Rodney’s Post-colonial Analysis of the Introduction and Chapter 1
The Peaceable Kingdom by Hicks
Two weeks ago, Chad began a conversation on Stanley Hauerwas’s The Peaceable Kingdom. He convinced me to dust off my copy and re-read, which I am.
I appreciate Hauerwas’s thoroughly honest approach to ethics. There is no such thing, for Hauerwas, as a universal set of ethics to address the ambiguous questions of the day. He is openly Christian, and does not, unlike many progressive and liberal ethicists, try to dress up their theological and moral projects as something that is universal without some religious context, assuming that everyone will embrace their veiled liberal Protestant endeavors as general truth. Secondly, Hauerwas should be commended for being an interdenominational/ecumenical ethicist who is in conversations with Roman Catholicism, the Wesleyan Holiness tradition, and now, the Anabaptists.
In one of the latest editions of Peaceable Kingdom, part of Hicks’ painting of America as the Peaceable Kingdom (from Isaiah) is used as the book cover. I think this is partially ironic because Hicks’ painting, while half of it is a conversation of “peace,” the other half tells us exactly on who’s terms that peace comes from: the native Americans are placed in the margins of the picture, while the children and women are portrayed as subservient to the European explorers, as one of my fellow Brite grads has pointed out. I find this picture as a metaphor for the ambiguous nature of Hauerwas’s work, particular this primer in Christian ethics. On the one hand, his pacificism and discussion of Christian particularity is right on target, and his meritorious critique of liberal and conservative Christendoms. What does not help is that Hauerwas’s works are for the most part, as I have learned from Chad, are mostly DESCRIPTIVE, and that some of his few prescriptions does not help solve the problems he addresses. He talks about religion in terms of particularity but then that is it, resisting to talk about the specificity of violence, which makes him vulnerable to other critics who say he does not address gender and racial violence (particular forms of violence).
Lastly, we must ask, why is a fragmented world so bad? What is the history behind this “fragmented” world? Is fragmentation necessarily a bad thing? Is fragmentation a metaphor for “pluralism” or “diversity”? I suspect that it is, for its use is very vague. If this is the case, I wonder how true Hauerwas’s quote rings:
“God’s peaceable kingdom, we learn, comes not by positing a common human morality, but by our faithfulness as a peaceful community that fears not our differences.”
I think endemic in Hauerwas’s/MacIntyre’s approach is an implicit response to a plurality of moral responses, as a rejection of individualism. As I read both The Peaceable Kingdom and Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue simultaneously, I cannot help but see the similarities in the two works. Mourning for a long lost past (my interpretation of After Virtue) conflicts with the eschatological character of the Christian life which Hauerwas struggles to work through in The Peaceable Kingdom. Whose story will we tell? Whose Christian narrative? Does this Christian narrative exclude those who have historically been excluded in the telling of Christian history?
The Peaceable Kingdom, as Hauerwas admits from the beginning, does not (and neither does any of Hauerwas’s works) give an account of the moral agent. The moral agent who matters is Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace. This approach has its strengths. I think, however, that there needs to be an expansion of a discussion to talk about human subjectivity, and the nature thereof. Indeed, this is where I find post-colonial theory and patristic theology helpful: the discussion of 21st century human agents (post-colonialism) and the concept of theosis (Christian theological notions of human-divine agency).
You know, the points you made there at the end make me reconsider Hauerwas’ title of the book. He labeled it a primer. I wonder if he himself realized that the book falls short in connecting the dots.
The question you posed in the penultimate paragraph is also especially poignant. “Whose Christian narrative?” That ties me in knots. How did we get to the place where we need to wade through various interpretations of Jesus’ message? Rhetorical. They are easy to historically trace. But still, for your consideration:
a “might makes right” Christian/empire gospel
a “prosperity” gospel of wealth/health = faithful (and vice-versa)
a pro-USA (or whatever nation) form of nationalistic religion
a hyper-spiritual platonic/dualistic gospel where nothing we do on earth has any real significance
an consumeristic emotion driven experiential gospel that bears no fruit of action
a gospel for the intelligentsia that is completely indistinguishable from enlightenment ideals, and thus completely relativising Christ and the gospel it preaches
did I miss any? Oh yeah. The gospel of Jesus. But if so many educated leaders get it wrong, if so many who have had experiences with the living Christ have gotten it wrong, if so many in power and culture have gotten it so wrong, how are we supposed to trust that we can get it right?
Which gospel indeed.
Glad to hear you are turning around.
I have more from where that came from. Oh yeah, just wait til my post on chapters 2-4.