198 Quotes by Stanley Hauerwas

Christianity is not a set of beliefs or doctrines one believes in order to be a Christian, but rather Christianity is to have one’s body shaped, one’s habits determined, in such a way that the worship of God is unavoidable.

We believe that many Christians do not fully appreciate the odd way in which the church, when it is most faithful, goes about its business. We want to claim the church’s “oddness” as essential to its faithfulness.

We don’t fall in love and then get married; instead we get married and then learn what love requires.

When Christianity is assumed to be an “answer” that makes the world intelligible, it reflects an accommodated church committed to assuring Christians that the way things are is the way things have to be.

The church occupies the space he has made so that the world may see what a people look like who are not determined by the destructive fantasy that we can secure our lives through violence.

No powers determine our lives more completely than those we think we have under our control. I.

Saints cannot exist without a community.

From time to time it may find it useful to send out missionaries, but its first missionary task is to be a witness in and to the worlds in which it finds itself. All missionary tasks are in that sense local.

From the perspective of the one committing suicide, his or her act can be one of the most perverse forms of moral manipulation, as it abandons those left behind to their shame, guilt, and grief. Suicide is something like a metaphysical “I gotcha!” It is often an attempt to kill or wound others.