The Little Friar

Last week, while out to lunch with friends, I commented that "No one should be more surprised that I'm a Christian than me".  That's because, truth be told, I never set out to follow Jesus, and I can't say that I'm particularly all that great at following Jesus, either.  I did, though, set out to be a theologian.  I started investigating the Christian faith as a young boy, and haven't been able -- no matter how much I had wanted or even tried -- to stop being a theologian. Thomas Mann once said that a writer is simply someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. I think that's true of theologians, too.  I commented, as part of that same conversation last week, that mine is a "God haunted" life.  I think that's because theologians are those people for whom the Christian faith is especially difficult, incomprehensible, infuriating.  As a rule we aren't especially talented or spiritually adept individu...

Cinderella Ate My Daughter  is one of my favorite books of cultural and sexual criticism.  In it,  Peggy Orenstein laments how our culture naturally moves from such beauty-centered innocence as to such beauty-centered sluttiness as Take the phrase, sleeping around .  It's sounds innocent enough.  But the reality is something stark.  To quote someone from college, that time of life when sexual partners often number in the double-digits for men and women, "I cannot recall ever rejecting an advance, and I know I never felt good afterward.  On the contrary, I felt used and dirty, at once manipulative and manipulated.  I hated my reputation; I hated the sex".   It bothers me to see women objectified in this way.   Any  woman.  I've discovered over the years that most men don't get it -- this notion of objectification .  It was explained easily enough to me as a seven-year-old:  Only treat women as you would your Grandmothe...

Several years ago, I wrote an article on the theology of marriage, sex and family (it can be found via a tabbed link on the blog front page).  A friend asked me to revisit those 9.5 theses and articulate them in the way I'd formulate them now.   I've been thinking and writing about the theology of marriage and sex for so long, that obviously my ideas should blossom and grow.  This is an accounting of any growth.  1.   Marriage is Christological before it is "natural" .  Marriage, Edward Schillebeeckx writes, is "reality secular by origin"; yet, as he continues, it "has acquired a deeper  meaning in the order of salvation in which we live".  Because creation is in and for Christ, and because the apocalyptic shockwaves of the resurrection of Christ radiate both backwards and forwards, marriage must finally be understood Christologically.  Although Jesus relativised marriage (e.g. Luke 18.29/Matthew 19.12), and although in the consummation there...

Thomas Mann once said that a writer is simply someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. I wonder if it's the same in theology.  Theologians are people for whom the Christian faith is especially difficult, incomprehensible, infuriating.  As a rule, we aren't especially talented or spiritually adept individuals.  We're people whose minds have been hurt by God, and we're restlessly searching for -- what?  Healing perhaps, or catharsis?  To expect so much from the study of theology would be futile or even dangerous.  At any rate there's no lack of opportunities for theological catharsis:  Often our worship services seem calculated to remove the difficulty of believing, to make God easy and accessible, more a cure than a wasting sickness. I was asked recently to help craft liturgies for parishes whose focus is to be God's grace.  So I've been wondering lately where that grace is most tangibly, most realistically real . ...

*WARNING:  There's lots of blue and offensive language in this post.  It fits with what truthful language Stan himself uses.  Don't read on if you may be offended.  Stanley Hauerwas is transitioning out of the classroom and into a research-filled "retirement".  He'll still supervise PhD students, write and contribute, but his teaching in the classroom days are behind him.  Since "Stan the Man" -- as some of us have called him over the years -- is "retiring" (what the hell* it means for a theologian to retire is beyond me), I thought it appropriate to write my own retrospective on Stan.  So, here goes.  I didn't go to Duke because of Stanley.  I went to Duke to study with Fred Herzog. Fred unfortunately died, though, my first semester at Duke.  So I had to scramble for a new adviser.  Not knowing whom to choose, I was placed with Stan.  That simple turn became one of the greatest gifts God gave me.  I still remember reading...

Over the course of the past few days, I've been thinking about my own practice of posting on Facebook.  During breakfast a few days ago, the topic turned toward how one uses -- as a Christian -- Facebook. Let's face it:  Facebook is a social tool.  What we do with it, shows the deepest corners of our hearts, whether we admit it or not. I've only ever "blocked" someone from Facebook less than a handful of times.  Each time, it's been because this person was using their Facebook as a weapon (against me or against someone else).  I've never been sure why they thought it was appropriate:  Saying and doing things that amount to a sort of bullying.  It's possible, I suppose, they just disliked me or wanted to humiliate me publicly.  I always assume the former.  Because there are real life consequences to unfriending and blocking someone. But, for lots of folks, Facebook is a social weapon .  They used status updates to tell folks ab...

Aristotle once rightly observed that ethical character is a matter of habits :  We are what we do.  Or, to quote him: We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Lots of us, in fact, want to believe we're someone else.  We usually say we're not really the miserable, grumpy, cynical, obstructive or unreasonable person we appear to be -- it's just that, right now , there are some extenuating circumstances.   The boss is being a Nazi.  Our childhood sucked.  Money's tight.  We just don't have the time.  It's not my problem.  We like to imagine we could change the world -- or at least our little corner -- if circumstances were different.  Inside our heads we're convinced that we're kind, forward-thinking, engaged members of society who, given half the chance, would be working to make the world a better place. Thing is, Aristotle was right.  We are what we do.  That miserable...