Doing What Comes Naturally: Christian Actions Flow from Christian Character

Terry, a college friend of mine, lived in the dorm room next to two self-professed “freaks”—people who worked at being bizarre. Mark and Bob woke up to blaring Frank Zappa music. They wore shoulder-length hair long after most men had trimmed their sideburns. And they pinned dead tarantulas to their door.

One day Bob told my friend Terry he had noticed Terry was “different.” There was nothing specific. He was simply intrigued by Terry’s character, the way he responded to situations in general. Terry, who had never suspected Bob was even slightly interested in religion, was presented with a natural opportunity to discuss his faith.

Now aroused by stories like Terry’s, as well as hints in Scripture and the lives of the saints, several influential Christian thinkers are studying the foundational importance of character and character formation. Perhaps, they say, the Christian life is less fundamentally keeping rules—doing (or not doing) specific things—than it is possessing, by grace, certain steady and reliable inclinations, or virtues, including compassion, peace, gentleness, and patience (Gal. 5:22–23). And whether or not we possess such virtues, these thinkers argue, determines how we will respond to moral dilemmas—including those less-dramatic ethical questions that face us week after ordinary week. As the Gospels affirm many times (see, for example, Matt. 5:27–28, Mark 7:1–7, and Luke 6:43–45), Christian actions flow from Christian character.

James Gustafson was one of the first ethicists to consider the contemporary meaning of the virtues. John Westerhoff III and Craig Dykstra explore the potential of church education to shape the Christian community for living Christianly in a non-Christian world. James McClendon has devoted sustained attention to the role of character. And Wheaton College philosopher Robert C. Roberts employs Kierkegaardian insights to gauge the Christian significance of virtue (see his Spirituality and Human Emotion, Eerdmans, 1982).

But one of the most prolific scholars working from this perspective is Stanley Hauerwas, currently professor of religious ethics at Duke University. The son of a Texas bricklayer, he was reared in an evangelical Methodist home and says he has no interest in disclaiming that heritage. He also taught for 14 years at the University of Notre Dame, where he was influenced by fellow theology professor John Howard Yoder.

From his unusual background, Hauerwas has fitted together an Anabaptist doctrine of the church, a Roman Catholic appreciation of the liturgy, and a Wesleyan concern for sanctification. The creative combustibility of this mixture is apparent in his dozens of essays and seven books, but may be most potent in A Community of Character (Uni v. of Notre Dame Press, 1981) and The Peaceable Kingdom (UNDP, 1983).

The Church’S Story

For Hauerwas, the truth shaping the church and determining the character of Christian virtues is the unique “story” of Israel and Jesus. Christians learn about God and his purposes through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This, in turn, molds character.

Since Scripture contains this story, Christians are “a people of a book” who believe that “ ‘the love that moves the sun and the stars’ is known in the people of Israel and the life of a particular man, Jesus.”

The church is the sole community in the world that tells the character-forming story of Jesus. And it tells it primarily in three actions: preaching, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.

Preaching forms character by extending vision, says Hauerwas, because character is largely a matter of vision. A person who lacks compassion, for example, is not able to “see” another’s need. But “just as great art creates an audience capable of hearing or seeing in new ways, so the church’s preaching creates an audience capable of being challenged by the story of Jesus and his kingdom.”

In the sacrament of baptism we die and rise again in Christ, so we “do not simply learn the story, but we become a part of that story.” And at the Lord’s Supper, Christians are molded to live sacrificially as they partake of Christ’s sacrifice. Thus, Christian character is directed by Christian worship.

As it gains character, says Hauerwas, the church strives to live “out of control.” Christians believe God is in control of history and act accordingly, “learning to make the unexpected our greatest resource.” They consequently stand apart from the world, which does not believe in God’s sovereignty and attempts to make history “come out right” through the use of power and violence.

Worshiping together and supporting one another in community, Christians are a sign to the world. Sustained by the miracle of the Holy Spirit, the church is a palpable presence proving, by its existence and unique character, that the way of the world is not the only way—and certainly not the true way—to live.

The Church As A Sign, Practically

But how do Hauerwas’s ideas relate to concrete issues? What difference does paying attention to the virtues make in approaching the family, abortion, or other social issues? A brief review of a few issues will show the practical value of Hauerwas’s perspective.

• Family and children. Hauerwas is concerned that, when asked, we are unable to say why we have children. In A Community of Character, he insists children are fundamentally gifts from God. By having and caring for children, Christians learn to “love and serve our neighbors as we find them in our mates and children.” Bearing and loving children is a sign that the church trusts God, that “in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary, … God has not abandoned this world.” A child represents the parents’ conviction that humanity should continue even in a suffering world, and that Christians have a story and a way of life worth passing on.

• Abortion and euthanasia. The public argument on abortion usually centers on the concept of “personhood.” Whether or not the fetus or terminally ill patient should be saved hinges on society deciding if they are or are not persons. Hauerwas points out that “person” is a highly abstract and problematic idea. In an essay wryly subtitled “My Uncle Charlie Is Not Much of a Person But He Is Still My Uncle Charlie,” he argues that we care for the fetus or terminally ill because they are members of our families and communities. Rather than debating the abstruse question of the fetus’s or the old man’s personhood, Hauerwas reformulates the argument as a question of character: What kind of persons will we become if we sanction abortion on demand and euthanasia?

• Care for the retarded. Society cannot justify assistance to the retarded simply by the calculations of cost-benefit analysis. Supporting the retarded is expensive. And it costs more than money: Though some families are strengthened through the experience of having a retarded child, others are broken. The church, however, cares for the retarded because they are a “sign that all men have significance beyond what they can be for us—our friend, our playmate, our brother; each of us is … significant because his being is grounded in God’s care.” The Christian can place no limits on God’s demand to care for the weak. “If the Christian must sacrifice even his own life so that the weak may be cared for, he will do so; for he does not live as if he were placed on earth to live forever. The Christian cares little for existing; his aim is to learn to live.”

(Hauerwas’s concerns range more widely than this brief list. For example, Against the Nations [Winston Press, 1985] is devoted to nuclear war; and his newest book, Suffering Presence [UNDP, 1986], surveys medical ethics.)

Like all theologies, Hauerwas’s is certainly open to criticism. His understanding of the church, for example, can be called sectarian. Many Christians will balk at his pacifism. And evangelicals will have reservations about the clarity and adequacy of Hauerwas’s understanding of revelation (inquiry into the nature of Scripture’s inspiration is rather flippantly dismissed).

Yet, whether or not we agree with his vision of the church and its task, Hauerwas and the growing number of thinkers like him push us to ask again, in profound but concrete ways, what it is to be Christians. As Billy Graham commented in a recent interview, “People want to see a Christian. It’s not just accepting Christ, but being a Christian every day, all the time, constantly, consistently, that makes a difference.”

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