Hermeneutics

Johanna and the boys sat down to talk about 'Practicing Patience: How Christians Should Be Sick,' co-authored by Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches. The essay was originally published in Christian Bioethics (1996, Vol. 2, No.2,).

During COVID-19 all of us have had to practice patience and while maybe not being a patient. Throughout the conversation, the crew explores, as the authors put it, "our ability to take the time to enjoy God's world, when we are well as when we are sick, depends on our recognition that it is indeed God's world."

The gang discusses Stanley’s essay on mental illness and his memoir, Hannah’s Child:

“I refuse to attribute meaning to the despair that mental illness is, to believe that such despair can have meaning because, if all meaning is of God, the meaning would be of God. But if there were in fact a purpose or reason for such despair it would not be despair but something else. Mental illness is the lack of meaning just as evil is the lack or privation of the good.”

Here’s the essay:

"If we ask the elderly to commit suicide in order to shore up the economy for their grandchildren, then their grandchildren won't have lives worth living."

In the latest installment of You Are Not Accepted, Jason and Taylor have a quick conversation with Stanley Hauerwas about the Coronavirus pandemic and what it means for the church.

“ Jesus is the heart from which the truth must be spoken. Thus the truth that must be spoken is known only through witness. Because he is the truth we can speak the truth. That speaking the truth takes the form of witness means we are confronted with this truth in a manner that does not allow us to distance ourselves from him. Any attempt to sunder truth from this the true witness, to make truth an idea about the relation between God and man, cannot be the truth. If the truth is thought to be but a symbol, no matter how exalted, it is but a falsehood. The true witness is this man of Gethsemane and Golgotha.

Because the truth is this person, the one who endured Gethsemane and Golgotha, it is a truth that cannot resort to coercion to secure its status. The truth that is Christ, the truth that can only be known by witness, is a truth that must make its way in the world by refusing to use the desperate means of the world to force others to acknowledge what is claimed to be true. There can be nothing desperate about the witness that is Christ because what God has done through the Son cannot be undone. That is why the truth that is Christ is so compelling. It is compelling because those possessed by this truth are filled with joy.”

Here’s the link to the original address: https://ssw.edu/sermon/dr-stanley-hauerwas-sermon-for-2012-commencement-2/

“God is using this time to remind the Church that Christianity is unintelligible without enemies. Indeed, the whole point of Christianity is to produce the right kind of enemies. We have been beguiled by our established status to forget that to be a Christian is to be made part of an army against armies. It has been suggested that satisfaction theories of the Atonement and the correlative understanding of the Christian life as a life of interiority became the rule during the long process we call the Constantinian settlement. When Caesar becomes a member of the Church the enemy becomes internalized. The problem is no longer that the Church is seen as a threat to the political order, but that now my desires are disordered. The name for such an internalization in modernity is pietism and the theological expression of that practice is called Protestant liberalism. “

In the latest installment of You Are Not Accepted, Johanna gets hot and bothered over Stanley’s address, “Preaching as Though We Had Enemies.” Originally delivered to the homiletics guild, this address is found in his collection, Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified, and also at First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/05/preaching-as-though-we-had-enemies

Dr. Johanna, Jason, and Teer talk about Stanley Hauerwas’ essay whence the pod series name came, “You Are Not Accepted.” The piece is Stanley’s rejection of Paul Tillich’s famous sermon “You Are Accepted” and featured in his book, Unleashing the Scriptures. This provocative critique of the uses and abuses of Scripture in the American church shows how liberal (historical-critical) and fundamentalist (literal) approaches to biblical scholarship have corrupted our use of the Bible. Hauerwas argues that the Bible can only be understood in the midst of a disciplined community of people, where the story is actually lived out by dedicated practitioners.

For Episode #2 of You Are Not Accepted, Stan the Man joins Johanna, Jason, and Teer to discuss the theology of preaching— and why dumbing things down for people just makes for dumb people— from his book Without Apology.

On each episode of 'You're Not Accepted,' we will discuss a different essay from the one and only Stanley Hauerwas. That’s right, the Hauerwas Mafia is going full Hauerwas! Stan the man will join us periodically and we will do our best to contain Jason the fanboy.

So, that is what you need to know about today’s episode. Enjoy.

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Dr. Johanna Hartelius, host of Hemeneutics, is hosting a new podcast series for Crackers and Grape Juice called “You Are Not Accepted: Engaging Hauerwas on Holiness.” Every other Wednesday Johanna, Jason Micheli, and Teer Hardy will discuss a writing by the theologian Stanley Hauerwas and oftentimes with Stanley Hauerwas. For our first episode, we talked with Stanley about his essay in Minding the Web entitled “Preaching in the Ruins.”

Get ready for the Hauerwas Mafia to do what it does best. We're going full Hauerwas on you.

On each episode of You're Not Accepted we will discuss a different essay from the one and only Stanley Hauerwas. Stan the man will join us periodically and we will do our best to contain Jason the fanboy.

Go ahead and order yourself a copy of Resident Aliens and prepare to be Hauerwas'd.

The podcast has a new book! Crazy Talk: Stories Jesus Told is available in both paperback and ebook format.

https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Talk-Stories-Jesus-Told/dp/167083171X

In Crazy Talk: Stories Jesus Told, you’ll find pastors doing what pastors do, which is trying to get congregations to laugh. Only professors are thirstier for giggly affirmation from students than clergy from churchgoers. No, but seriously, folks. The excellent sermons collected here walk the reader through the unrelenting message of the gospel parables: that Jesus Christ the Risen Lord is here and in charge. We, humans, are here, too, but we mess everything up. Not to mention, we cannot understand Jesus to save our lives.

Praise for Crazy Talk: Stories Jesus Told

“Jesus got killed for the outrageous, irresponsible, and offensive stories he told. Read Crazy Talk from the posse at the Crackers and Grape Juice podcast and you will be reminded of what it’s like to want to kill somebody because of his preaching.” - Rev. Dr. Will Willimon, United Methodist Bishop, Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity

"Like the parables of Jesus, the sermons collected here are earthy, humorous, and connect with our most hidden, secret self. Like the preaching of the prophets, they manage to afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted, and never sound preachy. Not since Balaam's ass has the Word of the Lord been delivered in such an entertaining package!"—The Rev. Dr. Rubén Rosario Rodríguez, Professor of Systematic Theology, Saint Louis University

“The Church has done more damage to the power of the parables than any other category of scripture. We have moralized them and purposed them for our own agendas. We have foisted them onto children and told them to "be good." We have called ourselves Good Samaritans and Eldest Brothers like a Biblically uneducated clown parade. They were never intended for any of that nonsense. The Parables are intended to be void of morality and only consumed with the agenda of Jesus, who came only to save us. Buy this book. Jason, Teer, and the other yahoos at Crackers and Grape Juice will remind you just how bizarre, compelling, and truly unfair the parables really are. Thank God.”— Rev. Sarah Condon, Churchy: The Real Life Adventures of a Wife, Mom, and Priest

https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Talk-Stories-Jesus-Told/dp/167083171X