Can't we just argue?

Christian Century, August 1, 2001 by William Cavanaugh

Everyone who has seen Hauerwas in action has a favorite story. He confronts a medical researcher who is defending experiments on fetal tissue with the following question: "What if it were discovered that fetal tissue were a delicacy; could you eat it?" He is asked to speak at a rally against the death penalty and declares, "I'm for the death penalty. I think they should build a guillotine on Wall Street and execute people for stock fraud."

In the first case, Hauerwas's point was that no amount of benefit to medicine could justify experimenting on fetal issue: either it is human and deserves respect, or the door is open to all kinds of uses. (The medical researcher was forced to admit that, given the researcher's own logic, there is no reason to forbid Hauerwas's ghastly suggestion.) In the second case, Hauerwas's point was that the death penalty is not justified by claiming it prevents crime. If such were the case, the death penalty would be much more profitably used against dispassionate white-collar crime than against murder, which is usually too entangled in personal vindication to be prevented by a detached calculation. The real reason the death penalty is used is a desire for revenge, a temptation to which Christians must not succumb.

My tedious explanations of his points tend to dull the impact of Hauerwas's statements. He will commonly eschew such explanations and let his audience figure it out. This omission often leads to more confusion and misunderstanding than is necessary; most of the crowd at the rally, for example, were left unaware that Hauerwas is opposed to the death penalty under any circumstances. Nevertheless, a deliberate part of his pedagogy is to force people to think by jolting them out of their customary positions.

Troubling the waters is certainly part of Hauerwas's modus operandi, but he is not the Howard Stern of the theological world. His lessons are not easily forgotten because he makes his listener go through the process of making the logical connections for himself or herself. This at least partially explains his advice to one of his students: "Your job as a theologian is to cause ulcers in others and not suffer them yourself in the process."

William Cavanaugh is professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. This article is excerpted from his essay "Stan the Man," which is part of The Hauerwas Reader, edited by Michael Cartwright and John Berkman, just published by Duke University Press. Used by permission.