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Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ (00:00.82)
Hello and welcome to Chasing Leviathan. I'm your host, PJ Weary, and I'm here today with Dr. Stanley Hauervass, the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinidian Law at Duke. And we're talking about his book, Living Gently in a Violent World, The Prophetic Witness of Weakness. Dr. Hauervass, it's wonderful to have you on today.
SStnley Hauerwas (00:20.959)
Slightly away, would you?
PJ (00:23.324)
Dr. Hauervass, why this book? Why do we need a prophetic witness of weakness?
SStnley Hauerwas (00:31.265)
I was a little worried about that thing per se because weakness can be an extraordinarily manipulative position to assume in which you get someone to do what they otherwise wouldn't want to do because you play weak. The weakness is however referring to people that are mentally handicapped.
PJ (00:34.706)
Hmm.
SStnley Hauerwas (01:02.209)
Who?
represent a affirmative way of life in a world that's very difficult. And so, weakness is really a word for nonviolence. It's how to live in a violent world nonviolently in a way that's not
SStnley Hauerwas (01:34.913)
alternatives that otherwise wouldn't be present. I can't remember how we came up with the title. The book was and is a result of a colloquium at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
SStnley Hauerwas (02:01.377)
That's a lovely man there that teaches Pastoral Theology named John Swinton. Brought Penny and myself together.
SStnley Hauerwas (02:14.337)
conference in which we explored a dialogue with one another. And that's how the language of weakness came up. I think it's a lovely book, but I need to say that the history of
of its existence has been clouded by revelations about Jean Vanier's life in terms of his inappropriate sexual relations with women. And Jean was a remarkable man who
He was very tall, always wore the same blue overcoat. He read widely. He was an effective speaker about the development of Lahara Shongs and about what it meant to be with the Menal Handicap, not to do far of them.
That's a very important distinction.
SStnley Hauerwas (03:48.193)
He was deeply involved also with a very conservative side of Catholicism. He was very committed Roman Catholic.
SStnley Hauerwas (04:05.185)
thought that this relationship with women was an expressive form of...
Piety toward the Virgin Mary. It was just, it was just, can you use words like bullshit?
PJ (04:22.324)
Yeah, that would be an acceptable and probably correct term for what's going on there.
SStnley Hauerwas (04:29.821)
What he was involved with was justified by sheer bullshit. He died before it came out. So it left people deeply committed to the L 'Arche movement.
SStnley Hauerwas (04:54.785)
I should say the large movement for people that are listening to podcasts that don't know it is John Benyay started living with two mentally handicapped men. They increased in terms of the living arrangements.
SStnley Hauerwas (05:20.289)
The mentally handicapped were seen as the lead agents in the community of which the assistants who would be called in to live with the mentally handicapped would learn to take the time that was required to have those that are mentally handicapped.
be in charge, in effect. And it was a way of recognizing the handicap as fully human. And he, Bannier himself, was Canadian. He was in the Navy.
during World War II, he was a very young man. And then when he left the Navy, he was looking for something to do. And this priest who was also, it turned out that he had deep diversity when it came to women. He told him to go.
live with these two mentally handicapped men and that was the beginning of La Harch. I mean it's a deep sadness about the perversities that they got into because La Harch is such a wonderful reality and it's still, I mean it hasn't folded because of...
on many of these behaviors. That's a lot to let it out.
PJ (07:23.412)
Yeah, one, thank you for sharing and thank you for being willing to talk through that. And from a theological standpoint, this is why it's important to keep our eyes on Jesus and not any one particular person. Maybe that's the one way to think about it.
SStnley Hauerwas (07:50.305)
That's not a bad way to think about it.
Jesus is a particular person.
PJ (07:58.004)
Right, that's fair. No, excuse me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I do think, as we talk about modern American evangelicalism or liberal forms of Christianity, there is... American culture in general has a lot of cult of personality, and so this is one of those pitfalls that comes with that kind of cult of personality.
SStnley Hauerwas (08:22.241)
You know, I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but it does make sense in that way. Fanny Hay.
is well known in America. But his focus, his main headquarters was in France because he was a French speaking Canadian.
SStnley Hauerwas (08:47.937)
When he left the Navy, he did a Ph .D. in France on aerosol.
as an academic.
PJ (09:06.26)
Yeah, I wanted, if you don't mind me asking you a little bit about the book. When we talk about America, just excuse me, the Western culture in general, and how do we get time wrong? And how does that affect our relationship with those who are marginalized in our society?
SStnley Hauerwas (09:11.361)
help.
SStnley Hauerwas (09:30.945)
We get time wrong primarily because it's a form of speed.
SStnley Hauerwas (09:40.193)
not.
SStnley Hauerwas (09:44.091)
It's speedy because the assumption is you've got to make way for your place in the world. And you're in competition with who else is there wanting to have their place in the world. So you've got to outrun.
My way of putting it is...
me that the argument is against liberalism. There are many different forms of liberalism, but the way I put it is we live in a time when people think they should have no story except the story they chose when they had no story. That's the way they get to make up their lives.
have no story except the story you chose when you had no story. That way of putting the matter.
therefore means that I need to get my story before you get your story.
SStnley Hauerwas (11:13.377)
shapes time insofar as I have to get there before you get there which is a form of time.
SStnley Hauerwas (11:29.505)
my way of also explaining that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story. If you don't believe that's your story, and it's your story, it's my story. You can't avoid it.
SStnley Hauerwas (11:48.673)
What do you think you ought to be held responsible for decisions you made when you didn't know what you were doing? I mean, that's a presumption that is shaped by you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story. Nobody thinks they ought to be held responsible for decisions they made when they didn't know what they were doing.
Of course what that does is it makes marriage unintelligible. How would you know what you're doing? You did when you promised lifelong monogamous fidelity. Even worse, it makes having children unintelligible. You never get the ones you want. So, the question becomes...
PJ (12:29.94)
You
SStnley Hauerwas (12:36.801)
given that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story, the thing that you missed is you didn't choose that story. And that's the reason why Americans live such dissatisfying lives.
SStnley Hauerwas (13:01.121)
be in a hurry. Therefore the crucial virtue gets overlooked is patience.
where you get patients from. Or where we find ourselves. You don't get patient until you get sick. Then you become a patient.
PJ (13:24.084)
And that idea that our story is, so if our story is not something that we create, it is something that is gifted to us. Is that the witness of weakness that we are reminded when people that we see who are weaker, we can see more clearly their story was gifted?
SStnley Hauerwas (13:52.927)
I think that's a little problematic to say they're weaker, they're just different. And the difference opens up possibilities that otherwise wouldn't be seen. But the gift is.
Our lives are fundamentally gifts as Christians, we think that for sure. And gifts come in all shapes and sizes.
PJ (14:37.844)
I mean, that goes back to your point about children, that children are fundamentally gifts. And so one of the things about gifts is you don't order your children, you receive them, right? That's...
SStnley Hauerwas (14:52.673)
That's true. That's true. They trained you to have to deal with otherness in a way that you hadn't anticipated.
PJ (15:06.682)
Absolutely.
SStnley Hauerwas (15:06.753)
I didn't particularly struck you about this book.
that you particularly like.
PJ (15:15.028)
So I personally, we went from two kids to five kids in the last year. So we had a baby and then four months later, two kids who were distantly related, we took them on as foster kids and we're going to adopt them soon. And they came from a difficult situation and...
SStnley Hauerwas (15:26.177)
Wow.
PJ (15:42.58)
my middle son, biological son, has some challenges as well. So there was a lot about this book that spoke to me. Even as we're talking about patients, I can blame coming from New England, but I think I'm just a sinner is the real answer, and I'm an impatient man. And so I constantly want things to be fixed.
And when you are dealing with children who have come to you from a difficult situation, when you are dealing with atypical neural, you know, neuraly atypical children, it is very, it's a challenge and it demands patience and...
PJ (16:40.364)
And there's a... it's really easy to think of myself as taking care of them, but to really stop and look at it and say that they are a witness to me and that God is using them in my life, I needed to hear that.
SStnley Hauerwas (16:59.233)
How did you think the...
the different chapters interacted in terms of genres.
I thought there's a certain sense that mania is more profound than anything I had to say.
PJ (17:22.288)
I appreciated the theoretical, though his stuff was drawn much more from his real -life examples. Though I did one of your examples I really enjoyed and thinking a lot about with our society is the snowstorm example and the shovels and all that and the way that we... So, but...
I'll be honest, there's a part in the book where it talks about a husband taking care of his wife who has Alzheimer's. My grandmother had Alzheimer's before she passed very badly, and my other grandmother has really bad dementia. The part about the husband taking care of his wife and her actually being aware of what was happening,
for a brief lucid moment and being able to thank him for that. That was, I wept when I read that.
SStnley Hauerwas (18:23.585)
Uh -huh.
PJ (18:26.388)
But I did, go ahead.
SStnley Hauerwas (18:28.129)
I just biographically, I was married for a number of years to a lady that was bipolar. So, there's nothing I haven't seen.
PJ (18:36.338)
Hmm.
PJ (18:41.14)
Hmm.
SStnley Hauerwas (18:43.937)
that she finally left. I had nothing left. But so that story is partly reflected in my whole life.
PJ (19:05.012)
How did that shape your spiritual journey? If you don't mind my asking.
SStnley Hauerwas (19:10.817)
I don't like the language of spiritual journey.
PJ (19:13.938)
All right.
SStnley Hauerwas (19:19.393)
just try to muddle through.
PJ (19:21.908)
Hahaha!
PJ (19:25.596)
Journey makes it sound too too pristine like like you have tickets on a train or something is that is that the problem?
SStnley Hauerwas (19:33.889)
All right.
But muddling through means I rely on other people a great deal. That's the reason why friendship is so crucial to living.
PJ (19:46.548)
Hmm.
SStnley Hauerwas (19:55.521)
a life that somehow reflects the fact that we worship a Savior who was crucified.
SStnley Hauerwas (20:14.209)
much.
SStnley Hauerwas (20:21.601)
kind of situation I found myself in because if I didn't learn something I'd be destroyed.
SStnley Hauerwas (20:37.057)
If you are living with someone that is mentally ill, the temptation is to say, God damn it, just try harder. Will yourself out of this. They can't.
your stuff.
SStnley Hauerwas (21:06.881)
you've got to learn to be patient in a way that the person you're with isn't demonized. I might mention something you might enjoy. I have a memoir called Hannah's Child. I suspect, as I have some sense of who you are, you would enjoy reading.
PJ (21:25.14)
Hmm.
PJ (21:35.7)
Thank you, I appreciate it. I'll definitely take... I had seen it in your list of publications. I will definitely take a look at that.
SStnley Hauerwas (21:42.657)
Is there a list of my publications?
PJ (21:45.34)
Apparently it's not complete because I thought this book was your last one. So whatever I googled was not correct, but if you go on Amazon you can find a lot of your publications together. Do you mind if I ask, is there any, when you talk about patience there...
How does the word endure or endurance fit into that?
SStnley Hauerwas (22:14.369)
Patience is the formation of habits that makes endurance possible. You don't go out and try to endure. You discover you are enduring.
SStnley Hauerwas (22:41.377)
through someone telling you you are.
So, it's not something you try real hard to endure. You discover you are enduring.
PJ (23:02.612)
Thank you, that's a lot to meditate on there. And I think it, go ahead.
SStnley Hauerwas (23:08.353)
I'm just going to say I'm a guy that allegedly was one of the first to reintroduce the language of the virtues to the moral life. So that's what I was drawing on for that.
PJ (23:25.716)
And I think it kind of gives a little bit of an answer, but I did want to tease out a little bit more. When you said that friendship is really a way of showing, or I can't remember the exact verb used, but that friendship is tied to, in Christianity, the Savior who was crucified. What is the connection between friendship and the fact that Christ was crucified?
SStnley Hauerwas (23:52.129)
I'm not sure I made that connection.
SStnley Hauerwas (24:04.001)
Christians should be people with a real genius or friendship because we refuse to let our brother or sisters sin shape our full relationships with them over time.
SStnley Hauerwas (24:30.337)
But what's the greatest gift you can give a friend to tell them the truth about who they are. And if you do that you will always risk losing them as a friend. So how to be in contact with one another.
through which we have to acknowledge the truth about who we are in the light.
SStnley Hauerwas (25:08.577)
and what it means to care for one another in that life.
SStnley Hauerwas (25:20.065)
My God, a Christian, hi to you.
PJ (25:22.248)
Presbyterian.
SStnley Hauerwas (25:29.665)
If reform was the only form of Christianity around, I don't know if I could make it.
PJ (25:43.634)
Oh man. Well, I'm grateful that we can still be brothers in Christ with the differences. I'm okay with that. I kind of stumbled into it to be honest, but that's alright.
SStnley Hauerwas (25:53.025)
them.
SStnley Hauerwas (25:59.841)
Well, the Reformers will sometimes take Jesus seriously. But they have all that language about sovereignty. And they are sovereign and you are not.
PJ (26:16.344)
Speaking of which, I'm actually another reason and it's, I don't know, it seems, I was gonna say providential, but now I feel horribly Presbyterian. I read this book and I'm actually getting ready to preach for the first time in a long time and I'm preaching on the Sabbath. And so many of the insights here are one, making it into,
my sermon, but as you think about...
SStnley Hauerwas (26:51.361)
at this Sunday Easter.
PJ (26:53.172)
No, the Sunday after Easter. I got two weeks, so. But as I think about Sabbath and I think as you've written about time,
PJ (27:08.212)
What are some insights that you can give about Sabbath and how does American culture treat Sabbath?
SStnley Hauerwas (27:17.057)
three hash rows.
SStnley Hauerwas (27:22.433)
He is a great Jewish thinker who understands that Shabbat is God's gift to humankind, but particularly to the Jews, to give them the time to become God's people and therefore...
It is the day set aside for appropriate worship of God.
SStnley Hauerwas (28:11.775)
your longest book, Ashoka Book, Shabbat.
But remember, it shows you the difference. Jewish time is not Christian time.
resurrection means our time is the 8th day, resurrection day, Jewish time is a different time.
SStnley Hauerwas (28:46.529)
One of the most important differences between tithes is the calendar.
SStnley Hauerwas (29:00.147)
The Christian calendar isn't the same calendar as the Islamic calendar. And that makes a lot of difference.
PJ (29:11.54)
Yeah, it's a communal practice. I am one, I want to say thank you for coming on and I want to say that this whole, you might be the first person to really ask me on air why I was after a particular book and this one, that answer was so personal and so thank you for asking that. Also, the Heschel book.
SStnley Hauerwas (29:12.193)
It's a computer practice.
PJ (29:34.58)
I own it, but I have not read it yet. It's like this entire interview has been a rebuke to me and I've appreciated it. Thank you for speaking truth to me. Yeah. No, I know you, there's no way you could have known. No, for sure. I do want to ask, you walk through Nussbaum's work on disability as she tries to kind of retool Rawls.
SStnley Hauerwas (29:45.409)
I wasn't trying.
PJ (30:04.072)
and tries to do it around capability. Can you talk a little bit about your critique of Nussbaum and can you talk a little bit about what you think is a better way to move forward in our society as we deal with the marginalized?
SStnley Hauerwas (30:22.369)
Well, I give Martha great credit for the kind of reflection she tried to develop about capabilities. She does it from a perspective that is not me. She is an ancient.
philosopher. By that I mean she studies Aristotle, in particular her book on fragility. It's a wonderful book. She's also written on the Stoics, the triumph of the therapeutic, I think it's the name of it. She is trying to give an account of why it is that you care for the disabled.
and why it is you do that in terms of their capabilities in a way.
makes it possible when you don't have any theological convictions at all.
SStnley Hauerwas (31:42.409)
Jeez.
SStnley Hauerwas (31:49.473)
I just admire the attempt that she was about.
in the capabilities language was a language that first she had sinned who was the person who she was deeply committed to at that time. The language of capabilities had to do with trying to find a way of talking about economic.
developments would give.
SStnley Hauerwas (32:34.049)
that would make economies more just in terms of not robbing people of their capabilities.
SStnley Hauerwas (32:48.977)
Good try Martha, but not a cigar.
PJ (32:53.52)
Yeah, your admiration does come across in your writing and it's clear that you believe in her sincerity. And I believe your answer was that we need to see it more as a gift. As we think more about ourselves as gifts and humanity, like each individual person as a gift, is there anything you can give us to meditate on?
from the scripture passage where Paul talks about the church, and he's talking about how we give more honor to our un -presentable parts, and how as Christians we should think about how we should re -evaluate and re -envision church around that kind of language.
SStnley Hauerwas (33:47.937)
The weakest member gets to speak first.
SStnley Hauerwas (33:56.065)
So I think...
Learning to listen to the weakest member is as good a...
SStnley Hauerwas (34:13.409)
as good as...
way forward as I know.
I don't trust our kind of well -being.
SStnley Hauerwas (34:28.193)
good to one another.
PJ (34:36.916)
Yeah, even your response about the the weak get to speak first. I apologize. I was looking for I cannot remember his name, but there was a you talked about your own experience in a church where you waited for someone who was, I believe, hard of hearing and mentally handicapped. Gary, that's right.
SStnley Hauerwas (34:55.593)
Gary.
PJ (35:01.428)
Um.
waiting for him to start communion, correct?
SStnley Hauerwas (35:09.025)
Right, that's right, with his mother.
It was very moving. He ultimately left Broadway, Methodist, where we were, in South Bend, because he wanted to play the handbells. The church had handbells, and we didn't. We lost Gary for handbells.
PJ (35:32.084)
Yeah.
PJ (35:36.884)
Oh man. Yeah.
If I could ask you one more question, because I want to be respectful of your time. As our listeners go on this week after listening to this episode, what is one thing that you would ask them to meditate on? Something that they could take with them that they could really just chew on throughout the week?
SStnley Hauerwas (37:05.665)
I think.
SStnley Hauerwas (37:10.689)
sure this is I should think but my ideas are called to be disciples.
SStnley Hauerwas (37:22.465)
rather than simply good.
PJ (37:28.532)
That is an incredible, I will take the time to think on that this week. And I think that as we live in an increasingly pluralistic world, I think that's a real challenge and I appreciate that. Dr. Hauervass, it's been wonderful having you on today.
SStnley Hauerwas (37:46.209)
I enjoyed it.