MEET DR. HAUERWAS

"I say I'm a pacifist because I'm a voilent [SOB]. I'm a Texan. I can feel it in every bone I've got. And I hate the language of pacifism because it's too passive."

Stanley Hauerwas has been the most influencial theologian in my life, so far. I picked up Resident Aliens my sophomore year in college after Shaun recommened it to me late one night in the bellows of UBC here in Waco.

He told me just to read it. I did. It changed the way I think about God, Christianity, and society.

The theologain Hauerwas outlines in Resident Aliens is unashamed and uncensored. Hauerwas believes whole-heartly what he preaches. He doesn't care how it's received; he care only about truth.

Funny thing too: Hauerwas curses like a sailor. Every other word. He's also been known to drop the F-Bomb several times in his lectures. He's been asked several times to tame his vernacular, but to no avail.

"If Stanley is not offending someone, or if half the room is not walking out in anger after his lecture, then [he] thinks he has said something unfaithful. Stanley is embarrassed that so many people read [Resident Aliens] and agreed with it," says William Willimon, colleague and co-author of Resident Aliens with Hauerwas.

Hauerwas' stir began in the area of biblical academics and was dragged out onto the stage of lay Christianity in 1989 with the help of Dr. Willimon. Mainstream Christianity got a view of Christian Ethics that most had t even stopped to ponder.

I became a pacifist after reading Hauerwas. Over the past few years I read different works by Dr. Hauerwas and I have to say I'm still challenged by a view of Christianity that puts Christ first, above all else.