10 Minutes with … Stanley Hauerwas

From Religion News Service Blog at religionnews.com

(RNS1-NOV4) Ethicist Stanley Hauerwaus is an expert on just war theory and believes Christians have been too passive about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For use with RNS-TEN-MINUTES, transmitted Nov. 4, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy of Duke Divinity Schoo.

November 4, 2009

NEWS FEATURE

10 Minutes with … Stanley Hauerwas

By Kevin Eckstrom

DURHAM, N.C. (RNS) Remember that book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”? Let’s just say that Duke University ethicist Stanley Hauerwas has been hugely influential, but that doesn’t mean his salty tongue has made him a lot of friends along the way.

Hauerwas, a self-described Christian pacifist, is an expert on just war theory. As Hauerwas sees it, not only did Iraq and Afghanistan fail to meet the criteria of a just war, but neither did World War II. Now, as the Obama administration weighs its options in Afghanistan, Hauerwas remains decidedly pessimistic not only about American prospects, but also American morality.

Hauerwas, 69, talked about his view on war and peace, his dismal assessment about the state of America’s churches, and why President Obama isn’t likely to come calling. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What should President Obama do about Afghanistan?

A: Afghanistan was understood to be part of the war against terror, and that was a decisive mistake because as soon as you said we are at war, you gave Osama bin Laden what he wanted—he became a warrior, and not just a murderer. I would be much happier with a whole reconsideration of our involvement there—not as a war, but as a police function, and how the police might intervene to arrest bin Laden. I know that sounds utopian, but just try thinking you’re going to win a war in Afghanistan. I can’t imagine anything more utopian than that. Ask the British. Ask the Russians. It’s never going to happen.

Q: With seven years of hindsight, was Afghanistan ever a just war?

A: Afghanistan has the possibility of being limited in a way that might make it a bit more justifiable, but it’s still not clear what we’re fighting for. It’s so deeply ambiguous that it’s hard to fit into just war criteria. The very idea that you begin to assess the justness of a war after the war is already going to happen, I’m sorry, it’s already too late.

Q: How would you assess the church’s response to the Iraq war?

A: Awful. Christians—and it started with Sept. 11, as soon as we said we are at war—Christians said “that’s us.” We never asked the hard questions about the war on terror, and that is, I think, why Iraq happened. It has everything to do with the inability to distinguish between the Christian “we” and the American “we.”

Q: So does the church need a service of repentance?

A: The church has lost its ability to be a disciplined community because we’re now, religiously, in a buyer’s market. Christianity has to bill itself as very good for your self-realization, and that’s killing us because we’re not very good for your self-realization. We’re good for your salvation, which is not the same thing. Hopefully God is making sure that we’re not going to survive in the position we’re currently in.

Q: What kinds of questions should be we asking now about Afghanistan?

A: We need to ask them to tell us the truth. Tell us that we’re engaged in an unwinnable business here, but we have these kinds of political stakes and we want to achieve those, and people are going to die for ambiguous political ends. Just tell us the truth.

Q: What should be the church’s role in the debate over Afghanistan?

A: Let’s start with people in our congregations who are connected with the military, and ask them how they can justify that. Let’s start there. I have high regard for people in the military, but very seldom are they asked to justify what they’re doing.

Q: So every Christian is called to be a pacifist?

A: Yes, absolutely.

Q: So how do you respond to people who say that’s unrealistic?

A: Try lifelong monogamous fidelity in marriage. Do you think that’s realistic? Yet we do it. I’m not terribly cowed by the charge of being unrealistic.

Q: If Obama were to call you for advice on Afghanistan, what would you say?

A: I’d say you have to tell the American some really hard truths, namely that the war on terror was a mistake and we’ve got to start, as Americans, learning to live in a world that we don’t control. That’s not going to make you very popular.

Q: So you’d be politically toxic to the president of the United States?

A: Yeah, I would be. Just like (former Obama pastor) Jeremiah Wright. I hope I’m absolutely as toxic as Jeremiah Wright.

Q: Why?

A: Because I think what I’m saying is what Christians should be saying.

Q: The hard truths?

A: Absolutely.

"There is no I in TEAM" - NYTimes article on Duke Basketball's Greg Paulus

Coaches often say, "There is no I in TEAM," and in this NYTimes article, the concept of "servant leadership" and "putting the team first" take on a new incarnation in Duke Basketball's Greg Paulus:

Pretty interesting...

A Three-Year Starter at Duke Watches and Waits

By RAY GLIER

Published: March 17, 2009

ATLANTA — Against Florida State here Sunday in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski summoned point guard Greg Paulus from his bench. Paulus jumped up as if he had been sitting on a pile of red ants and was ready to rush into the game. Against Maryland the night before, Paulus could have knocked down a wall hustling to the scorer’s table to check in late in the first half.

read the rest HERE

UNC vs. Duke

Two players in the Duke / UNC game tonight were students at Episcopal Academy when I taught there. Wayne Ellington from UNC and Gerald Henderson, Jr. from Duke are great players and great people as well. I love the March Madness of College Hoops and it's great to see these great games!

Christmas in the Empire - by William Willimon

I wonder how many of us have ever played a role in a Christmas or Epiphany pageant. Was it an animal (for me, a donkey), a shepherd, one of the Magi, an angel, Mary, Joseph...? One of my favorite writers is William Willimon, who is now a United Methodist Bishop and used to be Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. He offers a challenging and helpful reflection about where we (as Christians in the United States) might place ourselves in the story of Christmas. I have posted an excerpt below, and you can read the rest HERE.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Christmas in the Empire, by William Willimon

On Christmas Eve we read a story about how a poor couple named Mary and Joseph were forced by imperial political decrees to pack up, to journey across the countryside (even though Mary was expecting a baby), to hold up in a cow stable, all as the result of Caesar’s enrollment. The Romans had the most power, and the biggest army of any Western country ever to conquer the Middle East. How are you going to keep these Jews in their place if you don’t enroll them? So Caesar Augustus decreed, and cruel King Herod enforced, the order that everybody had to go to the city of his or her ancestors and get registered. Mary and Joseph were Jews, under the heel of the vast Roman Empire, the greatest Empire the world has ever known, with the largest army of occupation — that is until us.

When I read the Christmas story, it is unfair for me to read myself into the places of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, or even the wise men. This was their home. They are under the heel of the Empire, their lives jerked around by imperial decrees.

I live in Rome with Caesar Augustus, or maybe in Jerusalem up at the palace with that King Herod, lackey for the Roman overlords. I’d rather see myself as one of the relatives of Mary and Joseph. I wouldn’t mind being one of the shepherds, out working the night shift, surprised when the heavens filled with angels.

But that is not my place in the story. My place in the story is as a beneficiary of the Empire. I am well fixed. I don’t live up in the palace, but I live in a home which -- with its modern conveniences and security -- the majority of the world’s people would call a palace.

Read the rest HERE.

Archbishop George Carey at Duke University (from Feb, 2007)

On my way driving down from NYC to Virginia I listened to the podcast (available on itunes) of this excellent and interesting lecture given in February by Archbishop George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, at Duke University back in February.

While I disagree with some of his thinking, and his approach to scripture differs from mine, I thought this lecture to be very very interesting, and make sure to listen to it online, because both Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina and Dr. Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University make comments and ask questions.

When Archbishop Carey came to VTS to speak in the spring of 2006, I was not all that impressed, and thought he dodged some earnest and probing questions. In this lecture I appreciate his take on the issues and the situation in which we find ourselves ... well worth the time to listen ... check it out and let me know what you think!

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Speaks at Duke Divinity School

Read text and see video of the Feb. 7 address by Lord Carey of Clifton, "Anglican Communion: Past Blessings, Present Challenges and Future Hopes"

February 7, 2007

I must begin this address by thanking Jo Wells for her welcome and all those who have made it possible for Eileen and myself to make this trip to North Carolina. We are especially delighted to be here at Duke University and gain a flavour of the life and vitality of this place.

View video of Lord Carey's address

Duke’s Methodist roots are well known, of course, and remind us of the debt that both Anglicanism and Methodism owe to each other. I served my Title as Curate at St.Mary’s Islington in London and recall noting with delight on my first day there, that the great Charles Wesley had been a curate at the same church in the 18th century. Episcopalians are indebted to our young sister’s commitment to evangelism and social action.

However, the 18th century Church of England did not take too kindly to Methodism’s enthusiasm and direct spirituality. An ironic and somewhat bizarre witness to this is found in a church near Cambridge where a memorial plaque records the ministry of the Rector, of whom the plaque states ‘served for 38 years in this parish without the slightest trace of enthusiasm.’

That astonishing memorial was not erected by disgruntled parishioners but actually delighted ones who were clearly pleased that, during their Rector’s time the ‘enthusiasts,’ that is the Methodists, were kept at bay. Sadly, the division between our two churches today is due to that kind of attitude which prevailed all too often at that period.

Both John and Charles Wesley were disappointed by the reception given by the Established Church to the fledgling ‘methodistical’ preachers of their day. They died priests in the Church of England, even though both knew with reluctance that it would be only a matter of few years before the inevitable split between mother and daughter came about.

Dr.Wells invited me to speak about the Anglican Communion today, and I offered the title of: “The Anglican Communion; Past Blessings, present Challenges, future Hope.” I do so with some hesitancy because I run the risk of some telling me, yet again, that I am interfering and that I am undermining the work of Archbishop Rowan Williams.

My response is twofold; it is difficult to accept the accusation of interfering when I am speaking of my own Communion, to which I gave so much in eleven exhausting and fulfilling years. I love this Communion and I love the Episcopal Church of the United States. One only ‘interferes’ if the matter has nothing to do with one. This is scarcely the case.

Secondly, I fully support the present Archbishop of Canterbury in his desire to hold the Communion together and to find a way out of the present serious situation we are in. The Windsor Report, if accepted by all, would strengthen the Communion and heal our brokenness. Alas, it has already become clear that its strong medicine does not please parts of our body and has been rejected by some. The coming Primates Meeting in Tanzania should be in all our prayers as the leaders of the Communion seek a way forward to hold the family together.

So, let me reflect with you from this place, Duke University, a former bastion of Methodist life. What would the Wesley brothers have made of the Anglican Communion; indeed, would it have been a reality in their day?

read the rest HERE....or, ... HERE.