Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence

by Stanley Hauerwas

Publisher:

Baker Academic

, 2004

Overview

September 11, Afghanistan, Iraq—more than ever, this is a time for the church to be taking up the question of what, as Christians, our response to violence should be. In Performing the Faith, Stanley Hauerwas revisits the familiar territory of political nonviolence through discussion of the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer—Christian ethicist, theologian, and by some definitions, martyr. This book is an intriguing commentary on Bonhoeffer’s claim that if our common life rests on lies and injustice, we can’t be a community of peace. Pastors, seminarians, and those interested in Christian ethics are among the many who will be interested in this new word from an unwavering, faithful voice.

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Key Features

• Explores the Christian’s role in war
• Provides Stanley Hauerwas’ reflections on September 11, 2001
• Looks at the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Contents

• I. Bonhoeffer on Politics and Truth
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Political Theology
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Truth and Politics
• II. Truthful Performances
  • Performing Faith: The Peaceable Rhetoric of God’s Church (with James Fodor)
  • Connections Created and Contingent: Aquinas, Preller, Wittgenstein, and Hopkins
  • The Narrative Turn: Thirty Years Later
  • Suffering Beauty: The Liturgical Formation of Christ’s Body
• III. Performing Nonviolence
  • Explaining Christian Nonviolence: Notes for a Conversation with John Milbank and John Howard Yoder
  • Punishing Christians
  • September 11, 2001: A Pacifist Response
  • September 11, 2001: A Sermon a Year Later

Top Highlights

“What the church owes the world is what the church has been given, that is, the privilege to be a community capable of confessing our sins before God and one another.” (Page 14)

“In short, what it means to be ethically well-formed is having one’s imagination trained to regard the world not as a given but as truly a gift from God.” (Page 92)

“Creation and redemption name the great drama in which we become participants, performers, in God’s care of all that is.” (Page 16)

“Christian existence is first and foremost an activity—a performance, if you will.^{2” (Page 76)}

“‘Don’t worry, I shan’t come out of here a homo religiosus! On the contrary my” (Page 37)

Product Details

• Title: Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence
• Author: Stanley Hauerwas
• Publisher: Brazos Press
• Publication Date: 2004
• Pages: 256

About Stanley Hauerwas

Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University. Prior to that, he was a professor at the University of Notre Dame. In 2001, he was named “America’s Best Theologian” by TIME Magazine. Hauerwas is the author of numerous books, including Unsettling Arguments, Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir, Christian Existence Today, and Living Gently in a Violent World.