^ The title of my next (unwritten) book 🙂
Stanley Hauerwas in the introduction to his 1998 Sanctify Them in the Truth:
So the invitation for me to do theology ‘straight up,’ so to speak, should be something I particularly welcome. Yet I am by no means sure those who wish me to do theology in a more straightforward manner will be happy with what they find in this book. To be given the permission to do theology is, at least for me, a frightening task. I am not sure I know how to do theology ‘straight,’ which means I may well disappoint those who think that if pushed, I will know how to ‘pay up’ theologically. It is not that I am just unsure how to do theology, but that even if I knew how, I am not sure I would want to do it. At least I am not sure I want to do theology the way many who bear the title ‘theologian’ do. I certainly have learned and continue to learn from those who do theology in a more systematic fashion than my work takes, but I continue to worry that such theology in our time cannot avoid giving the impression that Christianity is a set of ideas that need to be made consistent with one another.
Of course it is true that ‘all loci of theology are interconnected as nodes of an intricate web,’ which rightly requires theologians — in a manner not unlike that of spiders — to explore, repair, as well as, perhaps, discover new connections. Theology is always a matter of finding the interconnections in a manner that helps our lives not to be distorted by overemphasis on one aspect of the faith.…
That theology works like a web helps us understand why the work of theology is never done. Webs, after all, are fragile. They must constantly be redone. Theology can become a fascinating game in which the various loci are reconfigured by making one locus determinative for all the others. This kind of theology has been turned into an art form in Germany, in which every theologian is expected to produce something called ‘doctrine.’ Theology so produced can be quite impressive. It can give one a sense of ‘completeness,’ but such ‘completeness’ can be quite deceptive. Too often, I fear, this mode of theology provides answers to questions no one is asking. […]
… I hope that one of the ordinary reasons I do not ever seem to get around to doing ‘real’ theology is that I am a very simple believer. That way of putting the matter is not quite right. The truth is that I simply believe, or at least I believe I should want to believe, what the church believes. Believing thus means I never get over being surprised by what wonderful things The church affirms that at best I only dimly ‘understand.’ Therefore, I do not assume that my task as a theologian is to make what the church believes somehow more truthful than the truth inherent in the fact that this is what the church believes. One of the reasons, moreover, why I resist those who urge me to ‘pull it all together’ is that attempts to do so impose false unity on the wonderful anarchy of life called church.
(See also H. Frei and some previous “anarchist squinting.”)