Thinking about Stanley Hauerwas

Introduction

Stanley Hauerwas wants the Christian church to be the “New Jesus”.

By claiming that the church is a social ethic, Hauerwas focuses on how the church should be rather than on what it should do. Behind this statement lies his approach to ethics, which seeks to define what this corporate social ethic - “the church” might look like. He finds the boundaries of his idea of church within the narratives of Jesus and the Christian church, and from this conceptualises a “corporate Jesus”, namely the faithful manifestation of the peaceable kingdom.

The implication therefore is that if the church can be transformed, the church will BE a social ethic – the “New Jesus”.

However, Hauerwas’ ideal vision of church is limited to his own narrative framework and as a result his approach appears to lose the idea of a transcendent Christ in the world.

Defining the church as a social ethic
To get to the point of defining what church might look like, Hauerwas rejects a concept of ethics that makes the boundaries of this entity too permeable. Thus the idea of the universality of an ethical framework is rejected.

Hauerwas describes modern ethical theories as being underwritten by the concept of a “midair” stance. This he explains is an attempt of find a non-arbitrary position by which communities might reference their moral behaviour. In particular he refers to the ethical theories of Kant and the Utilitarians and suggests that both are driven by the attempt to find a commonality across human beings and human communities. Similarly, he suggests attempts of the church to base ethics on the concept of natural laws, reflects a consensus of opinion within the church rather than a “given” law.

He suggests that these attempts to find commonality are ultimately driven by the community’s need to find a “rule” for behaviour, such an approach carrying with it a sense of objectivity. However he argues that the concentration on universal obligations and rules can distort the moral psychology of individuals (and presumably communities) by separating actions from agency – so that it appears that the agent’s intentions are inconsequential in the moral description and evaluation of the action.

Instead Hauerwas favours a contextual approach to ethics, where the notion of ethics is tied up with the unfolding narrative of the Christian community. This approach is less systematised, but takes place in a narrower concept of community. In doing this he defines the boundaries of what the church as a social ethic might look like. By differentiating the Christian community from the world he starts to create a body in which this social ethic - the “New Jesus” can exist.

This body he argues is distinct from the world in that it believes that God, not humans, rule history. And it is a community driven by the story of God’s calling of Israel and the life of Jesus. By acting truthfully within this context he argues the Christian community becomes not only a manifestation of the social ethic, but a beacon to others to illumine how life should be lived well.

Hauerwas’ dismissal of the universal or objective ethic is tied strongly to the understanding that decisions will always be made subjectively – that any community will act as an interpretive community. Hauerwas acknowledges this in the understanding that even within this body of the Christian community, though descriptive and normative ethics will exist, they will vary with context. Similarly the construction of the meaning of texts, including the Bible, will also take place in the interpretive community.

In taking the notion of the self-referencing community as a norm, rather than the idea of an objective or external reality informing ethics, Hauerwas must therefore insist on the distinct entity of the Christian community.

Creating the Body of the Christian Community
Within this created community he establishes the “givens” for that community,

The first is that action and agency are not distinct. The “New Jesus” has to be an integrated entity. He draws from McIntyre to make the point that “moral good is not available to any intelligent person no matter what his or her point of view. Rather in order to be moral, to acquire knowledge about what is true and good; a person has to be made into a particular type of person. Therefore transformation is required if one is to be moral at all.”

The second given is that the new body will find its reference to what is true and good from its narrative context. He argues that the Christian community is and has been significantly formed through narrative.

The implication is that the community exists within a story that is greater than itself and has reference points outside of its own immediate concerns. For example, Hauerwas canvasses the area of the community recognising itself as sinner/forgiver, and idea he suggests, that is constituted by a narrative that the modern Christian community did not create.

Thus, despite Hauerwas’ acceptance that any community has its own contextual reality, he suggests that there is still a common narrative in which each Christian community participates. As such, merely being part of the community is not sufficient. The community has to look and act like the narrative community. Hauerwas suggests this is done through tradition and experience, and more practically through examining the lives of the saints (all our mothers and fathers in the faith) and through the church’s liturgy, especially the Eucharist.

Hauerwas therefore suggests that the primary task of the church is not to focus on the rules provided by the narrative community, but to use the narrative context to assist itself to rightly envision the world. He argues that this requires the development of disciplined skills through initiation into the community that attempts to live faithful to the story of God.

By finding discipline within the narrative context, the church finds an internal consistency, which will sustain the self-referencing ethic of the corporate Jesus. In contrast to the idea of a voluntary participation in community, he suggests to be part of the Christian community an individual requires discipline and training. Hauerwas argues that the church may be an interpretative community, but only a community already formed by the story of the kingdom of God can begin to read the scripture rightly. Similarly only a church disciplined in its context is capable of finding people with virtues sufficient to witness to God’s truth in the world. As such the self-referencing model becomes essential.

Character and Virtue
So far Hauerwas has created a corporate identity for the church, defined its boundaries and given it a couple of operating instructions. Recognising that each community might indeed vary within its own context, he continues to define the features of the social ethic – or the “New Jesus”.

He suggests that these features can be located in the broad narrative of the life of the church – and names them as the virtues or moral resources that are available to the church. He suggests that the virtues needed for each context in which the Christian community may find itself, can be identified by drawing on a particular community’s account of the good. Thus he suggests the virtues necessary for the community might be found in the middle of that community.

For example, Hauerwas suggests that the Christian community is required to be a people formed by the virtues of hope and patience. He also attempts to integrate challenges to the normative ethic of a closed community by arguing that other virtues might be those of acceptance of diversity, kindness, friendship, and an acceptance that the community is “out of control” . The identification of these particular virtues however, undoubtedly takes place within Hauerwas’ own interpretive community.

The hope of such an approach is that the forming of a community’s character in such a way will lead to the church community intuitively doing the will of God. Forrester suggests that this approach is also about modelling virtue to the world. That there be no scandalous contradictions between the teaching and the life of the church.

It is by defining these features that Hauerwas can then foray into the world of situational ethics, most notably in the area of non-violence, the family, sex and abortion.

Does it work?
The church as a “New Jesus” almost works. Hauerwas builds quite a sophisticated body with what appear to be sufficient boundaries and a life sustaining internal operating system. Thus the social ethic that is the New Jesus can claim to be contextual, is Kingdom oriented, and creates an ideal form of community to which some might aspire.

However, in the end, the body doesn’t walk. In A Community of Character Hauerwas, after writing significantly about marriage, family and abortion, makes the comment that “I do not know why people who are not Christians have children, nor do I think there is any reason to investigate and make summary judgement about that”. The comment taken out of context could be regarded as quite shocking – however within the context of Hauerwas’ thesis it makes absolute sense, and implicitly reflects the main points of his assertion that the church’s main purpose is to be a social ethic.

It is contextual. Hauerwas must maintain the body of the church as separate and distinct form the world. Otherwise its self-referencing ethical behaviour becomes too complex. By speaking within his own particular context of the church, Hauerwas clearly cannot do justice to the reasons or impetus that drive any form of community that is outside that context.

It focuses on the idea of God’s kingdom. It is a statement based on Hauerwas’ interpretive community where the concepts of family and children have a particular function within the Christian community.

It pulls ethical decisions about the bearing of children (or in the context – the decision to terminate pregnancy) from an understanding of universal rules, and places the discussion of ethical decisions firmly within the context in which they arise. Therefore the body does not divorce its ethical decision making from its agency as the decision maker.

However, the statement itself is the epitome of why Hauerwas’ view of the church as a social ethic is unlikely to work. It displays itself as removing the character of the church from the redemptive and transformative possibilities that the world might provide. Further it also removes itself from the communities within the Christian church, which do not participate in Hauerwas’ story about family.

The statement reflects the criticisms that are made of Hauerwas’ approach. Hays notes that Hauerwas operates within a closed system in interpreting the Christian community’s narrative, in particular the Biblical text. By failing to open his theory to different ways of expositing the text Hauerwas fails to uncover alternate stories that might exist in the narrative community. Hauerwas also appears to concentrate on the model of Jesus for the church, to the neglect of other texts, which also form part of the Christian narrative in the world. Thus Hauerwas’ vision of a social ethic appears to be constrained by his own limits, rather than the limits of the Christian community.

By failing to explore how other communities live ethically, Hauerwas excludes whole realms of possibility. By jettisoning the concept of universal standards of rationality Hauerwas creates an internally referenced system that might never seek truth and good outside it own community. What then of people of other faiths or no faith who may also live a social ethic, can they be beacons to the Christian community?

This cannot occur in Hauerwas’ vision, as he must take the position that Christianity is not just the truth for Christians but also the truth for everyone. This argument actually has no credence within Hauerwas’ theory for the nature of the closed system may be that it may never act as anything outside it’s own body.

Albrecht critiques Hauerwas by squarely placing him within his own social context. Thus she suggests that the theory is formed within a limited world, and the ideal church created can only respond to that context. She argues therefore that it can have little relevance and impact for those who do not participate in the community of which Hauerwas is part. She notes significantly that this would be most of the rest of America, let alone the rest of the world. Thus Hauerwas’ vision of the social ethic – the New Jesus, is too white, too middle class and too male.

Hauerwas would have to accept that his own idea of a social ethic is driven from his own context, yet despite this he appears to argue that the approach should be sufficient for all who identify themselves as part of the Christian community. This type of approach appears to negate the transcendent idea of Christ in the world, a Christ that might be able to speak many types of being into many contexts. Thus his insistence on the church being a disciplined community, within which people might integrate existence and ethic, cannot include a world where a seeker of truth may find truth outside of the Christian community.

Finally – is being a social ethic sufficient for the church? Is becoming the “New Jesus” in the world really the only function of the church? I would contend that the church does not need to be a social ethic, for the sake of itself and the world. Jesus was sufficient. The role of the church is something quite distinct and perhaps significantly more complex. Living with Hauerwas’ view is to legitimise what Hays proposes is an idiosyncratic fiction.

Instead, greater answers for the church and for the idea of social ethics might be found in the concepts of grace, Christ and the goodness of creation in the world.

Bibliography

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