Learning to Speak Christian
Also by Stanley Hauerwas and published by SCM Press
Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir
The Peaceable Kingdom
With the Grain of the Universe
Wilderness Wanderings
SCM Theological Commentary Matthew
© Stanley Hauerwas 2011
This edition published in 2011 by SCM Press
Editorial office
13–17 Long Lane,
London, EC1A 9PN, UK
SCM Press is an imprint of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd
(a registered charity)
13A Hellesdon Park Road, Norwich,
Norfolk, NR6 5DR, UK
Published in the United States in 2011 as Working with Words: On Learning to Speak Christian by Cascade Books, An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers,
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 9740
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, SCM Press.
The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978-0-334-04409-3
Kindle edition: 978-0-334-04451-2
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
To the Church of the Holy Family
and the Rector Search Committee:
Joe Bongiov, Carl Fox, Adam Grobin, Bob Houghtlin, Verlene Kuoni, Cathy Leslie, Anne Liptzin, Martha Mundy, John Paul, J. R. Rigby, Susan Sunnarborg, Lisa Worster (Chair), and Sheryl Forbis (Clerk)
Contents
I. Learning Christian: To See and to Speak
1 Look at It and Live: A Sermon
2 Seeing Darkness, Hearing Silence: Augustine’s Account of Evil
3 Disciplined Seeing: Forms of Christianity and Forms of Life with BRIAN GOLDSTONE
4 God and Goodness: A Theological Exploration
6 Speaking Christian: A Commencement Address
7 Why “The Way Words Run” Matters: Reflections on Becoming a “Major Biblical Scholar”
II. The Language of Love: From Death to Life
8 Why Did Jesus Have to Die? An Attempt to Cross the Barrier of Age
9 More, or, A Taxonomy of Greed
11 Love’s Work—Discerning the Body: A Sermon
13 Finite Care in a World of Infinite Need: A Sermon
14 Sent: The Church Is Mission
III. Habits of Speech Exemplified: Some Teachers
15 “Long Live the Weeds and the Wilderness Yet”: Reflections on A Secular Age with ROMAND COLES
17 The Virtues of Alasdair MacIntyre
18 The Virtues of the Summa Theologiae with SHERYL OVERMYER
20 Methodist Theological Ethics with D. STEPHEN LONG
21 Friendship and Freedom: Reflections on Bonhoeffer’s “The Friend”
Appendix: Learning to See Red Wheelbarrows: On Vision and Relativism
Preface
In Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir I suggested—or is confessed the better description?—that I write because writing is the only way I know how to think.1 That is not quite true. I am able to write, or I find I feel I have to write, because I read. Reading is also one of the ways I learn how to think. I am often asked how I have written so much. The only explanation, and it is not clear to me that it is an explanation, is that my writing is determined by my reading. Which means that I hope others will write about what I have written about