Don't BS the World
A famous theologian invites us to a way of life that is committed to telling the truth - non-violence and kingdom orientation
There are a few theologians that I’d put in the ‘required reading’ category: Stanley Hauerwas is one. Especially ones that can use a swear in a theological way. I’m not that brave yet. As a Christian ethicist and theologian (Duke University) he is a unique voice advocating for the Kingdom ethics Jesus taught to actually be taken up by the church in our day. I highly recommend his book “The Peaceable Kingdom.”
A recent interview in Plough magazine “Peacemaking is Political” and a few others which I’ll cite below are worth a read. Here’s a few highlights and thoughts on the idea of the Kingdom ethic of peace. He says:
“Christ’s salvation offers us the possibility of being grafted in to a whole new way of life that is otherwise not possible. In him a new kind of humanity exists, a life together made possible only because of the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension of Christ. Christ does not make the world itself more peaceable. The cross itself is the world’s peace, and our task is to live into it and bear witness to it.”
See the slight switch of focus? Instead of Jesus enabling an escape or a kind of ticket out of the mess, in Christ we simply are a new humanity, and have access to peace itself. Jesus comes not just to rescue (though he does that) but to tell the world it’s true purpose and point out what it has lost.
Reconciliation is possible because the church is a community of forgiven sinners. So constituted, the church becomes an alternative to the world. Thus Eberhard Arnold’s (1883–1935). wonderful remark: “The only way the world will recognize the mission of Jesus is by the unity of his church.”
God incarnate entered our world in a manger and died on the cross. He refused to save us by coercion. Instead, he redeemed the world on the cross, and by enduring such suffering, he gave us an opportunity to see how we can live in the world without killing those who would kill us. Crucifixion is the central act that makes nonviolence intelligible and so powerful. See “Militant Peacemaking”
Coercion is much broader than just violence. It encompasses emotional manipulation which is sometimes covered with ‘God told me’ spiritual manipulation and hostility in all its forms from killing to tantrums to harsh facial expressions. Our coercion toolbox is robust and deeply engrained in human patterns of interaction. Violence is a favorite. On non-violence he says:
I wouldn’t mind nonviolence being a strict commandment, but it’s actually, and more importantly, an invitation to a way of life that is committed to telling the truth. And truth is a necessary condition for being able to live without coercion. The way of nonviolence is a hard, long business. It involves being trained in the virtue of patience. But this is the message of the cross. The cross disarms us from having to make the world turn out right. Truth wins. Consequently, we don’t have to impose it, or enforce it, or even aid it along. That’s why patience is crucial to peacemaking. God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish.
The early church fathers wrote about patience a ton… ‘On Patience’ was one of Tertullian’s major works describing how God is patient and those obedient to him also take up patience. Read more here on how the church initiated new members with a focus on patient character formation. Patience is important to cultivate because we don’t have to change the world in our lifetime, nor are things as urgent as it feels. Our perception and definitions of peace and the solutions are often off-kilter.
We’re not sure what peace looks like anymore. This is why I hate the language of pacifism because it’s understood as not something. Pacifism is just too passive a notion. The challenge of truthfulness is to learn how to speak about what peace actually is and why it is absent in our world… We mustn’t think of peace as the exception to violence; it’s the other way around…. we can wait in a world of impatience for God’s history to unfold. His story is what needs to shape who we are. It alone is the alternative to the violence that so tempts us.
Three examples of how non-violence can actually work are helpful. Politics, the University, and living out the kingdom.
Healthy politics itself can be a form of nonviolence to the extent that I have to listen to what my opponent has to say and not kill him, though I might want to. Nonviolence is more than an attitude. It calls for political engagement in a way that is quite surprising… The police function of the state has to be there. But our real duty, as Christ’s reconcilers, lies in finding ways to live where the police do not have to carry guns. That’s a political position. The language of kingdom makes clear that the witness of the church to the world is fundamentally political.
What does this look like for Christians who are all over the map with politics… some equating one party in the USA to faithful Christianity? Some promote guns and militaristic ‘law and order’ with spiritual fervor, while others just want to practice a ‘private spirituality’ and stay out of politics. Christ’s example orients around patience and a new way of life that does not seek power but gives it away. Christians bear witness that there is a deeper, more permanent reality, a “deep magic” that arrived with the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus that needs not violence, guns nor politic dominance to be any more true.
Consider the university. We often fail to see how a university is a form of nonviolence. This is because a university is committed to exposing society’s conflicts in ways in which we can work through them without picking up guns. Yes, universities are contentious places, but they are where we learn to live better with strangers and those with whom we disagree.
Academia serves as a poignant example. The peer-review process, faculties with different perspectives in the university check one another, they discuss (sometimes vehemently) they publish and argue and debate and research and double check. This model of engagement, seeking truth through dialogue and accountability is a helpful way of engaging culture.
Lastly, whenever I hear a Western Christian get excited about US culture for example or UK issues I often hear “Christians must…” vote this way , think this way, or support this initiative etc. But what about Christians in minority contexts, how ought they engage in their societies without the privilege of free speech? If the ‘must’ for Christians in the US cannot apply to Christians in say, Jordan, then is it really a ‘must?’ If ‘all Christians’ have to think a certain way, what is that way and in which context? Contextualization is a real challenge, but these red flag moments give me great pause. Hauerwas elaborates on a universal ‘must’ for Christians:
One of the most important things we as Christians can do for the world is to lead interesting lives. Unfortunately, we have become far too predictable. We’re too invested in the status quo. We desperately need to learn what it means to live interesting lives, because otherwise, no one will ever be drawn into the church – God’s new society. What an extraordinary thing we have been given, to live as people of peace destined to death and resurrection, in confidence that there is a God who has given us a way of life that is unimaginable if Jesus, the king of God’s peaceable kingdom, had not been conceived and dwelt among us.
When Hauerwas says ‘interesting’ maybe read ‘outstanding’, ‘different,’ ‘notable’ or ‘contrasting’ with whatever the status quo is. Christians move against power currents, don’t go with the crowd or mob, and ask difficult questions. In fact they should make the world, and power groups UNcomfortable.
Putting it in the most contentious way I can, the first task of the church is not to make the world more just, but to make the world see what it is, because the world cannot know what it is unless there’s a community that helps it name itself. What does it mean to be of the world? The world of power, hostility, mistrust, fear, of greed and injustice, draws on God’s patience and draws us away from worshipping God. The church is, or should be, an alternative to that world, though oftentimes the church’s unfaithfulness may be worse than the world’s denial that there is a God.
May God help us to be faithful and in so doing, demoinstrate the reality of God’s kingdom so it cannot be denied. Otherwise, it looks too much like a baptized version of worldy power, and what good is that? To close, I’ll feature his comment about US Christianity:
One of the good things that is happening today is precisely the loss as Christians of our status and power in the wider society. That loss makes us free. We as Christ’s disciples ain’t got nothing to lose anymore. That’s a great advantage because as a people with nothing to lose, we might as well go ahead and live the way Jesus wants us to. We don’t have to be in control or be tempted to use the means of control. We can once again, like the first Christians, be known as that people that don’t bullshit the world. Despair is a sin, and I’m hopeful because being a people of peace is ultimately about God’s victory in the world. It’s not about us.
A theologian that can persuasively use a swear in a treatise about being more like Jesus… we might as well quit pretending to fit in. Thank you Hauerwas for helping us re-orient to the kingdom.