Benchmarks of Applied Christianity “What can I do to experience eternal life?” Luke 10...MUV (Morgan Unstandard Version)
Though Time magazine named Duke Professor Stanley Hauerwas “best theologian in America” a few years back, he often comes across in a salty-worded, sharp-witted way. His take on living with Gospel integrity and compassion can be an in-your-face/in-your-life challenge to our usual go along-to get along conventional/cultural religiosity. In Hauerwas’ recent Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir, he takes issue with those who say he presents a “wholly different Christianity.” He reflects…
I think that the “wholly different Christianity” I represent is in deep continuity with Christianity past and present that is found in the everyday lives of Christian people. You do not get to make Christianity up, and I have no desire to be original. If I represent a wholly different Christianity, I do so only because I have found a way to help us recognize as Christians what extraordinary things we say when we worship God (135).
Lately, I have been sharing with you the ruminations in my head and heart on what it means to be a member of a local church—a beauty marks, warts-and-all real live part of the body of Christ. I have called attention to the promises we make to serve Christ through our church with our presence, prayers, gifts, service, and witness. Someone has cautioned me that too much emphasis on the meaning of membership may come across as a veiled effort to pump up the institutional church—Canterbury Inc. “Hey folks, show up, fork over your money, and take on church projects so we can meet the budget and turn in better attendance numbers to the Conference.”
Nothing wrong with making the budget that undergirds caring ministries and more people here together! But the real deal for us to be a part of the worship, learning, and service of a local church—the real deal for not only attention to our presence in church but the meaning and quality of our presence in all parts of our life (and so on with your prayers, gifts, service, and witness)—is that God can use those patterns of behavior to give meaning and hope to our lives and use us as channels of Jesus’ love in the world.
Back to Hauerwas’ reference to “what extraordinary things we say when we worship God.” We say so often, “forgive us our trespasses (sins!) as we forgive those who trespass (sin!) against us” that we miss the boldness of admitting we sin and hurt each other in a world of thousands of excuses. That boldness is tied to the shocking belief in God’s forgiveness in a world that loves to keep score and get even. When God’s forgiveness sets us free from the emotional/spiritual junk we do to others and ourselves, people like us might just be unleashed to do some godly good on this planet. Wow and amen.
