Chris and I recently had the opportunity to talk with our friend Stanley Hauerwas about his latest book. In the spirit of Saint Augustine, Stan reflects on the many books he has contributed to the church over the decades, positing connections and offering corrections.
If Christianity is the means by which we acquire friends we would not have made apart from Jesus, I am grateful Jesus meant for me to befriend Stan and that through him I made a friend named Chris.
Remembering begins with these words:
“This is a book about books. The books are books I have written. I first got the idea of writing a biography of my books because I wanted to see how it all hangs together. I was also having trouble remembering where I had said X or Y and how what I said in one book about X made a difference about what I had said about Y in another book. Accordingly I assumed the primary reader of the resulting narrative would be me.
But I also thought some friends might find the account interesting. “Some friends” include my former students who often think what I think is the book I was working on when they were my student. I have never thought that to be a problem because my former students usually sense how it all hangs together better than I do. So I began to send the text to friends who encouraged me to seek a wider readership. Thus, dear reader, that is the book you are now holding.
For those who have read the book I need to warn you that this may not be the book you read. I have written and rewritten the book. There is no limit to what can and even needs to be said. Moreover once I had acknowledged that I am writing a book for a general readership then I needed not to assume a readership familiar with my work and the work of others who have made me possible.
So I have written for readers who have read some of my work but not enough to have a sense of the whole. I make no promise that reading this book will pull it all together but it cannot hurt either. Along the way readers familiar and unfamiliar will be introduced to other thinkers that have made a difference for the story I tell.
I confess, however, that I am present in this text in a way the reader cannot avoid. In truth I have always been so present in what I have written it is just more evident in this book. There are several times in this text that I stop myself and wonder if there is not just too much me in this book. Whether there is or is not is not for me to judge. What I do care about is the readers enjoy what they are reading. Indeed I hope from time to time the reader may find a description of a book so interesting they want to read it.
I need to be as candid as I can be about why I have written this account of my books. To be sure one of the reasons it gives me the opportunity to rethink what I have thought in the past but I hope this book will attract some new readers to take up the problems that have set my agenda. I have only had one overriding question—Is what we believe as Christians true? I hope reading through this book may suggest why that question should never go away.”
