It's this final section of the book that I think poses some of the most important material for our own American cultural context. The final section of Christians Among the Virtues begins with an account of the hopeful virtues, beginning with Paul’s classic statement of justification by faith in Romans 5 and raising the question of how virtue relates to justification. Hauerwas and Pinches show how distinctively Christian doctrines such as the resurrection of Jesus radically shape the way Christians construe suffering, forgiveness, endurance, and the formation of character. The next chapter examines the sense in which obedience is a virtue from a Christian perspective. Then follows a discussion of courage that points out how Christian resources transform and subvert notions of courage defined by the context of battle. The book concludes with a suggestive treatment of patience in relation to modern medicine. Here the authors explore, among other things, the irony of our still being called patients by the medical profession "given the impatience which so imbues the modern practice of medicine and the social order it serves".
Sadly, this book hasn't been as well-received as most of Hauerwas' other works. But it's important for a number of reasons -- and certainly demands a wider reading.