Cascade Press has published a new book containing the papers and responses delivered in honor of the life and work of Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law, at a 2013 retirement event at Duke Divinity School.  

Published in January, "The Difference Christ Makes: Celebrating the Life, Work, and Friendship of Stanley Hauerwas” was edited by Charles M. Collier, an editor at Wipf and Stock Publishers and former student of Hauerwas. The book also contains a foreword written by Richard B. Hays, dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at the Divinity School.

The three papers were presented on All Saints Day (Nov. 1) in 2013 during a day-long private event honoring Hauerwas, who had retired earlier that year after joining the faculty in 1984. The theologian also delivered a keynote lecture. The book also contains the day’s liturgy and the sermon preached by Hauerwas titled “A Homily on All Saints.”

“As the different speakers talked about Stanley's paradigm-changing impact on scholarship, one insight came ever more clearly into focus: the deepest theme of Stanley's work, the consistent thread running through all his thought, is his emphasis on the centrality of Jesus Christ,” Hays stated in the foreword. “At the end of the day, his work is not defined by the ethics of character, or by pacifism, or by countercultural communitarian ecclesiology. All these elements play important roles in his writings, but they are reflexes or consequences of his more fundamental commitment to think rigorously about the implications of confessing Jesus Christ as Lord."

Presenters whose papers are in the volume include Jonathan Tran, associate professor of religion at Baylor University, presenting on “Anne and the Difficult Gift of Stanley Hauerwas’s Church,” with Peter Dula, associate professor of religion and culture at Eastern Mennonite University, responding. Jennifer A. Herdt, Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics and Religious Studies and associate dean of academic affairs at Yale University, lectured on “Truthfulness and Continual Discomfort,” with Charlie Pinches, professor and chair of theology and religious studies at The University of Scranton, responding. Former Dean of Duke Chapel Sam Wells, now vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and visiting professor of Christian ethics at King’s College, London, presented on “The Difference Christ Makes.”