Hauerwas, war, and nonviolence

I need to go and get Stanley Hauerwas's new memoirs, Hannah's Child. I don't agree with all of what Hauerwas writes or says, but he is ever the theological provocateur that the Church needs. I especially like his views about violence and war: He is a staunch pacifist. He says that being a pacifist and being a xian are intrinsically tied together; because one is xian then it follows that one is pacifist.

This week's text from Luke is one that Hauerwas has preached on (I heard one such occasion many moons ago in Fort Worth). From his title, you can guess which text it is: "Hating Mothers as the Way to Peace." Again, I don't agree with all of it, but to challenge our long-held views about protecting family--even to the point of killing--is something he unpacks in this commentary. If we say we can kill to protect our loved ones, then we betray a part of our xian faith, i.e., the ethics of peace and not killing. I like it when he says that in war time, what soldiers ultimately become committed to is not a jingoist national pride. Rather, soldiers learn to kill to protect others in their ranks (and w/ whom they have come to know; the Speilberg film, Saving Private Ryan, I think, illustrated this brilliantly; the soldiers in that unit were very close, and what caused tension was when they went on a mission to find and save an "outsider"--Private Ryan--who was not even one of their own).

In our culture of violence and war, Hauerwas is a much needed voice. I heard him say once in a lecture to a group of preachers, "When was the last time you preached against war in the pulpit?" This was in the early stages of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Too many preachers have become war mongers and at the same time, call it faithful xianity. Balderdash! Hauerwas reminds us that if we truly follow the radical ethics of xian discipleship, we cannot avoid the nonviolence of Jesus. I agree. We have been conditioned by many sources--TV, movies, children's cartoons, comics, etc--to accept redemptive violence that we cannot see any other way of interpreting our own xian redemption. Too many xians blindly accept the violent, bloody images of atonement as the only way to talk about our salvation (I disagree on this point with Hauerwas; he accepts the violent atonement but says it ends all other violence; it is untenable for me and for many).

I could prate on about such things, but suffice it to say: Stanley Hauerwas is a much needed voice for peace, nonviolence, and anti-war. Our nation is involved in 2 wars (one of them clearly an illegal war-Iraq) and the other a no-win situation (Afghanistan-3 other empires besides the U.S. empire has failed historically in this region; we cannot win there w/ conventional warfare). As xians being people of peace and nonviolence are and should be a part of our ethic and not seen as anti-American or left-wing radical. The gospel itself is radical. Hauerwas reminds us of that and of the cost of following.