Dateline: Rock Island, Illinois. Augustana College, 1967.
I obtained a coveted job at the Denckman Memorial Library. The Denckman family was related to the Weyerhause clan, who began in the Quad-Cities, and built a fortune in lumber. Later a Weyerhaus funded the apostate trend at Fuller Seminary.
I was moving books from the old stacks to the newly expanded section. Standing nearby was a skinny new graduate of Yale's doctoral program and my future editor for my dissertation/book, published by the Augustana Historical Society. I used to move those books in and out of the storeroom. One Augustana College president (Andreen) had been a famous professor at Yale, but he left that sinecure to run a nearly bankrupt school no one knew existed.
Stan Hauerwas was the new hire from Yale. He lasted one year. He was not an Augustana graduate and suffered from being different from the rest. Non-Augie almost guaranteed not fitting in. That is why a parochial school system yields parochial graduates with a long list of unwritten rules for conformity. Nobody knows who wrote the rules, but every insider knows the rules.
Stan took a job at Notre Dame at a considerable decrease in income. My sister-in-law babysat his son while she was earning a master's at Notre Dame, so the Hauerwas name was often mentioned. I met with him when I considered attending Notre Dame since he was the only person I knew by name.
Notre Dame accepted me and I enjoyed taking an ethics course from Hauerwas. He was famous for his Texan descriptions of life in general, so colorful that I cannot print them. He repeatedly said in class, looking at me, "Lutherans are not good at sanctification." I waited for him to repeat his witticism and added, "Or sanctimony."
Hauerwas became famous for the extent and volume of his publications. They began as essays and ended as collections of essays. Notre Dame loved professors who published, but he was the star of them all. I followed his example and Bainton's in publishing. Trying to write about a subject means learning far more about it than will ever reach print. I found that a tiny publication had a huge audience compared to a congregation. I made money from writing while studying at Notre Dame, serving also as an agent for my program supervisor.
Notre Dame was ordered to get rid of the non-Catholics in the theology department, so Hauerwas left, even though he had tenure. Robert Wilken and the Schussler-Fiorenza couple left too. (All were pushed out.) Wilken went to Duke and became Roman Catholic. Hauerwas went to Duke and became world famous. The Schussler-Fiorenza theology team both obtained endowed professorships at Harvard Divinity. They were Roman Catholic, but Frank was a liberation theologian, a category hated by Pope John Paul II, loved by Harvard Lefties.
Hauerwas is one of the most famous theologians in the world. I imagine most academic bookstores would have his latest books on display. He has been mentioned in Time.
Hauerwas was raised United Methodist but now attends the Episcopal Church. He was a pacifist long before that was popular. He once mentioned abortion to me. I did not want to find out he was pro-abortion. In fact, he was pro-life when no one else seemed to be.
