Friday, March 31, 2006

On Being a Disciple

This morning I was doing some background reading on Stanley Hauerwas. I came across a 2001 TIME article that spoke of him as Christian Contrarian. The last paragraph follows:

A God who embraces powerlessness unto death is a message the world will never accept, says Hauerwas. Yet, he argues, it is that message the Christian is bid to take to all nations. If you were to ask Hauerwas to define himself by a single word, once he got Texan out of the way, he would probably say disciple and add that anyone who uses the word "better damn well mean it."

2 comments:

Alison Hodgson said...

This might be semantics, but the powerlessness doesn't ring true for me. Do you think he meant in the sense of surrender?

Unknown said...

Yes, I think so, Alison. The idea that Jesus surrendered himself, made himself powerless unto death - in order to display his power. Also, and someone who is more familiar with Hauerwas can correct me, but he is coming from a strong Anabaptist tradition, which, I believe, really embraces the idea of modeling Christ through powerlessness. Again, someone else would be better suited to talk about Hauerwas, since I've read little about him.