top 10 hauerwas books -- a community of character

A Community of Character was perhaps Hauerwas' most important collection of occasional essays.   The opening sentences of the "Introduction" reveal that his one concern is "to reassert the social significance of the church as a distinct society with an integrity peculiar to itself" (p. 1).  Indeed, the compelling characteristic of Hauerwas' ethic is its commitment to the particular narrative of Christian history as revealed and experienced in the church community.  However, I think we miss the fullness of the argument if we just focus on the community level of the Christian narrative.  What is needed is an understanding of the foundational beliefs that support that community; Hauerwas would agree, writing, "I contend that the only reason for being Christian ... is because Christian convictions are true; and the only reason for participation in the church is that it is the community that pledges to form its life by that truth" (p. 1).   With this in mind -- that the Christian community is nothing without a firm grasp of the truth of its basic convictions -- I contend that chapter 2, "Jesus: The Story of the Kingdom", is the hermeneutical key to understanding how the character of the Christian community is formed and lived throughout history.   The narrative ethics that Hauerwas proposes is certainly about the community of God's people, and so clearly ecclesiology plays a key role in the discussion.  However behind the ecclesiology (really, behind any good ecclesiology) is Christology; and so the basic conviction that supports the development of Hauerwas' ethic must be about Jesus Christ before it is about the church.   Hauerwas accomplishes this balanced ordering throughout the book by timely reminding us of the lordship of Jesus Christ.  In so doing, he draws the Christian community into the daily adventure of following after Jesus Christ.

In chapter 2, Hauerwas reminds us that "to be Christian implies substantive and profound convictions about the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth" (p. 36).  These convictions, however, must not just say something about what we believe, they must dramatically inform how we act.   This space between belief and act is most readily bridged, for Hauerwas, by recovering the gospel story.  This move shifts the question from "did Jesus have a social ethic" and instead allows us to see that his story itself is a social ethic (p. 37).  As the church proclaims the truth of Jesus' story -- that the Kingdom of God is present -- it then also sets out a way to live.  The community has no direction apart from the gospel narrative; there is no separation of Christology from ecclesiology (p. 37).

The basic conviction that God's sovereign lordship is manifest in Jesus' proclamation of the present Kingdom drives the narrative of character-forming communities.   And this narrative, for Hauerwas, breeds adventure.

Watership Down, for example, is not just about any kind of story-formed community; this is an adventure-story-formed community.  Hauerwas' ten theses toward the reformation of Christian social ethics (see pp. 9-12) are not just narrative based, but they are based on the adventurous narrative of Israel and Jesus.  

To show this, Hauerwas calls Christians to "courage" in chapter 8.  Courage is required to navigate any adventure, much less the Christian adventure.   More than just courage, however, Christians need to cultivate the courage of their convictions -- especially in the context of the family.  Hauerwas gives an example:  "Morally I am convinced that Christians are necessarily committed to the ethic of non-resistance.   Yet the temptation is for me to teach my son that such an ethic is but one option among others" (p. 173).   Here, Hauerwas is calling for the type of community support that calls on the truth-telling revealed in the Christian narrative.   Family values and morals are soon tossed about indifferently without a courageous community to speak and teach their basic convictions.

Like I said, this is one of Hauerwas' more important works -- even some thirty years after its initial release.