Update: Thursday, September 9. The interview is now posted:
'The Gospel Makes the Everyday Possible'
his new memoir, addresses his critics, and explains why he says, 'We're
all congregationalists now.'
Update: Monday, August 16, noon. I finished my interview and did a slightly different set of questions than those listed below. Thanks for all the good comments.
I'm interviewing Stanley Hauerwas for Christianity Today tomorrow (Monday, August 16th) about his memoir
Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir. I'm open to your suggestions for questions to ask him but keep them mostly about the book, memoir writing, and his life story.
Here are my draft questions so far:
- Some college students go away to college and lose their faith. But education played a huge role in your life and had the opposite effect. Mentors in college, books you read, and people at Yale, Notre Dame and Duke led you to Christ. How did the life of the mind help make and keep you a Christian?
- Some people dismiss your work as unrealistic because you call yourself a pacifist. John Stackhouse, in his book Making the Best of It, has understood you to be advocating for “cultural withdrawal” (p. 6-7). Nathan Kerr in his book Christ, History and Apocalyptic argues that you overreact to the civil religion found in American liberal mainline Protestantism by emphasizing church practices deeply rooted in the Christian tradition such as the Eucharist. Kerr argues that one can get the impression you are saying the Holy Spirit is only operative in church practices. What would you say to these type of criticisms that accuse you of burying your head in the sand?
- Some people assume that theologians like to pray in public and preach but these were acquired tastes for you in your fifties and sixties. What happened?
- One theme in your new memoir Hannah's Child is the importance of telling the truth. You describe the tough work you did with your father laying brick. Did you learn the importance of directness and telling the truth from the straight talk of fellow bricklayers in Texas in your youth? Did a tenure job in the university give you a unique opportunity to tell the truth?
- You have had your doctoral students become professors at Wheaton College, Westmont College, Bethel University, and Fuller Theological Seminary and other “evangelical” institutions. The church historian David Bebbington says the term “evangelical” is associated with four characteristics: crucicentrism, biblicism, activism, and conversionism. What parts of being an evangelical do you appreciate?
- Much of your work that builds upon Alasdair MacIntyre attempts to clear away common intellectual obstacles and objections to Christian faith. Is this what evangelicals would call “apologetics?”
- Following Karl Barth and John Howard Yoder, you urge that the Bible is crucial for the church. But you also urge Bible readers to utilize the wisdom of church’s tradition. How should Christians read the Bible as a church?
- You say at the end of your memoir Hannah’s Child that the process of writing helped you realize that you are in fact a Christian. [“As I shared this manuscript with friends along the way, someone asked me what I had learned in the process of writing Hannah's Child . . . But in fact what I have learned is quite simple–I am a Christian. How interesting” (p. 284)]. Did the process of reflecting on the events of your life give you perspective on the whole?
See also the interview my old youth group friend Dan Morehead did with Hauerwas in May for Wunderkammer Magazine.
Dan also solicited questions for his interview with Hauerwas at Ben Myers's blog Faith and Theology.
See also my category Stanley Hauerwas for more posts about Hauerwas.
Comments
9 responses to “Suggestions for questions for my Christianity Today interview with Stanley Hauerwas about Hannah’s Child?”
– How does he feel about recent tendencies to critique his work as ‘too ecclesiocentric?’
– How would he like to see theological education develop in the future?
In “Hannah’s Child,” Dr. Hauerwas reflects on his experiences with prayer, but makes no mention of regularly attending services of Morning Prayer using the “Book of Common Prayer.” How has the practice of attending Morning Prayer shaped his understanding of prayer and his outlook on academic work?
I’m sorry, Andy, that you chose to say that I “dismiss” Brother Stanley’s work (which I don’t) and that I accuse him of simple “cultural withdrawal” (which I don’t, but rather try to give full recognition to the important qualifications he and Yoder make, namely, withdrawal only at the point of implication in violence). It’s hard enough for me to make my points clearly against the main currents of contemporary academic ethics (which include, of course, SH’s own views) without being misrepresented.
I look forward, nonetheless, to hearing how SH responded to the interview.
Dear Professor Stackhouse, these were my notes and the reference to your critique did not make it into the final questions. Sorry you felt misrepresented and I’m glad you clarified here. I know Dr. Hauerwas has read your book. Here is the Google Books link to the “cultural withdrawal” reference on page 7 and people can scroll up and see the the reference to Hauerwas on page 6. http://books.google.com/books?id=PgFtIUAJvKcC&lpg=PP1&dq=john%20stackhouse%20making%20the%20best%20of%20it&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q=%22cultural%20withdrawal%22&f=false
See also page 215 on Hauerwas: http://books.google.com/books?id=PgFtIUAJvKcC&lpg=PP1&dq=john%20stackhouse%20making%20the%20best%20of%20it&pg=PA215#v=onepage&q=Hauerwas&f=false
and 208: http://books.google.com/books?id=PgFtIUAJvKcC&lpg=PP1&dq=john%20stackhouse%20making%20the%20best%20of%20it&pg=PA208#v=onepage&q=Hauerwas&f=false
Page 311 is the final and most nuanced treatment of Hauerwas’s position I think: http://books.google.com/books?id=PgFtIUAJvKcC&lpg=PP1&dq=john%20stackhouse%20making%20the%20best%20of%20it&pg=PA311#v=onepage&q=Hauerwas&f=false
Yes, the p. 215 qualification is the key one. On p. 6 I am speaking very broadly of a general stance and needed a summary phrase.
And I never say anything approaching “head in the sand,” Andy, you bad boy!
Where the heck did you do your graduate degree, to be allowed such bad, bad scholarship?
Hauerwas often himself addresses the accusation by James Gustafson that he is a “sectarian, fideistic, tribalist.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=fqMjkGjim1cC&lpg=PT175&ots=jyp2-fQMhx&dq=fideistic%20tribalist%20sectarian%20hauerwas&pg=PT175#v=onepage&q=sectarian&f=false
However worded, this is the main charge against Hauerwas in popular and academic circles. I did not include “head in the sand” in my final draft. I think that is the wrong phrase but I can’t think of a more popular way of saying “sectarian, fideistic, tribalist.” Here is what I asked him. “Your critics say that you want Christians to retreat from the world and just practice the Eucharist. How do you respond?”
Yes, and, as you know, I cite him responding to that charge in the discussion on p. 215.
Anyhow, I’ve been enjoying a friendly correspondence with Stanley of late, and I trust you’ll be glad to know that I take you and your blog seriously enough to remonstrate with you, good brother!
(I was hoping you’d come back at me on my last question so that other readers will know that it was meant to be self-deprecating, my being a Regent professor and you being a Regent grad and–ah, forget it!)
Carry on, Andy!
Great. Yes, I am a proud Regent grad where you teach. I should have mentioned I got the joke!
Interview is now online:
‘The Gospel Makes the Everyday Possible’
70-year old Duke theologian Stanley Hauerwas explains his new memoir, addresses his critics, and explains why he says, ‘We’re all congregationalists now.’
Interview by Andy Rowell | posted 9/09/2010 09:44AM
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/septemberweb-only/46-41.0.html