back,
(42:50):
but our enemies be indiscriminate,unconditional in your love.
It's not about being sinless.
It's not, about, being, impeccable.
Morally, we still stand under the cross.
And I think that, unfortunately,in some Anabaptist
traditions, the striving to be perfect,
(43:13):
there's, there's a misunderstandingof what
that is, and they,they miss, the essence.
And that is the the love of Christ.
And, and that's the revolution.
That is the revolution.
Here is a people who love,
and they take great sacrifice.
(43:35):
It takes great humility. It,
it it is something that really can
only come about by a perfectionthat is not of our own.
It's revealed in Christand through the Holy Spirit
that, remember, holy means set apartthe spirit that works in our midst,
(43:56):
that sets us apart, for a new world
that is possible gives us the powerand the grace to do that.
It's not from ourselves, but.
But this is,what we're not only called to,
but we are actually privilegedto experience in Christ.
And it's what we want to share withthe world.
There is a different new kind of worldthat is possible, but it's in Christ
(44:21):
because Jesus can and doeschange everything.
We don't change everything.
Our piety does not change everything.
Our theology does not change everything.
Christ changes everything and makesa new kind of life together possible.
(44:42):
And there we endedup right back at the title of the book,
which is Jesus Changes Everything,which we will be sure to link
in our description and all of that.
Yeah.
Thank you, Charles, for joining us.
And yeah, helping us to thinkthrough some of these things.
And yeah, for the work you put into,
(45:03):
arranging this,collection from Hauerwas.
I guess you took stuff he written,wrote earlier and then worked with him to,
kind of condense it and put it togetherinto this book, if I understand.
Right.
Yeah.
This book is not written for the Academy.
I worked with Stanleyon a lot of his other writings, and we.
(45:24):
We rework them.
It made them a bit more accessible.
And we made sure that,
the theme of followingJesus, the theme of Jesus changing
everything really comes through,the entirety of these, these pages.
So, and
(45:45):
just for your listeners,we do have a, a group study
guide online through Ploughthat they can download to help them.
So it's, it's a, it's a great bookto read personally, but it's even better
if you can find a group of people to,to to read it together.
The chapters are short, as you know.
(46:07):
They're they're crisp.
But they're packed full.
And you will feel, the heart of Stanley Hauerwas,
not just the brilliance of his mindand his ability to articulate
who Jesus is and and,what he, lived for.
Yeah.
(46:28):
Thank you.
Thanks again for joining us.
Well, thank you, for this chanceto to be with you.
I wish you all the best.
Thanks for joining us for this episodeof Anabaptist Perspectives.
Our mission is to encourage allegianceto Jesus sacrificial kingdom.
Our resources include this podcast,written essays,
a lecture series by Frank Reedwhich is called developing as a servant.
(46:52):
And we're currently producinga documentary series on the history
of Anabaptism, specifically the originsin the Reformation era,
which will be filmed on siteat various locations in Europe.
You can find these resources and moreinformation at AnabaptistPerspectives.Org.
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