Seven Great Quotes From the Mohler/Hauerwas Exchange

Chris —  May 2, 2014

Yesterday, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary released an interview with former Duke professor and self proclaimed “High-Church-MennoniteStanley Hauerwas. It was akin to watching Captain America interview Batman, they might look like they do the same thing, but they come from completely different universes. You can listen to the entire strange and charming exchange on Mohler’s website.

3155935-2879260-batman_cap

Simple ways to avoid selling in the “buyers market” of American religion:

I tell my students for example…They should never have the Christian funeral in a funeral home. It is to be in the church. And they should never marry someone off the street. And they say well if we try to do that, they will just go to the church down the street and be buried in a funeral home or to marry people off the street. And I say “yeah, but that’s why they’re a bad church and you’ll be a good one!” We won’t have many members. So that’s the way I think that it works, namely that the consumer gets to consume the kind of faith they want.

On the Death of Evangelicalism:

I think evangelicalism is destined to die of its own success and it will go the way of mainstream Protestantism because there’s just—it depends far too much on charismatic pastors, and charisma will only take you so far. Evangelicalism is constantly under the burden of re-inventing the wheel and you just get tired. 

On Spiritual Disciplines:

Hagel made the comment at one time, “Christians arose in the morning and said their prayers. Now they read the newspaper.” …But I think that the fundamental habits of the faith have been in decline and that leaves us with insufficient resources to sustain our lives as Christians in a world in which we find ourselves.

How to live after Christendom:

The first thing we need to do is confess our sin; that we have pridefully tried to make our faith a faith that suits us, and, in particular, underwrite the American experiment as central to the Christian faith.

The church in the next 20 years:

The church will be leaner and meaner and that will be a very good thing. I think that we will discover how much we need one another for survival and that is a very good thing. I hope that the world in which we find ourselves will be not as violent as it has been but I don’t have much confidence in that.

What would you say to younger evangelicals:

“We need you, so you must acquaint yourself with the great literature of our culture, which is a Christian literature, in a way that you become articulate for the world in which we find ourselves so that we will not lose our ability to be people of substance in a world filled with superficiality.”

What does is mean to live in light of the end of all things?

Be a person of joy because you are God’s good creature who was created for the glory of God which is joy.

Image credit Comic Vine

Related posts: