I just finished my first Stanley Hauerwas article. I have heard his name for quite awhile but had never ventured into any of his writings. I finally linked to one and read it. Normally when I read such intelligent pieces having a dictionary by my side is helpful. Even that didn’t help. I understood the words. Individually. When he put them together in the manner he wrote… well, that’s where I got off track.

One of the problems of good theologians is they are horrible illustrators. They simply do not give concrete examples of how this may work out in our world. It sounds great… but maybe it’s not so great. I’m not sure.

For the most part, I am fairly sure I like what he said.

To the question I posed as the title of my blog, I am pretty sure he would say we do NOT even NEED to understand our times. At least, not in the way we want to understand our times. We keep wanting to put labels on things, and that is not what the Church should be worried about.

“Christians, therefore, have little stake in the question of whether we live in a postmodern time… Israel and the Church are not characters in a larger story called ‘world,’ but rather ‘world’ is a character in God’s story as known through the story that Israel is the Church. Without them there is no world to have a story.”

See what I mean? I have no idea if I got the idea or not!

One of the ideas he pushed was the Church does indeed have enemies. I could not agree more. He did not care to identify any enemies, so I am not sure if I agree with him beyond that point. For instance, the devil didn’t seem to come up and I remember this passage from Ephesians 6…

At any rate, he is firm that the Church does indeed have enemies. It’s interesting because we live in an age where we try desperately NOT to have enemies, unless it is with some other branch of the Church. We would just rather fight ourselves. We think it’s cool we can vote for a Democrat, smoke a pipe, and drink a beer, so we slam conservative, fundamentalist Christians. How cool.

We think it’s stupid to smoke a pipe and drink and beer and can’t imagine voting for someone who would allow the unborn to be killed, so we… you get the picture.

Hauerwas aims right at that presumption. The Church tries not to have enemies, but we make up standard ones to replace the real ones.

“Christianity, as the illumination of the human condition, is not a Christianity at war with the world. Liberal Christianity, of course, has enemies, but they are everyone’s enemies — sexism, racism, homophobia.”

I found that quote interesting in light of the academic conference I attended last weekend where one plenary session spent all their time on those three “enemies.” And it was a Pentecostal conference! (When did we go liberal?)

I honestly do not see where Hauerwas takes this whole “enemies” thing. You can read the article and instruct me. I’d love to know. (Please be kind to me. I’m simple.)

I honestly DO know we have an enemy. It’s fairly clear in Scripture. One of my Lenten readings was in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus confronts the Gadarene demoniac and has to ask the demons their name.

“My name is Legion, for we are many.”

I can so clearly remember my Church History professor, Walter Sundberg, give a lecture on Satan as our enemy using that text. Satan will crop up in any way possible to take down the people of God. So, I know we have an enemy. He comes in many forms.

But we have a Victor. WE are the winning team as the Church of the living God. Remember these words from Luther’s hymn:

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.