Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements With the Secular

Stanley Hauerwas

Duke University Press, 1995 - Religion - 248 pages

God knows it is hard to make God boring, Stanley Hauerwas writes, but American Christians, aided and abetted by theologians, have accomplished that feat. Whatever might be said about Hauerwas—and there is plenty—no one has ever accused him of being boring, and in this book he delivers another jolt to all those who think that Christian theology is a matter of indifference to our secular society.
At once Christian theology and social criticism, this book aims to show that the two cannot be separated. In this spirit, Hauerwas mounts a forceful attack on current sentimentalities about the significance of democracy, the importance of the family, and compassion, which appears here as a literally fatal virtue. In this time of the decline of religious knowledge, when knowing a little about a religion tends to do more harm than good, Hauerwas offers direction to those who would make Christian discourse both useful and truthful. Animated by a deep commitment, his essays exhibit the difference that Christian theology can make in the shaping of lives and the world.

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Review: Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular

User Review  - Mitchell - Goodreads

I'm returning to this book almost 15 years later to use some of the ideas in a paper I'm writing for my Sociology of Adult and Higher Education class. This was a great book that opened my eyes and ...

Review: Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular

User Review  - S - Goodreads

Hauerwas' active seeking of how some current trends of philosophy and theology obscure the truth is worthwhile for anyone boggled by foundationalism. A popularizer of John Howard Yoder he joins Yoder in a critique of institutions and structures in society and of the church.

Contents

• Preface: 1
• PARTI BEHIND THE LINES: 19
• The Novel as a School: 31
• By Way of a Comparison of Karl Barth: 58
• The Democratic Policing of Christianity: 91
• A Tribute to William Stringfellow: 107
• Can a Pacifist Think About War?: 116
• Whose Just War? Which Peace?: 136
• Why Gays as a Group Are Morally Superior to Christians: 153
• Killing Compassion: 164
• A Continuing: 177
• Notes: 187
• Index: 233

Popular passages

Page 224 - I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.‎

About the author

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Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University. He is the author of numerous books, the most recent being In Good Company: The Church as Polis. He is also co-editor, with Alasdair MacIntyre, of a book series entitled "Revisions: Changing Perspectives in Moral Philosophy."

Bibliographic information

• Title: Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements With the Secular
• Author: Stanley Hauerwas
• Publisher: Duke University Press, 1995
• ISBN: 0822317168, 9780822317166
• Length: 248 pages
• Subjects: Religion / General