Having finished the 40 minute interview with Stanley Hauerwas, I have a few observations:
First, Hauerwas is a kind of modern day prophet. His demeanor and quiet confidence manifests a type of prophetic character that is rare in our day.
Second, Hauerwas treats the cult of individualism as a form of modern day blasphemy that needs to be dealt with. The Bible, he argues, needs to be read with other people. We need a mediated faith; a faith that does not end with me and my Bible, but with me, my Bible, and the community; a faith that finds its culmination in the worship of God’s people.
Third, evangelicals at large do not understand what it means to live in this liturgical vision that Professor Hauerwas spoke about. They are frightened by the mere thought of repetition. Hauerwas argues that repetition, liturgical repetition, is the biblical antidote to the type of innovative Christian culture that tries to re-invent itself weekly to draw the masses. Repetition, through liturgical expression–morning prayer, etc.–is the type of repetition that builds a community capable of dealing with the ever-changing culture and fads of the evangelical mass.
Fourth, Hauerwas is not a postmillennialist. He argues in his monumental work Aliens that the Church is perpetually in bondage, and that persecution is its inevitable end. But in the end, that is a good thing, he says, because it teaches members of the body to depend on others. This vision, in my estimation, does not have to contradict the postmillennial vision. Hauerwas is arguing against an eschatology that is self-made; a form of utopian vision that takes the ecclesia out of the picture and that is built around charistmatic leaders. But, I argue, a healthy postmillennial vision is both ecclesiastical and built around the communion of saints. And, it ought to be shaped by the faith of the saints gone before us. By their example, we are building a future reality that honors our past story and is looking forward to the constant formation of a new humanity in Christ Jesus.
Finally, Hauerwas does not see the gospel merely in terms of born-againness. The Gospel cannot be merely summarized or associated with Billy Graham’s crusades. It is much greater than that:
That through Jesus Christ, very God and very man, we Gentiles have been made part of the promise to Israel that we will be witnesses to God’s good care of God’s creation through the creation of a people who once were no people that the world can see there is an alternative to our violence. There is an alternative to our deceptions. There is an alternative to our unfaithfulness to one another though the creation of something called church. That’s salvation.
The evangelical church and the evangelical eschatology needs Hauerwas. Without him we are trapped in our tribal pursuits. With him, we learn to be Christians in the right way.
