This week I speak with world renown theologian and ethicist Professor Stanley Hauerwas. In 2001, TIME magazine named him “America’s greatest theologian.” He taught for years at the University of Notre Dame, before moving to Duke University where he was the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological ethics at Duke Divinity School. He also served at Duke Law School, and the University of Aberdeen. He has lectured around the world, and has been featured on “Oprah.”

Stanley has written too many books to list, but his bestsellers include, “The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics;” “Jesus Changes Everything: A New World Made Possible;” “Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony;” and “Cross-shattered Christ: Meditations on the 7 last words.”

Retired at 85 now, he continues to inspire and encourage us with his knowledge of and insights on nonviolence.

“When I grew up, I didn’t know what nonviolence was. That’s because I’m from Texas,” he says with a chuckle. “I went to Notre Dame to teach Catholics and ended up being shaped by Mennonites. I discovered that Jesus and the church were mutually interrelated. To worship Jesus is to bring to the world a witness of nonviolence that otherwise could not be seen.”

He reveals to us who Jesus is in a word, and that word being more powerful than we realize. In his words: “It raises questions that demands responses.”

“To be a worshipper of Christ is to be shaped by a cross that is a manifestation of God’s love of our enemy. We must say ‘You can kill us, but you cannot determine the meaning of our death.’

The cross is a challenge to people who say ‘Jesus is my Lord and Savior, but you have to kill someone every once in a while.’”

We discussed the great book The Politics of Jesus by his colleague John Howard Yoder, as well as the Kingdom of God, God’s will, and living the way Jesus intended.

He continues to eradicate false perceptions of what nonviolence is and is not, and how Jesus himself recreated community to bind people together to make God’s kingdom real:

“The politics of Jesus exposed the false alternatives that claim to be peaceable but are in fact structural in their violence. God’s will is to live in a world without violence. God’s grace is always there making possible alternatives that would not be there without God’s presence.”

He concludes, “God is patient with us in terms of our unfaithfulness in a way that gives us hope in a world that seems hopeless. In a world that has no time for patience, patience creates time and makes it possible for us to live our lives and work for nonviolent alternatives that otherwise would not be considered.”

Reignite your imagination, be inspired and encouraged by this wise Christian elder.

Check out: Stanleyhauerwas.org

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