文章基本信息

标题：God, Truth, And Witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas
本地全文：下载
作者：J. Aaron Simmons
期刊名称：Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory
电子版ISSN：1530-5228
出版年度：2007
卷号：8
期号：3
出版社：The Whitestone Foundation
摘要：The editors of God, Truth, and Witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas begin the introduction to the volume with the following claim: "Engaging Stanley Hauerwas . . . is joyful, frustrating, and transformative" (7). While I am not sure about its being "transformative," reading the volume that follows this sentence is also joyful and frustrating. It is joyful in as much as it is a collection of essays from some of the most influential thinkers in contemporary theology dealing with a wide range of topics. From Rowan A. Greer's account of Augustine's conception of truth to Neville Richardson's socio-theological report on the status of the church in South Africa, and from Arne Rasmusson's defense of Yoder's conception of politics to Harry Huebner's reflections on the possibility of a Christian university, this volume serves as something of a topological overview of the contemporary landscape in both theological speculation and church practice. However, the volume is also frustrating in that the essays do not always thematically cohere with each other in any clear fashion and, due to a lack of engagement with the major voices in philosophical literature, they repeatedly feel as if they are written to an audience that is more or less already on board with the general trajectories of the positions being advocated. Additionally, there is one further respect in which the volume is both joyful and frustrating: the "engagement" with Stanley Hauerwas announced in the title and in the first sentence of the book itself is, for the most part, sporadic and, occasionally, seemingly nonexistent. In what follows I will give a summary of the contents of the book, provide possible ways to find coherent thematic frameworks in the volume, and offer possible philosophical interlocutors that should be more directly addressed. First, however, let me suggest productive ways in which to understand the "engagement" with Hauerwas