My life and ministry have been blessed by Stanley's friendship.  One learns quite early in a friendship with Stanley, not to ask him his opinion if you do not want the unvarnished truth.  Now, in this wonderful gathering, you too can get the full-frontal Hauerwas.  Get ready to be smacked by the truth in Jesus' name!  One more thing, it has been said of Stanley, as it was said of Barth, that...

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...

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...

The morning of my dissertation defense, right before my defense time, I said a Eucharist in Goodson Chapel to offer my labor to God. Stanley didn’t have to come - he wasn’t on my committee - but he did. It meant the world to me.

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.