I suppose that’s why I don’t understand the sudden pile-on-Hauerwas. (I realize that one efficient cause is Moltmann’s remark, but I don’t get why he made that either.)

Hauerwas often responds to these accusations:
“Nothing about my position prevents Christians from being engaged in politics as long as they are Christians. ”
http://themormonworker.org/articles/issue4/interview_with_stanley_hauerwas.php

“Jeff [Stout] doesn’t get how influential Yoder’s influence has been on me, in the sense that John Yoder never thought that Christians withdrew from society, even Christians committed to nonviolence as he was and as I am, but we think that the kind of truthfulness that nonviolence requires should be of service to any political order anywhere.”
http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/interviews/hauerwas.asp

But beyond the academic jabbing back and forth, Danielle is trying to explore a good and difficult question. How do we as Christians avoid the crass lobbying and violent viciousness of power politics while still being “peace-makers” in and for the world? Glenn Stassen at Fuller Seminary has tried to name some of ways of “Just Peacemaking” while Hauerwas has emphasized the kind of virtues we will need to do this work: hope, forgiveness, suffering, gentleness, obedience, endurance, patience, gentleness. Meanwhile, we also have the responsibility of being parts of the body of Christ who interact with one another peaceably in such a way that outsiders say “There really is something different about how you all love one another.” Hauerwas worries that much of how Christians participate in politics is pretty vice-like, that is, ugly. Christianity is for many just a veneer that masks brutal “I’m right and I will force this on you.” Therefore much of his work encourages local churches and communities like L’Arche to attempt to model peaceableness in the midst of the world for the sake of the world. But he is pessimistic that “if we just try hard enough, the world will see how we Christians are right and good.” Some will see the beauty and goodness of our way of life, but we also may end up getting killed.

To drop a Hauerwasian catch-phrase, the most charitable thing that the Church can do for the World is to let the World know it’s the World. To give that divine mission up in the name of “filling needs” is selfless in a way but isn’t inherently more faithful to the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah.

One of my Hauerwasian friends made your point to me yesterday about the two being inseparable, and I think that’s true. We can’t be peacemakers without being peacable in the core of our being, and we can’t be peaceable in any authentic way without the action of peacemaking. I just worry that there seems to be a trend to isolate in tiny separate communities, and I want to push against that a little.

My brief response would be this: being (in it’s deepest sense) is an action. One cannot forget that Hauerwas embraces virtue ethics. What you *are* is what you *do*. So being a Peaceable Kingdom is necessarily to be a peace-making kingdom. I don’t buy the idea that Hauerwas is a sectarian, but that’s another issue (and it’s probably because I myself favor the explanatory power of virtue ethics that I think that…).

I agree though, that too often we settle for the veneer without the content, the slogans without the action. I was very proud of my congregation several months ago because I thought they truly exemplified what it means to be a welcoming community–a community turned toward reconciliation.

I had been working with a man in the area for over a year, he’s bi-polar, isn’t always on his meds and bounces from place to place (being homeless most of the time). I’ve helped him travel to see his mother, get his disability check in order etc… During the time I’ve worked with him he’s said again and again that he wanted to come to our Sunday service. I’ve always encouraged him, offered to pic him up etc… but he never took me up on the offer. And then, one Sunday several months ago he showed up to our service. He walked in a little late, and I noticed him from the front during one of our opening prayers. For a moment he looked as though he might leave, but then one of our congregants saw him and quietly offered him a seat with their family. He worshiped with us and received communion and even remained for our coffee hour after the service, mingling and talking with folks and later getting help from several members. I admit to being proud of my people while at the same time chastising myself for feeling as though I should be proud–shouldn’t all churches be accepting of those who are different, whether because of ethnicity, age or socio-economic status, or whether someone is down on their luck or not? While I know this should be the case, I also know it is not–but I was thankful to see that some of what we’d been studying in Bible study and some of what I’d been emphasizing in sermons, had actually born fruit.

While it was a small thing, it was a *necessary thing* if we are who we claim to be and I’m glad for it, especially given the youth and small size of our mission–this is the right sort of thing to have in your makeup.

The first movement is from “lonliness” to “solitude.” Lonliness being that suffocating sense that I am isolated, that everyone else is against me and I must defend myself. Solitude being that internal confidence that my identity cannot be shaken by external forces, that I am not the center of my own world, that people don’t “owe” me anything.

The second movement is from “hostility” to “hospitality.” Hostility is the violent reaction I have toward those who offend me, toward the panic that sets in when confronted by the unknown or unfamiliar. Hospitality is the posture of my heart toward others, a welcoming and friendly orientation toward those who perpetrate evil against me, no matter the extent to which I feel that I cannot identify with them. It is the offering of reconciliation, not the threat of revenge.

The third movement is from illusion to prayer. “Illusion” refers to the false ideas I have about God, the images I project upon him that are born out of the center of my selfishness or fear. “Prayer” is the union I strive to acheive with God, a union that puts the reality of God so close to the core of my being that I have a clear understanding of who He is.

Imagine the peace that would exist if two competing sides each worked their way through these movements- if selfishness were set aside, if hospitality were extended to all, and if God’s reality permeated us all…

The real beauty of it is that it would be both peaceable and peacemaking.

and peace-making is far more complicated, anything that calls us to get beyond ourselves and serve others is by nature harder.

The first thing that comes to my mind is of course the Amish community of Nickle Mines that came under fire a few years ago. They could have chosen to simply withdraw, but instead they actively sought ways to extend grace and peace to the family of the man who murdered their school children.