Stan Hauerwas Explains Al Just and Pastor Tabor - WELS Church Workers

"One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend."

- Stanley Hauerwas

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GJ - Hauerwas was hired to teach at Augustana College, where Mrs. Ichabod and I met. Her sister baby-sat for his son when he taught at Notre Dame, which led me to apply there.

Hauerwas is the most famous theologian to have taught at Augustana, and they canned him in one year. He took a pay cut to teach at Notre Dame. When the pope visited Notre Dame, he ordered the administration to get rid of its Protestants teaching theology and its liberation (Marxist) theologians. Robert Wilken (LCMS, ELCA, later Roman Catholic) went to Duke. Hauerwas (Methodist, now Episcopalian) went to Duke. Frank and Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenz (liberation and feminist theologians) landed at Harvard.

Hauerwas is considered the best theologian in America, honored recently by giving the Gifford lectures in Europe. All this is rather ironic since Augustana did not want to keep him.