American Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce an interesting atheist in America.

Stanley Hauerwas

The god most Americans say they believe in is just not interesting enough to deny. Thus the only kind of atheism that counts in America is to call into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Stanley Hauerwas

Protestantism became identified with the republican presumption in liberty as an end in itself. This presumption was then reinforced by an unassailable belief in the common sense of the individual.

Stanley Hauerwas

Christianity is not some ideal toward which we ought always to strive even though the ideal is out of reach. Christianity is not a series of slogans that sum up our beliefs.

Stanley Hauerwas

Time is a gift and a threat because we are bodily creatures. We only come into existence through the bodies of others, but that very body destines us to death. We must be born and we must die.

Stanley Hauerwas

Let us wait in patience for the Christ-child whose own life depended on the lives of Mary and Joseph. The Word of God was made flesh. He came so that we might experience the fullness of time.

Stanley Hauerwas

I am often criticized, or at least questions are raised, about what appears to be the absence of the Holy Spirit in my work.

Stanley Hauerwas

The very fact that doctrine is hewn from bitter controversy and tested through time is sufficient reason to make them a focus of theology.

Stanley Hauerwas

I have no doubt that for some to become a Christian may involve an experience of ecstasy. Yet I do not think such an experience is necessary for someone to be a Christian.

Stanley Hauerwas

At least one reason for trying to live lives that make a difference is that by so living, we hope we will not be forgotten by those who benefit from our trying to make a difference. Yet to try to insure we will not be forgotten too often results in desperate manipulative strategies that are doomed to fail.

Stanley Hauerwas

William James was not a prophet. He was a philosopher whose philosophy reflected his profound humanity.

Stanley Hauerwas

It turns out that the God whose word will stand forever does not exist to insure our fantasies that we will not have to die as individuals or as a species. Such a God, moreover, does not invite us to presume we can comprehend God's creation.

Stanley Hauerwas

Whatever it means for us to exist, we do so as creatures created, as the universe has been created, to glorify God.

Stanley Hauerwas

We, like the people of Israel, would like to think we get to name God. By naming God, we hope to get the kind of god we need; that is, a god after our own likeness.

Stanley Hauerwas

To know God's name is to know God.

Stanley Hauerwas

Israel knew that there was no greater gift than to be given God's name, but that gift was a frightening reality that threatened to consume her. Israel, who would be tempted by the idolatrous presumption she possessed God's name, rightly never forgot she could not say God's name.

Stanley Hauerwas

The mentally ill may have shattered lives, but how that is different than the way sin distorts our ability to comprehend who we are as God's creatures is not clear.

Stanley Hauerwas

Our sin is exactly the presumption that we can know God or ourselves through our own capacities.

Stanley Hauerwas

To come to terms with our beginning requires a truthful story to acquire the skills to live in gratitude rather than resentment for the gift of life.

Stanley Hauerwas

Christian nonviolence must be embodied in a community that is an alternative to the world's violence.

Stanley Hauerwas

Stanley Hauerwas Quotes

American Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce an interesting atheist in America.

The god most Americans say they believe in is just not interesting enough to deny. Thus the only kind of atheism that counts in America is to call into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Protestantism became identified with the republican presumption in liberty as an end in itself. This presumption was then reinforced by an unassailable belief in the common sense of the individual.

Christianity is not some ideal toward which we ought always to strive even though the ideal is out of reach. Christianity is not a series of slogans that sum up our beliefs.

Time is a gift and a threat because we are bodily creatures. We only come into existence through the bodies of others, but that very body destines us to death. We must be born and we must die.

Let us wait in patience for the Christ-child whose own life depended on the lives of Mary and Joseph. The Word of God was made flesh. He came so that we might experience the fullness of time.

I am often criticized, or at least questions are raised, about what appears to be the absence of the Holy Spirit in my work.

The very fact that doctrine is hewn from bitter controversy and tested through time is sufficient reason to make them a focus of theology.

I have no doubt that for some to become a Christian may involve an experience of ecstasy. Yet I do not think such an experience is necessary for someone to be a Christian.

William James was not a prophet. He was a philosopher whose philosophy reflected his profound humanity.

It turns out that the God whose word will stand forever does not exist to insure our fantasies that we will not have to die as individuals or as a species. Such a God, moreover, does not invite us to presume we can comprehend God's creation.

Whatever it means for us to exist, we do so as creatures created, as the universe has been created, to glorify God.

We, like the people of Israel, would like to think we get to name God. By naming God, we hope to get the kind of god we need; that is, a god after our own likeness.

To know God's name is to know God.

Israel knew that there was no greater gift than to be given God's name, but that gift was a frightening reality that threatened to consume her. Israel, who would be tempted by the idolatrous presumption she possessed God's name, rightly never forgot she could not say God's name.

The mentally ill may have shattered lives, but how that is different than the way sin distorts our ability to comprehend who we are as God's creatures is not clear.

Our sin is exactly the presumption that we can know God or ourselves through our own capacities.

To come to terms with our beginning requires a truthful story to acquire the skills to live in gratitude rather than resentment for the gift of life.

Christian nonviolence must be embodied in a community that is an alternative to the world's violence.