In this challenging, controversial volume, Stanley Hauerwas asserts that both liberal (historical-critical) and fundamentalist (literal) approaches to biblical scholarship have corrupted our use of the Bible--especially in preaching--in the American church.

Recent conflicts, such as the Persian Gulf War of the 1990s and the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 show that the idea of what constitutes a 'just war' remains a crucial issue in politics and ethics today. With a new foreword by noted theologian and ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, this classic text on war and the ethics of modern statecraft written at the height of the Vietnam era in 1968 speaks to a new generation of readers. In defending just war against Christian pacifism and arguing against those who maintain that the end justifies the means in the conduct of a war, Ramsey joins...

Why does a good and all-powerful God allow us to experience pain and suffering? According to Stanley Hauerwas, asking this question is a theological mistake. Drawing heavily on stories of ill and dying children to illustrate and clarify his discussion of theological-philosophical issues, Hauerwas explores why we so fervently seek explanations for suffering and evil, and he shows how modern medicine has become a god to which we look (in vain) for deliverance from the evils of disease and mortality.

One of the hallmarks of contemporary culture is its attitude toward aging and the elderly. Youth and productivity are celebrated in today's society, while the elderly are increasingly marginalized. This not only poses difficulties for old people but is also a loss for the young and middle-agers, who could learn much from the elderly, including what it means to grow old (and die) -in Christ.-
Growing Old in Christ presents the first serious theological reflection ever on what it means to grow old, particularly in our culture and particularly as a Christian. In a full-orbed...

Wilderness Wanderings slashes through the tangled undergrowth that Christianity in America has become to clear a space for those for whom theology still matters. Writing to a generation of Christians that finds itself at once comfortably at home yet oddly fettered and irrelevant in America, Stanley Hauerwas challenges contemporary Christians to reimagine what it might mean to break back into Christianity in a world that is at best semi-Christian. While the myth that America is a Christian nation has long been debunked, a more urgent constructive task remains; namely, discerning what it...

God knows it is hard to make God boring, Stanley Hauerwas writes, but American Christians, aided and abetted by theologians, have accomplished that feat. Whatever might be said about Hauerwas--and there is plenty--no one has ever accused him of being boring, and in this book he delivers another jolt to all those who think that Christian theology is a matter of indifference to our secular society.
At once Christian theology and social criticism, this book aims to show that the two cannot be separated. In this spirit, Hauerwas mounts a forceful attack on current sentimentalities about the...

God knows it is hard to make God boring, Stanley Hauerwas writes, but American Christians, aided and abetted by theologians, have accomplished that feat. Whatever might be said about Hauerwas--and there is plenty--no one has ever accused him of being boring, and in this book he delivers another jolt to all those who think that Christian theology is a matter of indifference to our secular society.
At once Christian theology and social criticism, this book aims to show that the two cannot be separated. In this spirit, Hauerwas mounts a forceful attack on current sentimentalities about the...

Stanley Hauerwas is one of the most widely read and oft-cited theologians writing today. A prolific lecturer and author, he has been at the forefront of key developments in contemporary theology, ranging from narrative theology to the recovery of virtue. Yet despite his prominence and the esteem reserved for his thought, his work has never before been collected in a single volume that provides a sense of the totality of his vision.
The editors of "The Hauerwas Reader, " therefore, have compiled and edited a volume that represents all the different periods and phases of Hauerwas s work....

Stanley Hauerwas is one of the most widely read and oft-cited theologians writing today. A prolific lecturer and author, he has been at the forefront of key developments in contemporary theology, ranging from narrative theology to the "recovery of virtue." Yet despite his prominence and the esteem reserved for his thought, his work has never before been collected in a single volume that provides a sense of the totality of his vision.
The editors of "The Hauerwas Reader, " therefore, have compiled and edited a volume that represents all the different periods and phases of Hauerwas's...