J'Accuse...Stanley Hauerwas!
The famous American Protestant theologian is hypocritical on Ukraine
On June 27, four days after Donald Trump bombed Iran, Stanley Hauerwas published an essay in the Christian Century, “The church cannot bless war.” (Co-authored with an Episcopal priest, C. Andrew Doyle.)
Last month, I traveled on a humanitarian aid mission to Pokrovske, about 10 miles from Ukraine’s front. Based not only on that experience, but also on my two theological degrees and decades-long study of Hauerwas’s work, this is my response to Hauerwas.
It is a parody. As with all parodies, it makes better sense if you know the original, which you can read here. In my parody, I follow the general structure of Hauerwas’s Century essay. I use Hauerwas’s critique of American imperialism. I use his denunciation of American liberal Christians’ lukewarm resistance.
But everywhere I replace America with Russia. (The first sentence, for example, is exactly the same as in Hauerwas’s essay, just with places, dates, and ordinance types changed.) What if Hauerwas were just as quick to denounce the Russian Orthodox Church for its role in aiding imperialism?
I do not care to debate Just War theory against Hauerwas’s pacifism. Just War theory, with its criteria and check lists and test cases, denudes Christian ethics of its narrative practice. Plus, Just War vs. pacifism is the typical ground on which Hauerwas likes to argue, and his arguments are well-established. In fact, they are so well-established that they require no effort on his part. That’s the problem.
Parody is preferable because I no longer believe in Hauerwas’s moral or intellectual authority. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he has chosen the tired and easy path. He stands ready to condemn the same old enemies with the same takedowns and clever quips. But about the Russian Orthodox Church he has pleaded ignorance and avoided written comment. It’s not worthwhile to engage with his ideas as I once did. Therefore, if you listen closely, there is lament underneath my laughter.
I do this parody to defend a single claim: Hauerwas is hypocritical for praising Orthodox liturgy and theology, and then being so reluctant to write about Russian imperialism and the Russian Orthodox Church. He is hypocritical for waiting one day to denounce American war, after he has waited 877 (and counting) to denounce Russian war.
More than three years into the daily media coverage of this war, he cannot pretend ignorance about Ukraine. After praising Orthodoxy for its robust and serious liturgy, he cannot pretend distance from Russian Orthodox priests’ use of this liturgy to justify Russian violence. His ignorance is culpable. His hypocrisy is no longer bearable. J’Accuse…Stanley Hauerwas!
In the early morning of July 22, shahid drones and missiles bombed Ukrainian targets, and just like that, the war has continued for another day as many warned it would. How long will it take before Stanley Hauerwas writes about it?
Donald Trump bombs Iran. He bombs Iran for three days. After day three, Stanley Hauerwas chastises the church. Stanley Hauerwas chastises the church because we pray so quietly it sounds like approval.
Vladimir Putin bombs Ukraine. He bombs Ukraine for 877 days. After day 877, Stanley Hauerwas doesn’t write about the Russian Orthodox Church, which prays for Vladimir Putin’s empire and justifies his slaughter.
Stanley Hauerwas says bad liturgy leads to bad ethics. But he loves the Orthodox Church’s liturgy. Because Orthodox liturgy is serious. Where, Stanley Hauerwas, did the Russian Orthodox Church go so seriously wrong?
Stanley Hauerwas is disturbed. Stanley Hauerwas is disturbed that Russian Patriarch Kyrill has said extremely disturbing things about Crimea. Stanley Hauerwas said so. Once. On a podcast. In 2023.
Stanley Hauerwas wishes Russian Orthodox theologians would read about the nonviolent tradition. “It just hasn't been used as much as one would like,” Stanley Hauerwas says. Stanley Hauerwas says the church should speak with clarity about war. Stanley Hauerwas has not spoken as clearly as one would like about the Russian Orthodox Church’s role in Putin’s invasion.
Stanley Hauerwas knows the Theological Declaration of Barmen, written in 1934 to protest Nazi influence in churches in Germay. Stanley Hauerwas quotes the Barmen Declaration. He quotes it a lot. Barmen, Barmen, Barmen.
Stanley Hauerwas, do you know where Barmen is? Barmen is 850 miles from Ukraine. Once, 90 years ago, Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer visited Barmen. Today, thousands of Ukrainian refugees live there.
Do you know, Stanley Hauerwas, that 850 miles from Barmen, Russian soldiers are killing their friends and families?
Stanley Hauerwas likes to use the passive voice. Especially when he is made uncomfortable by blaspheming Christian nationalists.
“Christians in America are being asked to believe that this war is necessary,” has been written in the Christian Century.
“The bombs that were used are not Just War weapons,” has been said to Just War theorists.
The passive voice that was used is evasive. What has been done to Stanley Hauerwas’s moral clarity…by Donald Trump?
Vladimir Putin is asking American Christians to believe this war is necessary. Vladimir Putin is asking American Christians to believe he defends Christendom. Vladimir Putin is distorting American Christian communities’ way of life.
See, Stanley Hauerwas, I use the active voice.
The invasion of Ukraine is not someone else’s conflict, a foreign war to which American Christians can be indifferent. It’s not even foreign to you, Stanley Hauerwas, since Vladimir Putin is killing Ukrainian members of your own Anabaptist church. Vladimir Putin is spreading a heresy that wounds the body of Christ.
Stanley Hauerwas is anxious when Christians leave the pacifist way of life. They leave, Stanley Hauerwas worries, to join the army. In fact, Stanley Hauerwas is so worried he says losing that your religion is worse than dying.
“In doing so, war exacts a deeper cost than death—it asks us to surrender a central claim of our discipleship.”
It is a fascinating idea; it’ll preach, as they say. Stanley Hauerwas, how about we translate this sermon into Ukrainian? I can think of a few places where you might then try it out.
Oops, Stanley Hauerwas, you can’t actually preach in these places. No one lives there. Putin has razed them in the name of Christian civilization. But perhaps this is what you mean, Stanley Hauerwas, when you say that Christians should witness to the desolation of the world?
Even if God does call you to preach to this desolation, as you preach regularly to the desolation that surrounds you at Duke University’s Divinity School or the University of Aberdeen, you probably won’t be able to go behind the front line. Russians don’t let Americans in, no matter how much they like Orthodox liturgy.
Stanley Hauerwas thinks that war does things. War demands, he writes. War trains, bends, and exacts costs. War even asks, especially that Christians abandon their basic principles: our unwillingness to kill. War is a false morality, Stanley Hauerwas says, even if it is delightful, fascinating, and beautiful in its way.
Stanley Hauerwas, do you remember what revelation teaches? The concrete historical person is the true subject of action. The Christian God is a concrete and personal God, revealed not in an abstract concept but really in Jesus Christ. Stanley Hauerwas, Christ taught us that people do things, not “war,” whatever that is.
Stanley Hauerwas likes fascinating sentences about war being fascinating. Stanley Hauerwas likes sentences that begin with the word “war.” “War is,” Stanley Hauerwas says very seriously. “War is,” Stanley Hauerwas says very importantly. “War is,” Stanley Hauerwas chants very liturgically. How fascinating, Stanley Hauerwas!
Stanley Hauerwas likes fantasizing about his war. He fantasizes whole books about his war. In 1994, Stanley Hauerwas sent Dispatches From the Front Line. He went “Behind the Front Line.” He described his “Engagements” with the enemy. And he denounced “The Democratic Policing of Christianity.” Stanley Hauerwas likes imagining war, likes imagining that it might be just that dangerous to be a Christian.
Stanley Hauerwas says it’s too late for pacifism in Ukraine. Stanley Hauerwas says that Ukrainian Orthodox theologians haven’t thought of it yet. Does Stanley Hauerwas know that not all Ukrainians are Orthodox? Does Stanley Hauerwas know Anabaptists - his own church - moved to Ukraine in 1789? Stanley Hauerwas, I have their phone numbers. Call them, maybe?
Stanley Hauerwas says it’s too late for Ukraine. Stanley Hauerwas has pondered Ukraine’s recent history. Once. On a podcast. In 2022.
“If they had had some imaginative attempt to live nonviolently, which means maybe you'd let the Russians roll over you, and then let them try to rule you, you know, be nothing but pains in the ass. That might be one way of responding to unjustified violence.”
Did you hear how you sounded, Stanley Hauerwas, when you chuckled after, “let them rule you?” Or maybe you were laughing about being “a pain in the ass?”
Quiet prayers can be “mistaken for approval,” Stanley Hauwerwas writes in the Christian Century. But so can silly jokes.
“We believe in a Christ who still calls his followers to love beyond borders,” Stanley Hauerwas proclaims.
“Silence is not neutrality. It is consent,” Stanley Hauerwas declares.
I pray that the theologian who has been called the conscience of America discovers genuine concern for the violence - both real and moral - that Russia is doing to Stanley Hauerwas’s church.
Carol and I had an ethics class with Stanley at Notre Dame in the late 60s, Marc. Your J'Accuse strikes me as the sort of challenge he'd welcome, though perhaps not these days. Any response from him?