“I say I’m a pacifist because I’m a violent son of a bitch. I’m a Texan. I can feel it in every bone I’ve got. And I hate the language of pacifism because it’s too passive,” he says. “But by avowing it, I create expectations in others that hopefully will help me live faithfully to what I know is true but that I have no confidence in my own ability to live it at all”.
“I can enter into just war considerations. And it’s not clear to me at all that the war in Afghanistan has been begun or fought on just war grounds. Particularly, it’s not clear who the war is against. Who’s your enemy? Under what conditions do they know that they can surrender? I just think all of that has remained completely ambiguous.”
“Hauerwas believes theology should be taught as if it were true. He also believes that doing so has more profound implications for the church and society than most of us realise”.
“He is largely orthodox theologically and robustly critical of theological liberalism. But his condemnation of American patriotism, distaste for religious conservatives, frequent resort to profanity, and ambivalence about homosexuality have prevented his being an ally to evangelicals in his own United Methodist denomination”.
“But what does a pacifist have to say in the face of the terror September 11, 2001, names? I vaguely knew when I first declared I was a pacifist that there might be some serious consequences. To be nonviolent might even change my life. But I do not really think I understood what that change might entail until September 11”.
“I want people to get past the idea that they understand Christianity because they went to Sunday school,” Hauerwas says, in what sounds like a habitual tone of good-natured belligerence. “You have to learn how to do it. You have to undergo an apprenticeship. Nobody really wants to love their neighbor as themselves. That’s just not natural. So you have to see other people living it to find out what it means.”
“Christians must be ready to die, indeed have their children die, rather than betray the Gospel. … Christians are not called to be heroes. We are called to be holy.”
“Even if the culprit is Osama bin Laden, and we track him down, and we kill him and destroy his network, he’s won.
That’s because he is ready to die, and the people who support him are ready to die. Americans aren’t ready to die”.
“Recent research in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience has demonstrated that emotions are not, as we once thought, irrational, animalistic impulses to be suppressed and ignored. Instead, emotions are rich, cognitive phenomena essential to human health and the moral life. Appropriating such insight in their own work, dozens of biblical scholars and theologians have shown a recent surge of interest in the topic. This bibliography seeks to make the surprisingly large body of resultant literature accessible to a broader audience. It is intended not only to stimulate academic research in biblical studies and theology more generally, but also to aid preachers, teachers, counselors, and translators in their own work and ministry”.
A great bibliography from William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, David L. Mathewson, and Erin M. Heim of the New Testament Department of Denver Seminary
