Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Stanley Hauerwas: A Community of Character

1. Tradition, which is formed through mediation on scripture, creates a shared history of a community that leads to forming a community’s identity; therefore scripture is dependent on community to continually find value in the scripture.

2. Currently theories of biblical ethics takes appropriate scriptures and uses it to fit what “our intuitive assumptions about what an ‘ethic’ should look like,” (57) this separates the “ethical lesson” from the narrative that makes the ethic understandable.

3. Scripture receives moral authority through the church using the wisdom of the past, through reflection and interpretation on the scriptures (which creates tradition), to further lead the community of the church in the present.

4. Scripture as narrative is essential because all is understood through stories with a beginning and progression; therefore the stories of scripture are the stories of God, which lead to a better understanding of the character of God.

On page 57 Hauerwas states, “ The very idea that the Bible is revealed (or inspired) is a claim that creates more trouble than it is worth? Does this mean that Hauerwas does not see the scriptures as Divinely inspired? Does that lead us Christians and Jews with scriptures that are purely manmade?

Hauerwas argues that the notion that scripture contains a revealed morality that can be used by individuals in the present day “flounders” (58). This is because some scriptures at the present time are seen as morally perverse and are typically dismissed. This way of singling out what is seen as morally important and what is seen as something that can be dismissed leads to subjectivity and ultimately we gain a morality from scripture that is solely dependent upon what is appealing to the ethicist. Another flaw in believing that scripture creates a standard of orthodoxy is the fact that there are contradictions through out scripture that were specifically left in. How can we find one set of biblical ethics when there are contradictions within the scripture? Once again if we choose to pick between these contradicting ethics we are being subjective.

This leaves us with the notion that scripture is purely manmade and that there can be no ethics pulled from scripture. This notion has potential to be damaging because we loose the validity of scripture . Hauerwas saves the importance of scripture through the theories of tradition and narrative. Tradition is essential to the Christian community. Our community is founded off of the shared history that is written in scripture (58). Reflection and belief in this documented past is what creates our community. This is essential to know because it is where scripture receives its authority. Through the Christian community’s reflection and every continuing interpretation on the past events dictated by scripture, the Christian community is validating the importance of scripture in its formation and continuation of its community. The community is using the stories and lessons of the scriptures to help in framing an understanding of our current world.

The notion of stories is also essential for discovering the moral significance of scripture. “The moral use of scripture, therefore, lies precisely in its power to help us remember the stories of God for the continual guidance of our community and individual lives” (66). We as humans learn and understand best through stories. We understand and relate to other through sharing stories. It is the direct notion of human understanding that we begin to value the importance of scripture. Scripture is narrative that renders the character of God. It is through the stories of scripture that we best understand the character of God. Therefore scripture is the stories of God. It is through this statement that we gain the significance of scripture back. Scripture is written by humans, however, it is the written history of a community, and how they came to understand the character of God. These stories are then seen as authority because our Christian community reflects on these stories and forms our traditions and understanding around them.

Did God reveal himself to the writers of scripture and that was how they were able to write on the Character of God or are the scriptures the written understanding of God?

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