Stanley Hauerwas was my thesis adviser at Duke. He was and is a thoroughly unpleasant man in the social sense. I've heard him dismiss Jurgen Moltmann as "full of shit". Stan the Man -- as some of us lovingly call him -- is a self-admitted violent man. Not exactly what you'd expect from a Christian theologian who engages in ethical reflection.
I'm always inclined to respond to those who attack Stan in the same way he responds: "What else do you expect from a Texan?" But then Hauerwas also happens to be an Episcopalian layman and one of the church's most outspoken apostles of non-violence. Gandhi wouldn't be surprised: The violent, he said, often make the best pacifists.
I love Rowan Williams because he's so irenic and humble. Stan Hauerwas I love because he’s such a rootin' tootin' gunslinger. He stands in the venerable tradition of the rabies theologorum that can be traced back to the vitriolic Paul, via the hot-headed Luther and the ruthless Athanasius.
Theologically, I like the way Hauerwas keeps his work seamless: Dogmatics and ethics (Barth), doctrine and narrative (MacIntyre), character and action (Bonhoeffer), church and world (Yoder). The accusation of sectarianism is preposterous, as Hauerwas roars his counter-cultural critiques in the fora. The professor's Peaceable Kingdom (1983) will issue in the public intellectual's Dissent from the Homeland: Essays after September 11 (2003). Here Hauerwas declares: "I do not have a foreign policy. I have something better -- a church constituted by people who would rather die than kill". He also says: "If we do not think it possible to love our enemies then we should plainly say Jesus is not the messiah".
The Sermon on the Mount obviously resources Hauerwas' theology, but the ultimate source is the God who is our friend. Indeed friendship lies at the heart of Hauerwas' understanding of the Christian life, and informs his thinking not only on peacemaking, but also on sexuality, abortion and -- a special concern -- the mentally handicapped. Indeed, the recent Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words (2004) is more poignant than polemical. (I happen to think this friendship makes theology not only enjoyable but true.)
Stan may be a "son-of-a-bitch" (his own epithet of himself), but he's our "son-of-a-bitch.