Abstract
Stanley Hauerwas has been noted for his theology of missionary “witness.” However, his theology is not uncontroversial. Of late, it is argued that his theology of witness does not often, or sufficiently, attend to the nature and complexity of belief for those people who live in contemporary, Western society. Part of this complexity, as highlighted by various sociologists and theologians, is that religion has become individualized and privatized. These are serious challenges to the church’s engagement with contemporary society, which Hauerwas does not always seem to adequately address. It will be the purpose of this article, however, to attempt to overcome this lacuna in Hauerwas’s theology, and explore if, and how, his theology might serve as a response to some of the specific challenges arising out of the growing trend towards “privatized religion” in the United States. This will be accomplished by bringing into dialogue Hauerwas’s later work on witness, with some of the sociological insights provided by Charles Taylor and Robert Wuthnow. It will be argued that Hauerwas’s theology of witness, though incomplete, does provide insights that might be helpful to the church in her missionary efforts in the United States.
Keywords
Introduction
During every age the church encounters challenges in her missionary efforts (Bevans and Schroeder, 2004: 27–30, 122–24, 179–81). The present period in the United States is no exception. For instance, the research of philosopher Charles Taylor and sociologist Robert Wuthnow describe the emergence in American culture of privatized and individualized kinds of religious identity and practice, which invite a missionary response (Taylor, 2007; Wuthnow, 1998a). One theologian concerned with the church’s mission in the United States is Stanley Hauerwas (2010; 2011a: 164–69). Some of his most recent research has been dedicated to articulating a theology of witness for the church (Hauerwas, 2013). One of the critiques of Hauerwas’s theology, however, is that it does not adequately attend to the sociological research that articulates the cultural challenges of the United States (Healy, 2014: 17–72). 1 The goal of this article, then, is to explore how Hauerwas’s theology of witness might serve as a response to the contemporary challenges of privatized and individualized forms of religion. By bringing his theology into dialogue with the insights of Wuthnow and Taylor, I will show that Hauerwas’s theology of witness, though incomplete, does indeed provide insights that might be helpful to the church in its missionary efforts in the United States.
The emergence of privatized and individualized religious practice
Robert Wuthnow (1998a, 2007) has documented the development of “religiosity” in the United States over the last 60 years. 2 He notes that following many of the cultural upheavals that took place in the 1960s, new forms of religiosity began to emerge among the American population (1998a: 66–69). One of these types of religiosity is exemplified by the so-called religious “seeker.”
Wuthnow (1998a: 4–7, 58) describes “seekers” as people on the move, a pilgrim people who are not “restrained” by predetermined religious practices, who have the ability to navigate living between sacred spaces, and who utilize their freedom to choose that which they think will satisfy the spiritual longing within them. As Wuthnow notes, seekers are those people who “adopt a freewheeling and eclectic style of spirituality” (1998a: 53). Regarding the many causes of this new development in religiosity in the United States, Wuthnow cites people’s growing distrust of religious institutions, increased mobility, changes in technology, and people’s growing encounters with the diversity of religious options which exist (1998a: 56–67). Though it might be argued that the seeker is motivated by an overexaggerated sense of selfishness, Wuthnow cautions against this conclusion. He acknowledges that some seeking results in negative consequences (1998a: 80–81). 3 However, seekers cannot be easily characterized as simply narcissistic or egoistic. Often they are simply adjusting to the fluidity of life brought about by economic and lifestyle changes (1998a: 54). Still more, as Wuthnow notes, many of these religious “quests” are accompanied by a concern for others, involve a utilization of pre-established religious institutions, and oftentimes result in people finding new “homes” and new forms of community in which they live out their newfound religious identity in a more committed fashion (1998a: 52–55, 70). Seekers are still common in the United States today, but they are now accompanied by what Wuthnow describes as the “tinkerer.”
Whereas the seeker responds to a changing world by utilizing her freedom in order to find a sense of the sacred in various forms and through various means, mainly through the multiplication of experiences, what gives rise to the “tinkerer” is that the multitude of experiences “finds” her (Wuthnow, 2002: 169; Wuthnow, 2007: 112–14). The best way of understanding how this multitude of experiences simply happens to people is by what Wuthnow calls the “porousness” of society. A porous society is one that “permits people, goods, and information to flow easily and rapidly across social boundaries” (2002: 166). Contributing to the porousness of society are globalization, uncertainties and changes in the work place, the breakdown of marriage as well an overall loosening of relationships, a breakdown in societal boundaries such as in neighborhoods or even on the national level, and an information explosion brought about by technological advancements, especially in regards to the Internet (Wuthnow, 2002: 166; Wuthnow, 2007: 37–48). Whereas the seeker was often looking for a destination to the journey or the quest, the tinkerer is more comfortable simply living with the complexity, diversity, and a plurality of various religious identities. Tinkerers might be seen as bricklayers, piecing together their religious identity from the various bricks of religious opportunities which they have experienced, creating their “bricolage” of spirituality (Wuthnow, 2007: 14). 4 Thus, in what might be difficult to imagine, Wuthnow cites as the quintessential tinkerer a woman whom he interviewed who considered herself as “Methodist Taoist Native American Quaker Russian Orthodox Buddhist Jew” (1998b: 37). She had learned to survive in a world that was uncertain and porous not by adhering to pre-ascribed ways of spirituality, but by pragmatically adapting and piecing together whatever aspects of religion seemed necessary and important in order to survive (Wuthnow, 2007: 14–15).
Taylor’s analysis of the religious quest today
Taylor’s research (2007: 505–35) seems to complement Wuthnow’s. He notes the emergence of seekers and tinkerers in the Western world, and also the presence of more traditional forms of religion. What Taylor highlights, moreover, is that the people who choose these different religious options often have more in common than is presumed. According to Taylor (2007: 302–304), most people in contemporary culture live with a sense of doubt amidst the fragmentation of their lives. He notes that the many religious options which are available, as well as the real possibility for people to choose from these options, creates a sense of uncertainty. This is due to the fact that, whatever path one chooses to take, one is always looking over one’s shoulder, so to speak, at the surrounding plethora of religious opportunities. 5 Most people cannot help but wonder if there might be something worthwhile in the religious life lived by their neighbors. They feel the “cross-pressures” of various ways of life around them, each competing for their attention, and forcing them, because of their moments of malaise or disappointment with their own chosen religious path, to set out on another journey. This, according to Taylor, is the malaise of modernity, creating the sense of uncertainty which underlies most religious and nonreligious pursuits today. 6
In summary, if both Wuthnow’s and Taylor’s analyses are correct, seekers and tinkerers can be understood as practitioners of more individualized and privatized forms of religion, but should not be regarded as simply individuating or disconnected from communal expressions of religion. Seekers and tinkerers seem to be the product of a fluid, porous, pluralized, and fragmented culture, who engage in a quest to find and nurture a religious identity. They are oftentimes assisted by traditional religious ways of belonging, and sometimes even join those traditions. No matter what religious path is chosen, however, whether one is a seeker or a tinkerer, or committed to a more traditional religion, there seems to be a shared sense of doubt and uncertainty, a certain “malaise,” that accompanies most religious pursuits today.
A Hauerwasian theology of witness in an age of seekers and tinkerers
Now that some aspects of the religious landscape of the United States have been articulated, these will be brought into dialogue with Hauerwas’s theology of witness. His theology of witness will be explored first by analyzing how it relates to the church ad intra, followed by how his theology of witness relates to the church ad extra. 7
Witness and the church ad intra
According to Hauerwas (2013: 42–43), the very possibility of ecclesial witness requires that there exists a particular group of people committed to a particular way of life, and formed by a particular story. For Hauerwas, “Christian convictions take the form of a story, or perhaps better, a set of stories that constitutes a tradition, which in turn creates and forms a community” (1983: 24–27). Entering into the life of this community, participating in the liturgy and the sacraments, as well as other church practices, Christians are formed with a particular identity that is a gift which they could not have constructed simply on their own. 8 According to Hauerwas, Christians are indebted to the “chain of actual benefactors who have sustained the skills and stories that provide . . . [them] with the means to know and live . . . [their] lives as God’s creatures” (1983: 27). Formed by this narrative, Christians are prepared to be God’s witnesses for Jesus. Yet it can often be the case that this formation is anything but simple and straightforward.
Hauerwas is aware of just how difficult it might be, in contemporary culture, for Christians to give formative priority to the Christian narrative in order that they might be witnesses. He notes that American society has been formed by “liberalism,” which, as he understands it, is an “impulse deriving from the Enlightenment project to free all people from the chains of their historical particularity in the name of freedom,” freeing reason from “being determined by any particularistic tradition,” and thus making the “individual the supreme unit of society” (1992: 18). Though Hauerwas’s understanding of liberalism has come under scrutiny (Macedo, 2012) and though it is perhaps too simplistic to blame liberalism alone for the individualizing and de-traditionalizing tendencies of American culture, his intuitions seem to be confirmed by the research of others. 9 Both Taylor (2007: 300–304) and Wuthnow (1998a: 73–79), for instance, indicate that the fragmentation and porousness of culture mean that people are likely to be shaped by a multiplicity of narratives. Many Christians themselves will likely exhibit “seeking” and “tinkering” tendencies, which may take them outside of the tradition, though this does not always have to be the case. Still more, even when one is formed within a particular narrative, there will likely be moments of enhanced doubt and uncertainty, which were not necessarily part of the challenges Christians encountered in previous historical periods.
One may wonder then, whether these aspects of American culture which can detract from the formation of Christians within a particular narrative, are detrimental to even the possibility of witness. Hauerwas (2015: 267) seems to think not. His theology of witness attempts to integrate the reality of so-called inadequate witnesses, or what might be called “unsatisfactory Christians.” Though his theology of witness sometimes lends itself to an overreliance on the faithfulness of the witnesses in order to demonstrate the truthfulness of Christianity (Healy, 2014: 78–85), Hauerwas (2013: xvii) takes seriously the fact that few witnesses will ever be ideal. 10 The story of Christianity, the very narrative that people witness to is, according to him, a story that includes the failure of people to live perfectly the demands of the gospel (1988: 39–40). However, according to Hauerwas (2001b: 226–30; 2004: 138; 2013: 45–63), even in these failed attempts the Christian can still be a witness. She can point through to the proper object of her faith, the center of the narrative that she lives by, Jesus Christ. 11
The first response, then, that Hauerwas would likely offer to the church ad intra, as she exists in a culture of seekers and tinkerers, is to simply be church. Hauerwas is known for stating that “the church does not have a mission, but rather is mission” (2011b: 168). 12 This statement indicates that, according to Hauerwas, through the very act of placing oneself in the context of a Christian community, by attempting to be formed by the narrative, the liturgical practices, and the sacraments of the church, Christians are already engaging in the act of witness. 13 This indeed requires a confident trust that the Holy Spirit is working in the church in order that she might witness to the presence of Christ in the world. Yet this is a trust that Hauerwas (2015: 50) claims the church must rely upon. In a culture of many different quests and the multifarious types of religious practices which exist today, it is nearly impossible for the church to develop a specific missionary plan which might prove to be helpful to each and every person following these different paths. Acknowledging this is not a resignation to some sort of passivism but, rather, indicates that, in the very act of trying to be faithful, Christians are engaging in mission by witnessing to what God is doing in them, in the church and in the world.
Witness and the church ad extra
In shifting the focus on the relationship between witness and the life of church ad intra, to her witness ad extra, one would expect that Hauerwas’s theology would require a robust emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit. Hauerwas emphasizes the role of the Spirit in perfecting the witness of the church, as was discussed above. But the Spirit also works to prepare those not formally part of the church to receive and understand that witness (Bevans and Schroeder, 2004: 357–61). 14 However, an emphasis on this latter work of the Spirit appears to be absent from Hauerwas’s theology of witness (Healy, 2014: 122–23). Hauerwas’s hesitancy seems to consist in not wanting to minimize the role of the church in making present what God has done in Jesus (2015: 38–39). 15 However, especially given the fragmented and pluralized cultural milieu of the United States, where the church may not come into contact with the many different seekers and tinkerers, it seems that a confident recognition that the Holy Spirit is working where the church cannot be present, in order to lead people to Jesus, is important.
Moving past this shortcoming, however, it is important to note that Hauerwas (2013: 44–45) does include in his theology of witness recognition of the church’s engagement ad extra. He does this through his understanding of the personal dimension of witness. Witness is personal, according to Hauerwas, because it consists of individual people communicating to other individual people the narrative of what God has done for them in Jesus Christ. What Jesus has done in the lives of people is, according to Hauerwas (2001b), not something that can be reduced to generalizable “truths” accessible to all people without the presence of those who have been impacted by faith in Jesus. 16 Therefore, what God has done requires personal witness. 17
The personal character of witness provides a helpful response to a culture of seekers and tinkerers. As Wuthnow’s research (1998a: 52–55, 70) makes clear, there are seekers and tinkerers who are on a quest to nurture a sense of the sacred, and are therefore open to hearing the experiences of others. It might not be the case that each moment of Christian witness will be convincing or even necessarily helpful to the one who is hearing the story of how the Christian narrative has impacted a person’s life. But, as Hauerwas notes (2013: 58–59; 2015: 32–52), and this is where his pneumatology does play a role in his theology of witness, this moment of contact is only the beginning of something new that the Holy Spirit is bringing about. The engagement of one individual witnessing to another how the Christian narrative has impacted her life is not the end of the discussion; it is, rather, the beginning (Hauerwas, 2013: 46). It is the beginning of what God will continue to do in the life of others through the work of the Holy Spirit. The reliance on the Holy Spirit is not simply a pious proclamation. According to Hauerwas, it reminds the church that the Christian narrative is not something to be forced upon people. It is to be accepted in freedom. God, in the Holy Spirit, is the ultimate source for assisting people to accept what He has done in Jesus. 18
Given Hauerwas’s emphasis on personal Christian witness to others not fully in communion with the church, it might seem that Hauerwas’s theology of witness is construed as too one-sided, focusing only on what might be gained by the person who is receiving the witness of a member of the church. However, Hauerwas’s theology of witness (2013: 46–59) highlights that the encounter of a member of the church with another person can be a mutually enriching experience. He notes that the witness of the church is not a fully determined narrative. This means, then, that Christian engagement with tinkerers and seekers outside of the church becomes a further subplot in the narrative of Christianity. This engagement becomes a moment where Christians, too, come to see their own tradition in a new way. It can also be a moment, according to Hauerwas, that Christians realize their own limitations in being able to communicate the narrative of the gospel to others. It forces Christians to rethink the narrative they are witnessing to, and to reexamine the authenticity and meaning of their own witness. 19
To conclude this section, two implications can be made from Christian engagement with a world of seekers and tinkerers not in communion with the church. First, Christians may be encouraged by the zeal among many seekers for the pursuit of something sacred and meaningful in their own lives (Wuthnow, 1998a: 7, 42). 20 Though Christians may not always be able to affirm some of the decisions that are made by seekers and tinkerers, 21 and though they may disagree regarding the particular source of true religious experience, Christians may be inspired to seek more fervently to know their own tradition in light of an encounter with seekers and tinkerers. Still more, Christians may find that they have more in common with seekers and tinkerers than they might presume. Namely, they may realize, as Taylor’s research indicates (2007: 594–95), that in general human beings in the contemporary United States are struggling to make sense of the fragmented world in which they live. Their common doubts and malaise might be a source of solidarity in their unique, but interconnected, religious quests. 22
Conclusion
In what way does Hauerwas’s theology of witness serve as a response to the more individualized and privatized forms of religious identity in the United States? Having explored this question, a few conclusions can be drawn. First, Hauerwas’s theology of witness, by highlighting the importance of intra-ecclesial formation in the narrative tradition of the church, responds to the fragmenting and anti-traditional tendencies in American culture. Second, the personal, individual aspect of Hauerwas’s theology of witness serves as a motivation for Christians to engage seekers and tinkerers on a one-to-one basis. This is important, given the many and diverse quests that people are engaged in; quests which may not always bring people in contact with traditional religion. Third, Hauerwas’s insistence on the role of the Holy Spirit in the witness of the church, though requiring further elaboration, serves as a caution against what might be any kind of coercive witnessing. Finally, since witness is a mutually enriching experience, Christians have much to gain and learn from engaging with a world of seekers and tinkerers. In these ways, it seems that Hauerwas’s theology of witness, though incomplete, provides what might be a helpful component of the church’s response to a world of seekers and tinkerers in the context of the United States.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the ASM for the opportunity to present aspects of this research at their annual 2016 conference on missiology and public life.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.