And now, a word from Stanley Hauerwas....
I was bouncing around on the Internet and found this excerpt from an interview Hauerwas (theology professor at Duke University) had with a journal about preaching some years back. Given recent conversations about preaching and politics amidst the ongoing situation in Madison, this seemed a wonderful exchange to consider on a Saturday evening as preachers and politicians work to deliver their respective messages.
Please note: Hauerwas' directness is not be for the thin-skinned! I'll admit to being a bit stung, myself. Enjoy (or not)!
Hauerwas: The difficulty about becoming a public official in America is that the training necessary for being a politician makes you the kind of person that can’t distinguish a lie from the truth anymore.
Homiletics: So politicians should not go to law school, they should go through seminary.
Hauerwas: That would be a really good idea — a way of formation. But then, you see, one of the things that bothers me deeply about the situation we’re in is how seldom preachers tell their congregations the truth! That’s where you’ve got to start in a genuine politics.
I was bouncing around on the Internet and found this excerpt from an interview Hauerwas (theology professor at Duke University) had with a journal about preaching some years back. Given recent conversations about preaching and politics amidst the ongoing situation in Madison, this seemed a wonderful exchange to consider on a Saturday evening as preachers and politicians work to deliver their respective messages.
Please note: Hauerwas' directness is not be for the thin-skinned! I'll admit to being a bit stung, myself. Enjoy (or not)!
Hauerwas: The difficulty about becoming a public official in America is that the training necessary for being a politician makes you the kind of person that can’t distinguish a lie from the truth anymore.
Homiletics: So politicians should not go to law school, they should go through seminary.
Hauerwas: That would be a really good idea — a way of formation. But then, you see, one of the things that bothers me deeply about the situation we’re in is how seldom preachers tell their congregations the truth! That’s where you’ve got to start in a genuine politics.
posted by FrGaryB | 6:29 PM
2 Comments:
Mate, your post reminded me of the practice of 'truthiness' (thanks to Stephen Colbert!). I suspect that where politicians and preachers run into problems in spreading 'truthiness' can be somewhat explained by the training most of us receive in the character of truth. We are taught that truth belongs to the words we say, not the character of the person saying it. Truth and falsity don't belong to words (or 'things' for that matter). Truth belongs to 'understanding' (i.e. the mind -- Aquinas: truth is in the mind, goodness is in things) and therefore to the person with understanding. We learn what is true by being catechized into the truth of the world; a training that assumes a connection of truth to existence, and therefore, to God (who is existence without remainder).
Hauerwas calls for a certain formation for politicians and preachers. We will miss the impact of this suggestion if 'formation' is reduced to 'saying certain words at the right time'. We express truth with words, of course, but our words can be false (from a lack of understanding, from a deficit in our training) even if what we say is accurate.
Mate, within the church and politics, the development of "character" seems to be a part of the formation process that is overlooked (to our own detriment). I agree that we have understated what it means to "tell the truth"...I continue to be amazed in my own life the ease with which I can make truth claims all the while failing to live into the character of those claims, thus running the risk of voiding the claim -- not because it is "untrue" but because I am. Perhaps this reality underscores the necessity of the practice of confession and repentance.
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