I didn't realize quite the impact Dr. Hauerwas would have on my life until it was too late. His written work, essays, and conversations have challenged me to not only take the Gospel seriously but to take myself seriously as a minister of the gospel. It is because of him that I consider the theological role of the pastor for the community as important as the pastoral role we are called to play.

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...

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...

Stanley Hauerwas is a rare gift to the church because he refuses to be bound by the rules of the academy in the same way that he refuses to allow us to confine Israel and the church’s God within the walls of our theology. He is a rare gift insofar as he amplifies the voices of those whom establishment theologians would rather ignore in their discomfort—voices like the cognitively impaired...

Quite simply, no one has shaped my theology more than Stanley Hauerwas.

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...