War is a moral act, according to Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School Stanley Hauerwas, who spoke at Russell House Thursday.
“War is an enticing elixir to the triviality of life and an opportunity to be noble,” Hauerwas said.
Hauerwas went on to situate war as an important and defining human activity. Both war mongers and secular pacifists alike need war in order to understand themselves, he argued. Hauerwas reminded the audience that war can be both beautiful and compelling, material for artists and politicians and as a source of meaning for generations of humans.
Hauerwas made the case that people should turn to Christianity as an alternative to the ritualized sacrifice of war. In a tautly woven and unapologetic lecture, Hauerwas discussed the inherent appeal and necessity of war, situated patriotism as America’s foremost secular religion, and responded to questions about the necessity for violent justice.
Hauerwas began the lecture by stating that theological convictions make no sense unless they are applied to our lives.
We as humans, he said, must accept that sometimes our practices can become perversions of God’s creations, worthy of our attention and repair. Hauerwas argued the very terminology of war, or in more contemporary terms, “just war,” is a practice of legitimization.
“If it wasn’t a war, then we would have to call it slaughter,” Hauerwas said.
What bonds a large group together, according to Hauerwas, is violent blood sacrifice. In America, Hauerwas said, we have bled not for our religions, but for our nation. Nationalism thus shares with sectarian religions the worship of a killing authority.
Hauerwas situated American contemporary concepts of war within the context of the Christian-driven wars of the Middle Ages. The development of chivalry, he said, blended piety and violence in a way that connected soldiers’ own deaths to that of Christ. This idea was equally central in both World Wars, he added.
Yet to Hauerwas war is a type of counter-liturgy to Christianity because in war, a nation sacrifices its soldiers and more importantly, its unwillingness to kill. This is counter to the example set by Christ, who sacrificed himself for us.
The Christian alternative to war, Hauerwas argued, is worship. The practice of taking the Eucharist, of ingesting the body and blood of Christ allows a Christian who believes in the reality of his theological convictions to turn away from the sacrificial act of war and find meaning in the sacrifice of Christ.
“The sacrifice of the son makes possible the overwhelming of our killing,” Hauerwas said.
The responses to Hauerwas’ lecture mostly addressed his last and largely meta-physical point. The first question from the audience was how we as humans are supposed to ignore violence done to ourselves and not advance either our safety or justice by retaliating in kind.
“A serious Christian pacifist will have to accept that the innocent will suffer for your convictions,” Hauerwas said.
Hauerwas went on to say that being a Christian and an American are not the same thing, a feeling he said sometimes mistakenly results from our public education system.
Students had very mixed reactions to the talk.
“I didn’t find his argument convincing, but I think he tried to combine the topics of Christianity and war in interesting ways,” said Joel Bhuiyan ’06. “I just don’t think he sufficiently made the argument that non-violence is sustainable.”
Other students found the talk interesting for its non-religious content.
“It was a lot less biblical than I thought it would be,” said Kevin Loela, ’06. “I really liked the way he tied in secularized theology.”
“[Professor Hauerwas took] a crucial step in considering the humanity of seemingly zealous American soldiers, a step many liberals seem unwilling to take,” said Shannon McIntyre ’05. “His system of Christianity is a crucial counterpoint to the current conception of Christianity as practiced largely by the pro-war moral values camp. He skillfully combined Christianity with peace, which is important to consider since, due to our president, many Americans too readily equate war and Christianity.”
Hauerwas, named Theologian of the Year 2001 by Time magazine, is the second speaker in a three-part series of lectures addressing the future of Christianity. The first addressed the explosion of Christianity in the southern hemisphere and its decline in Europe. The third, which will be given on April 14th by Katherine Keller, will discuss creationism in Jewish and Christian traditions.
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