top 10 hauerwas books -- the truth about god

It's hard for me to believe that the brouhaha over Roy Moore's display of the 10 commandments in his courtroom is now 15 years ago.  But the American culture wars are still nothing if not fought over the importance of the 10 commandments in American society.  Some feel these 10 "rules", abstracted from the rest of the Christian narrative, can serve as an adequate guide to all things moral.

Hauerwas and Willimon's account of the 10 commandments in The Truth about God challenge that belief.  The 10 commandments have a lot to say about the people who observe them, they claim.  But they also have even more to say about the God who claims those people.  They are not some set of universal rules -- they simply offer ways for a certain people to know a certain God -- our God who delivers from the bondage of political and economic bondage.  Whose deliverance then makes claims on how we structure our political and economic and social lives.  God cares how we treat other people.  God cares how we behave in marriage.  God cares about the importance of being truthful.  God wants people to take a day off from work each week.

This is Hauerwas at his best, and displays Stan's ability to speak Scripture to the very heart of the moral and theological life of those whose are claimed by God.

I've used it a number of times in my theology and Christian ethics class, along with its sister volume, Lord, Teach Us to Pray:  The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life.  (Which you should consider supplemental reading to The Truth about God.)