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Will the Real Sectarian Stand Up?

By Stanley Hauerwas

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to these two critiques, though not for the same reason. I need Miscamble's critique because he has managed to put in one short space most of the misinterpretations and crudely-drawn critiques I often find of my work. Therefore, in responding to him, I hope I will be able to put to rest those kinds of criticism. The most serious error Miscamble embodies is the assumption that we have to be church-type or sect-type. Like so many, he simply assumes that Troeltsch's analysis is coherent both epistemologically and sociologically, It does not seem to occur to him that from Troeltsch's perspective the sect-type cannot help but appear deficient because Troeltsch assumed the superior character of a church-type ethic. But you must give reasons for that assumption, which Miscamble, like so many, fails to do.

This failure is compounded by the assumption by many that H. Richard Niebuhr provided a more nuanced version of Troeltsch's categories in Christ and Culture. Christ transforming culture is normative given the deficiencies of the other types. Such an assumption, even on Niebuhr's own grounds, cannot be defended since Niebuhr, at least putatively, did not argue for the superiority of one type over the others. Of course, that is part of the subtle distorting character of that famous book as in fact there are normative arguments developed by the very progression of the way the types are treated in relationship to one another. So it is assumed that Niebuhr's analysis is not only descriptively correct but normative, thus relegating anyone who appears as if they are Christ against culture type to the fringes of those who would do responsible" Christian ethics.

The problem with such an assumption is it continues Niebuhr's mistake of using culture in an uncritical manner. No "sectarian" type, and certainly one accused of being such a type like me, argues that adherence to Christ requires wholesale rejection of culture in the way Niebuhr implies. Rather, the question is how to relate discriminatingly both to the cultures and the corresponding political forms in which Christians find themselves. To put the issue in terms of all or nothing the way Niebuhr (and Miscamble) do is to distort the challenge facing Christians as they confront many different cultures as well as the diversity of any one culture.

Miscamble simply fails to see, as Quirk clearly does, the connection between the epistemological issues raised in Against the Nations and the social stance of the church which I propose. I assume that foundationalist

Stanley Hauerwas teaches at The Divinity School, Duke University. His most recent book is Suffering Presence (1986), which is also reviewed in this issue. Dr. Hauerwas is a member of the Editorial Council of THEOLOGY TODAY.

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epistemological assumptions have been rendered problematic. I also take seriously the particularity of Christian convictions, and the corresponding particularity of the church, as necessary presuppositions for thinking about Christian social ethics. Epistemological sectarianism, with which Quirk is primarily concerned, is not the same as the sociological sectarianism which Miscamble thinks so important, but they are closely interrelated.

The interconnection can be illustrated by noting that it makes no sense to continue to talk of "sectarianism" or even "kinds of sectarianism" after you have allowed, as Quirk has done, the essential rightness of the antifoundationalist critique. There is no universal society and/or knowledge from which the so-called sect can dissent. So if Quirk is right about his epistemological claims, then it seems to me he cannot suggest that what is needed is a search for some new kind of sectarianism. What is needed, rather, is a recovery of what the social strategy of the church should be once one no longer assumes we know what we are talking about when we talk about "culture."

In this respect, I am bothered by the fact that Miscamble ignores my claim for the universality of the church against the sectarian character of the nation-state. I argue in Against the Nations that the closest approximation we have to a universal society is in fact the church through its unwillingness to be captured by narrow national loyalties. Micamble's views are exactly in defense of a kind of sectarianism, namely that one should qualify one's loyalty to Christ as the Savior of all people in the interest of nation-states.

Quirk's challenge to my position, however, goes to the heart of the matter, for he understands me well and correspondingly puts the issue just right. In short, he asks whether the argument I have made for the social importance of the integrity of the church is determined primarily by my criticisms of liberal social orders or is in principle a critique of any polity. As he puts it, the issue is not whether I am a sectarian but rather what kind of sectarian one should be. Is my sectarianism dependent upon the kind of challenge living in a liberal society presents, or is it in principle a sectarianism that regards every society and its correlative political form finally a form of atheism? That is a serious question to which I shall try to respond at the end of this essay.

I

Miscamble begins his critique by noting he will separate his criticism of me by ignoring my interpretation of Jesus and concentrate instead on the question of my understanding of the relation between church and world. That he thinks he can separate the one from the other is a sign of how deeply he misunderstands my project. I have argued that the church is the body of people formed by the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. You do not know what the world is apart from that story. For Miscamble to think otherwise means that he seems to believe that a doctrine of church is independent of christology. This is the most

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flagrant example of the consistent pattern of misinterpretation Miscamble develops throughout his essay. I do not believe such misinterpretation is willful, but rather results from Miscamble being held captive by a picture that makes it impossible for him to understand the argument I have tried to develop. As one who has tried to train myself slowly to think differently, I am acutely aware of how difficult it is to give up on past frames of reference. However, I must try to indicate how I think Miscamble's captivity has led to serious misinterpretations of my position.

For example, he claims that I maintain the church should not address questions of how to ensure social justice. I certainly have never said that. Rather, what I have said is that the crucial question is how the church should address questions of social justice. It is true that I am skeptical of whether there are any theories of justice qua justice that can provide an account of how the church should always respond justly in the many contexts in which we find ourselves.¹ However, the fact that I have doubts about the existence of any universal theory of justice does not mean that I think the church should avoid attempts to articulate concretely how this or that society should respond to the widow, the orphan, and the ill. What is needed, however, is not a theory of justice to secure that, but a people with the virtue of justice developed through the training of being part of a good community.

Miscamble suggests that part of my difficulty concerning the church's quest for justice is that I lack sufficient doctrines of creation and incarnation. Yet I have never denied the centrality of God as creator or that in Jesus we find God uniquely present. Rather, what I refuse to do is underwrite an autonomous natural theology or natural morality in the name of a doctrine of creation or of the incarnation. In short, what I have not done is use those theological affirmations to underwrite autonomous norms that are articulated apart from Jesus. Does Miscamble think that a doctrine of creation or of incarnation is going to make a difference for helping one understand why it is necessary for Christians to kill in war? My criticism in Against the Nations of the bishops' pastoral was they failed to address that issue squarely.

This refusal to develop a natural theology or natural morality does not in and of itself in any way mean that I believe the church is devoid of resources for developing strategic ethics for the particular societies in which they find themselves. Rather, what I have suggested is that if the church takes seriously its own integrity, it may well help the societies in which it lives to have alternatives that are not part of the current social and political agenda. I applaud, for example, the Roman Catholic bishops' response to the problems of United States foreign policy in Central America and their ability to testify before congressional committees on these matters with knowledge and skill. I have no doubt they

¹See, for example, my "Should Christians Talk So Much About Justice?" Books and Religion 14 (May/June, 1986) 5/6, pp. 5,14-15.

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have helped modify what might be an even worse policy. That they have done so, however, is not because they had a universal theory but because they knew specific people in Central America who could help them understand better the situation there. As a result, the Catholic Church in America was able to speak authoritatively as people bound together in one community across national boundaries.

To say that my position commits me to avoiding any concerns for finding a solution to world hunger is simply ludicrous. I would say, however, that I think it may well not be helpful to talk about world hunger in and of itself. The hunger in Ethiopia is different from the hunger in Bangladesh as it has different causes and requires different strategies. To speak of the problem of world hunger and to search for a solution to it in those terms invites us to underwrite continuing United States imperialism in the name of the good such pretentious power can do. So while I am not opposed to our trying to harness the resources of state power to alleviate the needs of people, I think it is unfortunate when we think only in those terms.

I do not attribute such a view to Miscamble. I only point out that he seems unaware of any other alternative other than appeal to the agency of the state to do "justice." Yet, Miscamble accuses me of sectarianism because I have argued that the church ought to stand apart in order to witness to society. For the life of me, I do not understand why that position ought to be understood as sectarian. Such a witness does not prevent the church from speaking out on such issues as nuclear war, capital punishment, poverty, or the degradation of the family. What it does is position the church, in a manner such that the church can serve society imaginitively by not being captured by societal options or corresponding governmental policy.

I do not see why the position for which I have argued forces the church to withdraw from public policy matters, as Miscamble alleges, unless you think that public policy always involves questions of violence and/or coercion. I simply do not believe that. Instead I hold out the possibility, as I made quite clear in Against the Nations, that a good state can exist as a correlative of a good society where coercion is at a minimum precisely because people are virtuous. Miscamble simply seems to ignore entirely my constant emphasis on how the church serves society through the training of virtuous people.

Contrary to his allegation that I finally must accept a dichotomy between individual and social morality, the exact opposite is the case. It is liberal societies that force that distinction by believing that a good society is possible abstracted from a people being good. I refuse to accept that presumption because I maintain a more profound social ethic that maintains our first service to the state and society is to be people of honor. Any society that does not honor honor cannot help but be corrupt.

I suspect that underneath Miscamble's critique is his dislike of anyone who has argued as I have for nonviolence as central to the Christian social witness. Contrary to his suspicions, however, such a stance is not

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antipolitical but profoundly political. Once one disavows the use of violence, it means one has a high stake in developing political processes through which agreement is reached without the necessity of coercion. As Christians, we, of course, want to make our societies as open as possible to the voice of dissent, exactly because we believe so profoundly in the necessity of politics-politics understood as the discussion of peoples necessary to discover the goods they have in common. So Christians will certainly vote as long as our societies will let us. Certainly, it would be a sign of a less good society that it would withdraw the right to vote from those who disavow the use of violence in the name of societal good.

I suspect that behind Miscamble's critique at this point is the continuing historical distortion that Anabaptists withdrew from society because of their concern to maintain their personal righteousness. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Anabaptists often did not withdraw but were forced to the periphery because the social order was not amenable to facing their political challenge. It is certainly true that this forced withdrawal later became a self-fulfilling prophecy as Anabaptists misdescribed their own theological and social commitments by making a virtue of necessity. For a decisive recapturing of the original vision of the Anabaptists, I recommend John Howard Yoder's The Christian Witness to the State.² It is only an indication of how deeply distorting is the picture that mainstream Catholics and Protestants hold of the relation between church and society that they continue to call Yoder a sectarian even though this book is now over twenty years old.

I find it extremely odd that Miscarnble appeals to Gandhi and King as heroes since they were both pacifists. I would certainly want to claim them as more in line with the arguments I have developed than the perspective he seems to embody. His claim that any genuine politics must choose between guns and butter seems to underwrite a realism that can be justified neither on natural law grounds or the kinds of appeals Gandhi Or King would make. Indeed, I do not even think it is the kind of appeal that the Catholic bishops want to make in their pastoral letter on nuclear war. There they do not argue that good politics must balance guns and butter but that on grounds of the principle of discrimination our continued reliance on deterrence as a foreign policy cannot be justified. I take that to be a deontological appeal that cannot help but result in the kind of sectarianism Miscarnble so fears.

Finally, I must say that I find arrogant Miscamble's claim that while my work has some value, it is certainly not to be taken seriously as a position for the church as such. Only certain misguided individuals might want to take up my call for nonviolence, the centrality of Jesus for Christian social ethics, as well as a reminder that the church serves society by being the church. It is arrogant because it assumes that he

²John Howard Yoder, The Christian Witness to the State (Newton, Kansas: Faith and Life Press, 1964).

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occupies the high ground on these matters and that therefore his position needs less justification than mine. I find no indication in his article that Miscamble has done either the theological or philosophical homework for such justification, and as a result, his final pat on the back is demeaning.

Before leaving Miscamble's paper, there is one last issue that I hesitate to raise but I think I must. He begins his paper by identifying me as the "Protestant ethicist." Why he thinks such an identification interesting, I have no idea. To say that I am a Protestant is about as meaningful as saying Charles Curran is a Catholic. To be sure, I am a Methodist by training and conviction, but as such I understand myself to be a servant to the church catholic. If contemporary Roman Catholicism is determined to become a denomination in the American context, it becomes all the more important that some of us who carry the shabby history of our disunity try as much as possible to maintain the church's catholicity.

II

Responding to Quirk involves a completely different set of questions than those raised by Miscamble. Quirk has not misinterpreted me. Indeed, it seems to me that his presentation of my position is at once accurate and insightful. In particular, he is right to see me aligned with such social theorists as MacIntyre, Sandel, Taylor, and Walzer. I have certainly been instructed by their work and, while there are real differences between their positions, I generally share their historicist starting point as well as their more communitarian and antiliberal political and social theory. Yet Quirk is equally right to say that while I am aligned with them, I am certainly not of them. The crucial question, as he puts it, is whether, even if we were able to return to a greater civil republicanism, I would not still find such a social order deficient from a Christian point of view.

While it is true that I have claimed, and will continue to claim, that the church is the only true polity for the world, that does not mean I am committed to the view that we live socially in a world where all cats are gray. Indeed, my view commits me to an even deeper critique of the church than it does of our social and political context in America. I hope my new book, Christian Existence Today: Essays on Church, World, and Living In-Between, will clarify some of these issues.³ It is terrible for an author to respond to critics by saying this will all be straightened out in my "new book," but at least I think some of the things I do in the book will be of interest to Quirk and perhaps also to Miscamble. The primary concern in my work has not been to critique liberal society; it has been to offer a vision of the church (in particular, the integrity of the church) so that Christians might help negotiate the challenges of a liberal society.

³This book should be out in summer, 1987, from Labyrinth Press.

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Therefore, my concern for the church has really been an attempt to position the church as a community of service.

My position certainly does not entail a wholesale rejection of "secular civilization," or even of liberalism. Indeed, I think liberalism has done much good and has results from which no one would wish to back away. In particular, liberalism has been inventive in creating limitations on state power in order to encourage public cooperation for the maintenance of good community. Part of the difficulty, however, is that the terms of justification for the limitations that liberalism builds within itself (such as limited government in the name of freedom of the individual) often become destructive policy for the individual, since individuals as such lose the means to know how to say "no" to the state.

I certainly do not believe, as Quirk rightly notes, that particularistic moral language requires that our public discussion be determined exclusively in particularistic terms. Of course, Christians search to find common language with those around us. I do not believe, however, that Romans I is necessary as justification for that search, because I do not believe that Romans I is about our needing to respect persons as persons. It is about how everyone is a creature of God, even in their disavowal of their created status. Such a conviction is sufficient to provide the resources necessary for Christians to seek common ground with our sisters and brothers who do not share our convictions about Israel and/or Christ.

What I have argued in the past is not that Christians must avoid coalitions, but that we need to know better the theological justification for such coalition. What is required is not theory but actual engagement with other people in hopes of securing and finding common commitments. Such attempts to make those connections will often appear to be but gestures. But, in this sense, the most important aspect of politics is its gestures. Christians should never take comfort in the fact that their service to their society may at times be ineffectual. They should, however, seek policies designed to make cooperation possible, even if they appear at the time to be but a gesture. I am sure that Miscamble and perhaps Quirk may still find this all very abstract and would like me to be more concrete in terms of my own political agenda. I simply refuse, however, to say in the abstract that we ought to oppose Reagan's SDI and support the sanctuary movement. I oppose SDI and support the sanctuary movement, but what is crucial is that the church be the kind of community that makes possible the kind of political discussion necessary for people, not positions, to be capable of making those alternatives real.

The hard issue still remains: is civil republicanism, even if we could come closer to it in America (although I currently doubt it), still a humanism? The answer is yes insofar as it requires violence in order to avoid recognizing the validity of other peoples' existence and histories. So I must say to Quirk, "Yes, there is a sense in which my position

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commits me finally to questioning the legitimacy of the nation-state insofar as that state arrogates to itself the right to kill." At that point, I think, there is a profound tension between the church and the nationstate that is not resolvable in this time between the times. I am not embarrassed, however, to admit that, since it is an affirmation that has been made by most churches in one way or the other through history. That one way or the other is, of course, extremely important. That is why I am so tired by being called "a sectarian." It simply does not help us get with the business of discerning the particular challenge before us as Christians. It is time we quit trying to put labels on one another that presuppose theoretical frameworks that are not justified. Such labeling is the refuge of mediocre minds and lazy intelligence. Given the challenges facing the church today, we cannot afford either. It therefore comes as a comfort to me to see the kind of critical questions that my work has occasioned from Quirk. It at least gives me some hope that the position is not only of "some value," but may even be of some use to the church.