Unmasking the differences: Nonviolence and social control

Cross Currents, Spring, 2002 by Gloria Albrecht

Unaware of the imperialism of his claims, Hauerwas identifies his challenge as how to make his absolute truth (which can be known only through the witness of those persons formed by the discipline of the church) compelling to the whole world without this task itself becoming an ideology that supports patterns of domination and violence. (23) In my terms, can Hauerwas appropriate a Western, imperialistic view of God and truth and an Augustinian view of fallen humanity without resorting to Augustinian coercion? It is his contention that an absolutist, but nonviolent witness is possible because its central conviction is the nonviolence of a loving God; that is, the one nonnegotiable truth is the necessity of a nonviolent community. It is my contention that every theology and theological ethics is affected by the loyalties of one's chosen social location. Therefore, Hauerwas's claim of universality, even within the Western world, functions to mask the social origins of his ethics as well as its social consequence s. It is my contention that an analysis of the social location of Hauerwas's Western, liberal "Christian" reveals a fundamental flaw in his description of the social power of his "Christians"; his contention that "we" live "after Christendom" is not accurate. Therefore, it is also my contention that his theology of a loving and nonviolent, yet all-powerful God, worshiped in an authoritative church by obedient and nonresistant Christians, is produced by the concerns of a particular social location. Specifically, it is produced by the dilemma of relative power that continues to discomfort white middle- and upper-class Christians in the U.S. who are located by virtue of race and class in positions of relative social privilege. (24) The resolution of this dilemma requires the willingness to (re)impose ecclesial institutional violence. I assert that by placing his gospel in its social location, Hauerwas's version of Christian nonviolence and nonresistance is revealed as a defense of social privilege, power, and co ntrol -- especially the control of women.

Nonviolence and the Control of Class and Race

How can a Christian theologian who argues for the utter uniqueness of Christian discourse, claiming its incomprehensibility to those who are not a part of this discourse, be understood by the wider audience he addresses? Hauerwas admits that this is a question for which his own theological assumptions can only lead to "a particularly awkward position," in which the more successful his communication the more he contradicts his own theology. (25) How can he be heard by others who do not participate in his linguistic-cultural community? If he is, as he claims, a resident alien speaking to resident aliens, would his books sell? Would he be asked to lecture? Would he teach in prestigious universities? His own presuppositions about the singularity of the Christian language-community raise the suspicion that aspects of his discourse are participating in the discourses of American culture. As Foucault points out, society does not suddenly discover, or rediscover, newly recognized greater truth. Rather, a change in po litics governs the formation of what can be received as a truth statement. That is, something has shifted in the relations of power. (26) Changes in the social context prepare ears to hear a voice, such as Hauerwas's, into speaking.