In an age where the lie seems to be coin of the realm, Stanley Hauerwas offers the world what he always has—the truth. It’s a truth he’s been telling most of his life and one which Christians still struggle with. Who deserves our allegiance? Hauerwas has always answered that question with answers few want to hear—Christianity is largely irrelevant to the world because it too quickly sells...

Dr. Hauerwas was my ethics teacher at Duke Divinity. On the very first day of class, he began by addressing the crowded room with his signature Texan accent and said, “Let us pray.” We, the students, dutifully bowed our heads in reverence and waited for the prayer to begin. This was the entirety of the prayer: “Frightening Lord, teaching this class scares the shit out of me. But perhaps...

For many of us caught in the deserts of American Protestantism, Stanley was the fresh drink of water we needed. He opened new ground to be ploughed, for new seed to be sown, so a new crop of theologians could bear witness to God’s work in Christ for the cultural challenges we are facing. He has left an indelible mark on us, changing the way we do and think theology, indeed opening...

Stanley was the first critique of the church that I had trusted; he smelled too much like Jesus. His life has been spent trying to pry the church's head from it's own ass. Builds strength of character.

I was a first year student at Princeton Theological Seminary, and, as a side-hustle to pay the bills, I took a gig waiting tables at the weekly faculty lunch. One Wednesday early in my first semester, I stood like a wallflower and listened as one of the theology professors held court complaining about someone named Stanley Hauerwas. The griping professor’s forehead was red and beating, and...

Stanley Hauerwas changed my life.  As an undergraduate aiming for law school, he told me “Lawyers are a dime a dozen” and got me thinking about graduate studies in theology.  As a grad student, he was my Doktorvater.  From him I...