The latest from Stanley Hauerwas: Memoir and Movies

I have placed below two comments I have written about Hays and Hauerwas.
http://nijaygupta.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/hauerwas-defends-his-hermeneutic/

The piece by Hauerwas in Hays’s festschrift is fascinating not least because Hauerwas and Hays are both involved in my project here at Duke. There is just too much to comment on but I would merely say that in 1996 when writing Moral Vision of the New Testament, Hays was trying to explain how one might draw from the insights of biblical studies (i.e. what is done at SBL) in order to engage life’s issues (sometimes called “ethics”). In other words, Hays took on the project of explaining how “preaching” or “writing a commentary” or “doing theology” should happen–a monstrous task. He embarked later with a cross-disciplinary group of scholars to put out The Art of Reading Scripture in 2003.
Meanwhile, Hauerwas’s life work has been to argue through philosophy why the Bible should not be the arena of specialized scholars in the academe. He has tried to explain why his area “ethics” cannot be done in a universal way by a guild of scholars from differing religious communities. In other words, Hays is trying to explain to biblical studies scholars that their work can be used for ethics. Hauerwas is trying to explain to ethics scholars that their work can only be done within a community–specifically arguing that Christian ethics should be done with the Bible and in conversation with other Christians. In the end, they come down very close to one another–both United Methodists worshiping with Anglicans–Hauerwas at Church of the Holy Family and Hays at Duke Chapel with Sam Wells. (Wells wrote his dissertation–a sympathetic treatment–on Hauerwas). Both appreciate John Howard Yoder because Yoder as an ethicist is savvy about the ethical methodology that Hauerwas appreciates–doing ethics in the church by the church while his work is infused with references to Scripture like a New Testament scholar.
A side note: evangelicals, though to a great degree in agreement with Hauerwas and Hays, often don’t understand them. It is important for everyone to understand the backgrounds and situations Hays and Hauerwas are writing against–both grew up in nominal American liberal mainline Christian homes where they learned little about the Bible, Christ and the Church–they came to warm-hearted faith later in life–and then labored in the halls of the fragmented theology university departments where New Testament, ethics and theology are different disciplines and never should intersect–this is what they are arguing against. Many others at Yale (where both did graduate work) also had this experience and thus some call them “post-liberals.” For evangelicals, one has to first understand where these people are coming from to understand why they are arguing the way they do–the folk they came from have a series of presuppositions that Hauerwas and Hays feel responsible to engage.

http://euangelizomai.blogspot.com/2009/11/etsibrsbl-2009-reflections-part-two.html

As one of the speakers said, the biblical studies people particularly like the volumes of the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible which are more like other commentaries done by biblical studies scholars. Telford Work’s on Deuteronomy was mentioned positively) while other volumes (Jaroslav Pelican’s and Stanley Hauerwas’s) less positively.

Two of my teachers are Stanley Hauerwas and Richard Hays. Hays does not quite understand what Hauerwas was trying to do in that commentary. While Hauerwas in Hays’s festschrift defends strongly his method and characterizes the assumptions behind historical-critical scholarship as philosophically naive.

At first glance they seem worlds apart, but on further investigation, they seem far closer.

Hauerwas is particularly keen to avoid elaborate speculative reconstructions of what occasioned New Testament texts. In other words, regarding Matthew, he does not care to spend that much time reconstructing what the “Matthean Community” that produced the text thought and did.

However, he particularly appreciates readings that notice literary devices in the text. He is very interested in the internal structure of the document and allusions to the overarching story of Scripture.

It seems to me that in general Hays shares these inclinations as do most evangelical biblical scholars.

Furthermore, at this year’s SBL, Hays did a paper entitled “Spirit, Church, Eschatology: The Third Article of the Creed as Hermeneutical Lens for Reading Romans” which I recorded and posted with permission at
Audio from SBL: Gaventa, Hays and Gorman on Romans as Christian Theology.

This sounds quite similar to the comments about the Nicene Creed being the basis of the Scriptural commentary in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible–see introduction by Rusty Reno.

Furthemore, Hauerwas praises Kavin Rowe and Marcus Bockmuehl–both New Testament scholars who Hays thinks highly of.

Hauerwas also praises the conclusions in The Art of Reading Scripture which Hays himself also cited in his presentation.

It seems to me that the Brazos series reveals the frustrations theologians have with biblical scholars and has the potential to help Christian scholars move toward a consensus somewhere in the middle.

Joel Willitts, after reading your reviews of R. T. France’s Matthew commentary, it occurs to me that Hauerwas would probably appreciate what you call France’s “common-sense approach to the higher critical issues and methodology that is commendable.” Like France, Hauerwas is skeptical about the degree to which one can correctly date Matthew or reconstruct the nature of the Matthean community. Hauerwas like France also spends little time on introductory issues–focusing instead on commentary and narrative structure.

I’ve had the gift of being able to read through the manuscript of Hannah’s Child, and it is indeed wonderful. It is amazing the work that man accomplished in the midst of so much going on in his home life.