Jesus Changes Everything - by Stanley Hauerwas

I haven't read Hauerwas since the early 2000s. My last awareness of his work was Resident Aliens, which he wrote with William Willimon. I found Hauerwas' mindset in that book to be encouraging, prophetic, and a clarion call to change our ways. When asked to review Hauerwas' newest book, Jesus Changes Everything, I thought, "Wow, I wonder what he might have to say now."

For those unfamiliar with Hauerwas, he is not an Anabaptist in the birthright sense. Hauerwas is an American Protestant theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual.1 He taught at the University of Notre Dame. Eventually, he moved to Duke University. Born in 1940 in Texas to a bricklayer, his formative life wasn't a cakewalk. He was educated at Southwestern University, Yale, and the University of Edinburgh. Among his influences are Aristotle, Søren Kierkegaard, John Howard Yoder, and Michel Foucault. Hauerwas is a prodigious writer.

So why should Anabaptists be interested in Hauerwas? First, I think he gets two kingdoms in ways birthright Anabaptists have either forgotten or they’ve not plumbed the depths of for themselves. People born in the stream of Anabaptism hear "two-kingdoms" spoken of like an old-fashioned Pentecostal is conditioned to hearing and accepting thunderous "praise the lord" or "amen" every time a point is made at church. These touch points in some cases are "buzzwords" to which we’ve given little thought. However, for researchers like Hauerwas and myself, "two kingdoms" is like the pearl of great price, mentioned in Matthew 13:45-46. We both found this terminology later in our lives and sold all the former understandings to embrace this point that divides belief in a belief from a lived reality. Secondly, Hauerwas spent time with one of the most preeminent thinkers of the 20th century. Even though John Howard Yoder was later disgraced, the Anabaptist point of view was communicated. Hauerwas has been among the Bruderhof, though I am unsure of the exact depth of involvement.

I am not a light reader! When I read a book, oftentimes, it isn't worth passing on to others. I mark it up, bend page corners, and finally copy significant details into a database to use later. Thus, it takes me a bit.

I liked this book first because of what it said, which we will get to in a minute. Its trim size is a nifty 5 x 7 inches. It doesn't look commanding, like a tome from Dostoevsky or Dallas Willard. People will like this volume because it is approachable. Hauerwas' is straightforward as if he were talking to a high school student. Thus, Hauerwas' delivery is axiomatic. The content is like a lush pasture in the Spring. One feels enveloped by the writer, not smothered by intellect or pushiness. Chapters are crisp, rarely beyond 3-5 pages.

Hauerwas starts talking about the kingdom of God almost without any more introduction than we would get if we read scripture directly. But then he weaves modern stories into the fray as if to say somebody else understood the import. The kingdom of God is about "following Jesus" with a reckless abandon that shows itself in contrast to the ways of men. In the first chapter, he relates the story of Koinonia Farms, an interracial experiment in Georgia of the 1950s. A pair of brothers, Clarence and Robert Jordan, became divided over applying the New Testament teaching in real life over just observing and appreciating it as nice sounding.

How many people do we know who appreciate the Bible or even the New Testament but can't find the fortitude to apply it in real life? I suppose we could label such as hypocrisy. But it illustrates many we know—even within Anabaptism—who only give lip service to the truth. Hauerwas is laying an axe to that specific tree, which is a reality that is accepted and allowed in many places today.

Hauerwas maintains a full-court press against the idealism of religious passivity—which deals in platitudes and smiles—while denying entry into the fracas of life as Jesus' disciple. If you follow Jesus, you won't get a crook on your nose by looking out the screen door. But you will get nicked up by stepping out from behind the safety of that screen door into the free-for-all of the world. It is only in the fracas of the world that contrast will ever take shape as the fruit of God's Spirit is illustrated. It is borne out in our lives and interactions with the unregenerate world. Hauerwas borrows Bonhoeffer, who said it (faith) is a matter of being "dragged out of our relative security into a life of absolute insecurity—that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus."2

Hauerwas encourages us to come out from the safety of "church" (a little safety nest we've created for ourselves), conflating it with what we see as Ekklesia in the New Testament. Jesus—and Stanley Hauerwas—are asking us to wade out into the ocean of what Jesus wants to do where our security is Jesus himself. We've made a panacea of "church" experience, whereas Jesus wants us to be His contrast to a world bent on evil and going down the tubes. This can't be done by navel-gazing in pews in the fortress of timber, shingles, brick, and mortar.

Hauerwas exposes our anemic view of love. "If Christ was but a preacher of love, one wonders how he could have ever ended on a cross – for who is going to object to that kind of preaching? He is nailed to the cross because his love is the revelation of God's righteousness, which brings pain and change and calls us to extend the have to those we cannot seem to love."3 Wow! What an exposé of churchianity today, even within the better end of it in conservative Anabaptism? We prefer our fences, mutual admiration, and folks who look like us to wading out into the world to love those who may be unlovable, but certainly, folks we wouldn't usually choose to love.

Again, Hauerwas is cutting off the limb we commonly hang out upon. Contrast means that there is a difference, it can be detected, and that the difference is present to that which it contrasts. This is the problem for most forms of Christianity, which hole up in buildings whose constituents never seem to differentiate themselves from the world other than in exteriors and talk. Hauerwas points to this issue. Much radicalness in our circles stops at "what we don't do." We've conflated radicalness with we don't dress like the world, do "entertainment," or drink, with thinking we’ve upheld the radicalness of Jesus and our forefathers, who both paid a heavy price for being quite different than we’ve become.

Throughout the book, Hauerwas presses the idea of an "alternative social ethic"—the kingdom of God. As Anabaptists, we believe the kingdom of God is a now reality (as well as a greater eventuality). However, Hauerwas challenges even Anabaptist with the living of it. "What kind of order was Jesus talking about? What kind of social alternative? This was a voluntary society: you could not be a citizen of it simply by being born into it… This was a society with no second-generation members.4 This is a tough word for most conservative of modern Anabaptists who commonly lean on adding to the faith is just raising a family in the church community.

Hauerwas shares in relation to this theme, "To be a disciple of Jesus is to be grafted into a new family that Christ has constituted."5

But how many "new disciples" come into our circles this way?

Hauerwas continues, "The kingdom of God grows by witness and conversion."6 Sections like this will prove to be an admonition to those in Anabaptist circles who have relegated "witness" to the way we live, think everyone sinful will admire and come running. Yet when we read Matt. 28:19-20, which is never quoted in this volume, it says, "go" make disciples, which is an intentionality we need to square with.

Most original Anabaptists were quite evangelistic. They preached, traveled, and witnessed wherever they went about Jesus' love and the need to repent and enter into a kingdom of discipleship. This trait has been lost, and while Hauerwas doesn't harp on it, his hints cannot be missed.

As a continuation of his "alternative social ethic," he makes this statement, "The way for the world to know that it needs redeeming, that is, it's broken and fallen, is for the church to enable the world to strike hard against something that is an alternative to what the world offers."7

I dearly appreciate this point. My former tradition would stone someone saying such because they want an easy pass through the world to kick the bucket and go to be with Jesus, where it's all good for them. For Anabaptists, however, most tend to staying away from the world. A friend of mine—coming into conservative Anabaptist circles went to a well-known conference. During the presentation, a widely known Anabaptist figure exclaimed, "Anabaptist suffered tremendous persecution, and we're not going back." This is a reoccurring attitude—stay out of the fracas, but be upstanding moral—but remain aloof.

Hauerwas is laying an axe to both notions. To be understood as God's kingdom is not only to be differentiated—which Anabaptists have a fair understanding of—but also to be available to the world as a constant reminder of what it is not. We can't hole up in the country and our religious structures and be Good Samaritans only when we can't escape it.

Concluding Thoughts:Hauerwas' book will be salty—even for those who have embraced conservative Anabaptism. It will be like walking on glass for nominal church people. Hauerwas is like the kindly old grandpa who says what we might not like to hear. One of the things I appreciate most about this book is that Hauerwas didn't fall into the typical ditches of the false dichotomy of politically liberal or conservative coloring of truth. The old Amish proverb says that there are two miles of ditches for every one mile of road. Many renditions of the "kingdom of God" in Anabaptist circles often fall into the social gospel (social justice, cultural equity, trying to make the world a better place…). Hauerwas stays clear of the ditches of this left vss. right trap to present an alternative that the world will not try to replicate and often will persecute because it can't stand being reflected in contrast. Hauerwas draws this point into sharp focus—an admonition for us in the degenerating days in which we live to yet still be "in" the world in order to contrast to it.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley...

2. Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, ISBN 978-1-630608-157-1, pg. 8

3. Ibid, pg. 19

4. Ibid, pg. 41

5. Ibid, pg. 63

6. Ibid, pg. 63

7. Ibid, pg. 115

Notable Quotes:

Jesus calls us to join a community that is formed by a story that enables its member to trust the otherness of the other as the very sign of the forgiving character of God's kingdom.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 17

If Christ was but a preacher of love, one wonders how he could have ever ended on a cross – for who is going to object to that kind of preaching? He is nailed to the cross because his love is the revelation of God's righteousness, which brings pain and change and calls us to extend the have to those we cannot seem to love.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 19

What kind of order was Jesus talking about? What kind of social alternative? This was a voluntary society: you could not be a citizen of it simply by being born into it… This was a society with no second-generation members

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 41

He (Jesus) gave them a new way to deal with problems of leadership - by drawing on the gift of every member.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 41

Charity is not about removing all injustice in the world, but about meeting the need of our neighbors right where we find them. And Christ shows us who our neighbors are. He expects us to bind up the wounds of those right before us.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 57

Christians do, and are obligated to, have a concern about the societies in which they exist, but our task is not to make (force) the world apart form Christ in the kingdom of love. Our task is to be a community where charity takes the from of truth. We must first be a people that is shaped by the story that sustains charity in a world where it cannot be sustained.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 58

Thought we must, in the interest of charity, ask the state to live up to its own standards of just, we must never delude ourselves into thinking that the justice of the state is what is required of us as people formed by God's kingdom.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 58

This is why the church is to be a community of charity. "See how they love one another," the pagans said of the Christians.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 58

To be a disciple of Jesus is to be grafted into a new family that Christ has constituted. Stanley Hauerwas Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 59

Rather, the kingdom of God grows by witness and conversion. Through such growth Christians will discover sisters and brothers we did not know we had.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 59

Today's church simply is not a soil capable of growing deep roots.

Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 79

The way for the world to know that it needs redeeming, that is its broken and fallen, is for the church to enable the world to strike hard against something that is an alternative to what the world offers. Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 115

…the church and Christians must be uninvolved in the politics of society and involved in the polity that is the church. Stanley Hauerwas Jesus Changes Everything, pg. 117