Lee
This is Tokens. I'm Lee C. Camp.
You know, they say that you should never meet your heroes. As a matter of fact, one instance in which I tried to meet one of my heroes turned out to be one of my wife's most embarrassing moments. That's a story for another day involving Garrison Keillor that I promise to tell eventually... maybe, maybe not. But nonetheless, the fear of the embarrassment had remained. Such fears provide a subtle temptation to cowardice, really, but in another instance, meeting another academic hero of mine, it turned out that courage provided its own reward. This did not mean it lacked its difficult--even awkward--moments.
Stanley
Now, you wonder what could possibly produce someone with a soul that shallow.
Lee
That's professor Stanley Hauerwas, once dubbed by Time Magazine with the moniker “America's greatest theologian.” This is ironic because, well, Stanley has spent so much of his life critiquing and criticizing American Christianity. And it will be ironic to some, because Stanley sounds so, well, un-theologian-like, or at least so un-pious-like.
Stanley
When did Christians become Christians to be safe? I mean, that's not our game. Our game is danger, and thank God, because otherwise life is just so damn uninteresting.
Lee
Our interview, and a bit of standup comedy with Stan the man, in just a moment.
Well, Christmastime brought a new dog to our house, a Hav-a-poo. His name is Otis. We love Otis. The Havanese part of the dog seems to keep the obnoxious poodle yapping at a minimum. Grateful for that. Both the poodle and the Havanese parts are hypoallergenic, so it sheds little. It makes it easy, both on my allergies, and easy on the furniture with little shedding. And the mix of the Havanese and the poodle makes the dog cuter than a poodle ever could be, precious even. My lovely wife Laura tells me that should anything happen to her, all I have to do is go to the park, walk the dog, and I can get any woman I want.
[Laughter]
Lee
Little Otis is the zenith of what it means to be a domesticated animal: delightful plaything, lap dog. It's precisely what I want if I am going to share my house with a canine. Sometimes I look at that precious little dog sleeping on the footstool, nestled up against my leg, and wonder whether we Christians might be lap dogs of the highest order: domesticated, our offensive particularities habituated out of us, which brings us to Stanley Hauerwas.
[Laughter]
Stanley's a native of Pleasant Mountain, Texas, and a cradle Methodist. He ended up being a theologian because his mother prayed the same prayer that the Old Testament Hannah prayed, who, when unable to have a child, promised God that if God would give her a child, she'd give him over to God. So when Stanley as an adolescent found himself in those piotistic Sunday evening meetings not receiving the experience of getting saved at the altar calls on Sunday night, he decided in good stereotypical Texan fashion to force God's hand. So he went to the altar to tell the pastor that he was going to be a minister. Stanley figured if he was going to be a minister and announce his intentions, God would have to save him.
[Laughter]
Years later, a Yale PhD, long, esteemed tenures at Notre Dame and Duke University, and after decades of criticizing American Christianity, Time Magazine ironically called Stanley America's greatest theologian. The irony signifies how Hauerwas holds together all sorts of elements many people think exclusive. As one example, he's a pacifist who insists upon the moral significance of the meekness of Christ, and yet he has no interest in hiding the offenses of either his convictions or his being a Texan. Sometime ago, for example, Hauerwas was invited to offer a prayer at a luncheon at Duke. He was told it was to be a civil prayer, so as not to offend anyone present. He at first declined the invitation, thinking it pointless, in his words, to “pray to a vague God who cannot be named as the father of Jesus Christ,” but he reconsidered, showed up at the luncheon, and prayed this prayer: “God, you alone know how we're to pray to you on occasions like this. We do not fear you, since we prefer to fear one another. Accordingly, our prayers are not to you, but to some ultimate vagueness. You have, of course, tried to scare the hell out of some of us through the creation of your people, Israel, and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But we are a subtle, crafty, and stiff-necked people. We prefer to be damned into vagueness. So we thank you for giving us common gifts, such as food, friendship, and good works, that remind us our lives are gifts made possible by sacrifice. Through such gifts may our desire for status and the envy which status breeds be transformed into service that glorifies you. Amen.” Since giving that prayer, Duke changed its policies at such functions. They now observe a moment of silence instead.
[Laughter]
Welcome, Stanley.
Stanley
Thank you very much. Thank you. It's great to be here. I'd forgotten that prayer.
Lee
Stanley
Yeah, right? It's pretty good prayer.
Lee
It is pretty good.
[Laughter]
Well, speaking of things you said and maybe you've forgotten, let me remind you of a few. One thing--I don't think you've forgotten this much--you will often say that the first task of the church is to be the church, not to make the world more just, and things like that the first task of the church is to let the world know it's the world.
Stanley
Lee
And there've been folks who have said that because you talk in such ways, you're some sort of tribalistic, fideistic sectarian.
Stanley
Yeah. I wouldn't mind being any of those, only you can't withdraw from the world. Hell, we're surrounded. So I figure you just have to keep the wagon train going through, and you're going to take a lot of casualties. And you want to take casualties for the right reasons. And on the whole, the church in America hasn't been taking casualties for the right reasons. I mean, in America we produce Christians that say things like, “I believe Jesus is Lord, but that's just my personal opinion.” Now, you wonder what could possibly produce someone with a soul that shallow. So we're not well-positioned to be a church ready to take on the world, I fear.
Lee
Why do you think we've gotten ourselves in the place that that's the status quo?
Stanley
I think that Christians think... well, now that I'm back among the Methodists, I have discovered that the Methodist have a conviction that God is nice. And since they are a sanctificationist people--they don't know they're a sanctificationist people, but it's in the tradition--since they think they ought to be like God, so Methodists are nice, like God. And I mean, it just wears you out dealing with nice people all your life.
[Laughter]
Lee
It's hard to know what to do with this.
Stanley
So, you know, you just would like to produce a few leaner and meaner folks that follow Jesus. That would make a difference in the world in which we find ourselves.
Lee
So you've talked a lot about how eschatology is inseparable from ethics, inseparable from from the way of life of Christians. What do you mean when you talk about that?
Stanley
Eschatology is a big word that says when Jesus was conceived in Mary's belly, a new world was born. That's the reason why I say that Christians are not called to live lives of nonviolence because we believe non-violence is a way to rid the world of war. But in a world of war, as faithful followers of Christ, we cannot imagine being anything other than non-violent, because it's not like you have to make the world non-violent. Jesus did it. Jesus did it. Our problem is we don't believe that. Now the question is, “How do you, as a church, embody that kind of truthfulness that is required for people to live non-violent with one another, because we're willing to tell one another the truth?” I mean, the truth is hard to bear. God loves us, and we think that's good for God. But how to turn that into trust is a very hard matter.
Lee
You've written a good bit about how our view of death plays into the difficulties we find ourselves in. Talk to us about that.
Stanley
Well, I believe Americans think they live in a world in which, if we just get good enough at science and medical care, they can get out of life alive. And therefore, one of my ways of putting it is that someone can come to divinity school today--they're usually someone that's already failed another line of work before they get there; that's alright, ‘cause God's pretty good with failures--so they come to divinity school, and after a semester or so they say, “I'm just really not into Christology this year. I'm really into relating.” And they say, “Alright, go take some more clinical pastoral education.” So a kid can go to medical school, and they're kids, and after a semester they can say, “I'm just not really into anatomy this year. I'm really into relating. I'd like to take some more psychiatry,” which means they don't know anything about psychiatry, since it's biochemistry today. But in medical school, they're told, “We don't give a damn what you're interested in, kid. Take anatomy or ship out.” Now, why is it that medical schools are so much more morally interesting than divinity schools today? Because people don't believe that an inadequately-trained minister or priest can damage their salvation, but people do believe an inadequately-trained doctor can hurt them. And just to the extent that people care more about who their doctor is than who their priest is, you can see how we live lives of close, practical atheism. And that all has to do with death. We think somehow medicine will keep us alive in a way that we asked doctors to keep us alive to the point that when we die, we don't have to know we're dying, and therefore we don't have to come to terms with death. Now, what it means to be a Christian is to learn how to die early. And that's very hard for us to take in, and that's how, as a people of God, you find ourselves in deep tension with a world that's about the denial of death. I mean, Americans think Donald Trump is going to make them safe? When did Christians become Christians to be safe? I mean, that's not our game. Our game is danger. And thank God because otherwise life is just so damned uninteresting.
Lee
I first want to ask, though, if you think it's ironic that you have a somewhat belligerent, apparently sometimes profane kind of Texan in-your-face personality, who insists upon nonviolence as part and parcel of Christian discipleship.
Stanley
Well, I'm obviously a violent SOB. And if I didn't tell you I was committed to Christian non-violence, I might kill you.
[Laughter]
So by creating expectations in you, I have some hope you will keep me honest to what I know is true. Because you can't be committed to non-violence as a heroic ethic that you can do on your own. You're going to have to be committed to being part of a people who will make you more than you are by the declaration of what it is that you think you need to be to be a follower of Christ, in hope that they will keep you honest to that.
Lee
And this is not some issue for you, but you speak of non-violence as: it's part and parcel of basic Christian convictions.
Stanley
Lee
Stanley
God underwent what we deserved on the cross, taking our violence into himself, refusing to pass it on. That's what makes us followers of a God that would have us live in the world in a manner that witnesses to the one that makes life worth living, namely a life of truth.
Lee
Obviously, much American Christianity doesn't buy into that. I love the story about your cousin.
Stanley
Right. You mean Billy Dick.
Lee
Only a Texan could have a cousin named Billy Dick, I suppose.
Stanley
I was raised a bricklayer. My father was a bricklayer, five brothers were a brick layer. I start the story with that because bricklayers' language is not noted for nuance.
[Laughter]
When you're laying brick, you don't say, “Pass me a brick.” You just won't get it. There are other words you use. And Billy Dick was six, and he had heard some of the words. He was at Lakewood Methodist Church, and in his Sunday School class, there was a flannel board talk, and it was about the crucifixion. And Billy Dick suddenly realized that Jesus had been crucified. And with all the sophistication of his six years, he stood up and raised his hand and said, “Teacher, if Gene Autry had been there, the dirty SOBs wouldn't have gotten away with it.”
[Laughter]
That's pretty much the way we think about it.
We just need to make sure we're Gene Autry, and that will somehow make the world more just. I think that as part of that kind of commitment, I say I represent--and this has to do with an eschatological point--I say I represent the Tonto principle of Christian ethics. One time, the Lone Ranger and Tonto were surrounded by 60,000 Sioux in the Dakotas, and the Lone Ranger looked over to Tonto and said, “This looks pretty tough, Tonto. What do you think we ought to do?” And he said, “What do you mean ‘we,' white man?”
[Laughter]
We Christians have made a lot out of being white. And it's about time we learn that we have quite a different identity in the world in which we find ourselves.
Lee
You clearly don't mean, by your admonition to nonviolence, being passive.
Stanley
Oh, I hate the language of pacifism. It's just so passive.
[Laughter]
And I don't like the language of nonviolence either. You're not something? I like the language of peace much better. Even more, I like when people... I taught the core course in Christian Ethics at Duke for many years, and I would start the course by telling the kids that one, I don't teach to help them make up their own minds because they don't have minds worth making up until I've trained them. I know that sounds authoritarian, but it at least saves you from Target, where you think you have a choice because you have a choice between Sony and Panasonic. But I would tell the kids that if they needed an ethics course to make them moral, it's too late. They're already too corrupt. I can't do anything for them. But I was going to tell them all they needed to know in two seconds, about what they needed to know to live well. And I asked them to get out a paper and pencil and write it down. Don't lie. Don't lie. Now, think about what that does to marriage, because people never lie to one another more readily than they do in marriage, where they're trying desperately to save the love that has gone out. How do you tell one another the truth in a world of mendacity? It's not easy, and you're going to need all the help you can get. And the name that help should take is called the Church of Jesus Christ, where people go because they're desperate to be told who they are truthfully.
Lee
Mr. Stanley Hauerwas.
You're listening to Tokens: public theology, human flourishing, the good life. We are most grateful to have you joining us. Please leave us one of those five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts, and subscribe there or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Even better, if you're a Facebook or social media person, pick out one of your favorite episodes and post it on Facebook, or let your friends know who listen to podcasts about the Tokens Show. It turns out we have video of most all of the segments from today's podcast. Please visit tokensshow.com/podcast or go straight to our YouTube channel by visiting youtube.com/tokensshow. This is our interview with professor Stanley Hauerwas. Coming up, part two in just a moment.
You're listening to Tokens and our interview with Stanley Hauerwas. On our live event that night, just prior to this interview segment coming up, we had just performed Steve Martin's brilliant song “Atheists Ain't Got No Songs.”
Welcome back Stanley Hauerwas here to the interview chair. So Stanely, what's all this narrative, narrative, narrative, narrative stuff?
Stanley
It has to do with “Atheists Ain't Got No Songs,” partly because they... I mean, it's very interesting. Could we be Christians if we couldn't sing the faith? To sing the faith means that you are storied in a way that otherwise is impossible, because you become part of God's chorus. My way of putting these matters is this: modernity names the time of trying to produce people who believed they should have no story except the story they chose when they had no story. That's called freedom. You should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story, and if you don't believe that's your story--I can illustrate it this way--you think you ought to be held responsible for decisions you made when you did not know what you were doing. No, you don't think you should be held responsible for decisions you made when you did not know what you were doing. The only difficulty with that, of course, is that it makes marriage unintelligible, because how could you ever have known what you were doing when you promised lifelong monogamous fidelity? If it makes marriage unintelligible, try having children. You never get the ones you want.
[Laughter]
And of course the irony of that--you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story--is you didn't choose that story. That you didn't choose that story helps you understand that's “world.” Christians are people who believe that we were storied. We didn't choose the story. We're creatures of a good God who gave us something to do to witness to the glory of God through the cross and resurrection of Christ. Now that cross and resurrection of Christ stories the world and us, and that is constantly repeated in the liturgies that we have as Christians. That's the reason why, for example, the church year is so important. If you didn't have advent, you'd be stuck with Thanksgiving. I mean, you'd be stuck with family.
[Laughter]
So the liturgy of the church year, advent... we're in lent now, for those of you in the Church of Christ. I grew up in Texas, so I had to deal with the church of Christ.
Lee
You've gone too far now.
[Laughter]
Stanley
I always liked it during Texas droughts when they couldn't find living water. It was what they deserved.
[Laughter]
Lent's a very important part of the church year in which we prepare to go through Ash Wednesday and recognize from dust we came, from dust we will return. And then to have that dust be made part of the body of Christ through death and resurrection is how we recognize who we are, how we're storied in a way that gives us a life of beauty, because beauty is absolutely crucial to our living well, and there is nothing more disastrous for the Christian Church today than the ugliness of our liturgies. Elegance is important, and that's what we got out of the habit of, just to the extent that churches thought they had to compete with TV. And TV will always win, because it's better at what it does than we are. But we're not TV. We're a liturgical body of people who have been trained to have our bodies habituated to bend in the face of the body and blood of Christ.
Lee
That'll preach, right there.
Stanley
Lee
So for someone who says things like, “America's not the issue,” you talk about America a lot. So if America is not the issue, why do you talk about America a lot?
Stanley
I'm an American. I hate to say that. I've made a career out of claiming I'm not an American because I was raised in Pleasant Grove, Texas, so I'm a Texan before I was an American. But in truth, we're Americans, and I owe it to my brothers and sisters, Christian and non-Christian, to try to share the life I've been given that makes me, first and foremost, a follower of Christ, rather than an American citizen, and that bonds me with people around the world. I mean, people forget, before you had the language of globalization, we Christians had a language for that. It was called Catholic. We were bonded together with people across the world through the Eucharistic celebration in a way that defeated nationalistic boundaries. So I'm an American, but I have to serve as an American in a way that helps be of service to other Christians in the world by not letting America beat them up, I suppose.
Lee
We're grateful you've been with us tonight. Please share your thanks for professor Stanley Hauerwas.
Announcer
It's time once again for that great pillar of the church, that heroic administrative assistant, who put the “lady” in “church lady,” “luck” in “potluck,” and “sin” in “sincere.” That's right; it's Betty Swanson, church secretary!
[Applause]
Betty
Excuse me, pastor Bob. I wanted to remind you that Stanley Hauerwas is going to be here this week.
Bob
Here, at First Christian Church of Democracy?
[Laughter]
Betty
Yes, and well, I think it would be best if we could prepare a little for his weeklong seminar on church growth.
Bob
Well, we already added four new coffee bars in our new coffee wing, and our worship leader's skinny jeans are the skinniest jeans around. What more could we do?
[Laughter]
Betty
We're going to have to ask him to tone it down a little.
Bob
Betty
Well, he has been known to be blunt. And let's bring Stanley--oh, here he is--and let's make sure he is wearing his tone-it-down translator.
Stanley
Did I just hear someone mention the tone-it-down translator?
Bob
Yes, hi Mr. Hauerwas. It was her, Betty Swanson. She knows all there is to know, from the tone of the pre-church auditorium music, to the toner in the copier, to toning things down…
Stanley
Stop! The tone-it-down translator is a device that takes the holy complexity of deep theology and tones it down to the bland pablum of southern niceties. After all, southern civility is the most calculated form of cruelty ever invented in the world.
[Laughter]
It makes passive-aggressive behavior an art form.
Betty
So basically, it translates what he wants to say into what you want to hear. And the device is virtually invisible. Some politicians hide it in their hair piece.
Bob
Tone-it-down translator. I might need to try that.
Stanley
I've heard some of your sermons. Turning it up might be a better direction for you.
[Laughter]
You've made people too comfortable. Your version of fundamentalism is, well, fundamentally flawed.
Betty
Mr. Hauerwas, is your device working?
Stanley
Yes. You should hear me when it's turned off.
Bob
Well, now I'm curious and confused, but more curious. Can I ask you some questions and hear your answers with the tone-it-down translator off, and then with it on?
Stanley
Betty
Okay, I'm not so sure you want to do that, because I hear he once prayed at Duke University and he didn't have it turned on, and then…
Bob
Hearing Hauerwas unfiltered, and then filtered. The only way to understand philosophical theology.
Stanley
It's fascinating, like having Joel Osteen reading comment sections on your YouTube.
Betty
Or having both Niebuhr brothers teaching theology at Liberty University, am I right Stanley? High five!
[Laugher]
Bob
Okay, okay, go ahead. Flip off your tone-it-down translator. First question: How can we here at First Christian Church of Democracy grow to the point that we have six services on Sunday instead of our current five?
Lee (as Stanley)
You have totally missed the purpose of the church. You shouldn't even call yourself a church. You're more like a pyramid scheme with a coffee bar and free wifi.
Bob
That hurts. Turn the translator back on.
Stanley
Pastor Bob, the aim of the church is to provide an alternative to the world.
Betty
Wow, that is quite a device. Let's do it again. Flip it off.
Stanley
Lee (as Stanley)
Not again, this is stupid.
[Laughter]
Betty
Okay. How would you describe narrative theology to a fundamental church that isn't particularly interested in either narratives or theology?
Lee (as Stanley)
Listen, Betty. Today's mainstream church is just a reality show for people who think professional wrestling is real and NASA is fake. I think you people focus on the “fun” part of fundamental, but I think you really live out there on “damn mental” part of fundamental.
[Laughter]
Stanley
Wow, I'm really running down my translator's battery today. To answer your question, there's no theology without story. Oh, and sorry about the knock on professional wrestling.
Bob
No offense taken. As fellow theologians, we come from a long line of professional wrestlers with God.
Lee (as Stanley)
Fellow theologians, just like Duke Divinity School and Trump University are fellow institutions of higher learning.
Bob
Stanley
Oh, nothing. I think my translator is dying.
Betty
Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on death?
Lee (as Stanley)
I feel like cussing when I talk to people who are afraid of dying. It really makes me sick to my...
Stanley
Lee (as Stanley)
... stomach when people cannot see that living well inevitably leads to dying well, and I'll be...
Stanley
Lee (as Stanley)
...if I'm going to let people wander in the darkness or the fear that some son of a...
Stanley
...nice set of Christian parents, I'm sure…
[Laughter]
Lee (as Stanley)
...told them to be afraid. It's just total bull...
Stanley
Lee (as Stanley)
...and lies being propagated by feel-good preachers and teachers. I'd really like to kick them in their pseudo-theological...
Stanley
...mule-like animal resembling a donkey.
[Laughter]
Bob
Wow. That was incredible. One last question. What should we be teaching when it comes to the current political climate?
Lee (as Stanley)
Oh, please. Let me answer this one, please.
Stanley
I will get thrown out of Alumni Auditorium if I do.
Lee (as Stanley)
But don't you think unfiltered Hauerwas is better equipped to talk politics?
Stanley
Yes, I actually do. There's really no other way to talk about that giant steaming pile of...
Betty
Stop. Okay. Time for me to get us out of this mess. So Stanley, here is your new 97-volt battery for your translator. And pastor Bob, here is your latest issue of Megchurch Weekly, and pay particular attention to the article entitled, “Why Church Secretaries are More Pastoral than the Pastor.” And now let's all just calm down and enjoy something we can agree on. Great instrumental music.
Lee
Tokens Radio Players, and Mr. Stanley Hauerwas. His acting debut, here!
You've been listening to Tokens: public theology, human flourishing, the good life. Thank you for joining us. Please remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and please remember to refer us to a fellow podcast listener. Got feedback? We'd love to hear from you. Emails us text or attach a voice memo, and send it to the address podcast@tokensshow.com.
Our thanks to all the stellar team that makes this podcast possible. Executive producer and manager Christie Bragg, Bragg Management. Co-producer Jacob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. Associate producers Ashley Bayne and Leslie Thompson. Engineer Cariad Harmon. Production assistant Cara Fox. Music beds by Zack and Maggie White and Blue Dot Sessions. Additional writing by Kevin Colvett on that comedy piece. And the Tokens Radio Players featuring professor David Fleer and Dr. Mary Collins. Our band for the live performances you're hearing comprised of Buddy Green, Brian Sutton, Scott Mulvihill, Chris Brown, Andy Leftwitch, and our music director Mr. Jeff Taylor. And our live event production team at Stonebrook Media led by Phil Barnett.
Thanks for listening and peace be unto thee.
The tokens podcast is a production of Tokens Media, LLC and Great Feeling Studios.