Hauerwas on democracy and a good life

 If I had to name one Christian thinker I find interesting, I’d say Stanley Hauerwas. He’s a theologian and a retired professor.

I’m not a fan of sermons. But I was impressed by “Is Democracy Capable of Cultivating a Good Life?”

Hauerwas is interesting because he took Trump’s followers seriously while dismissing Trump. Hauerwas asked: What happens when people who want to live a traditional life — people on a sheep farm, for example — find it almost impossible to do so because the rules the world plays by have changed?

Hauerwas says that ordinary people are built out of stories. A lot of people who live on farms and in small towns have stories about the creation of the natural world and about what made this country admirable, if not great. They have stories about what makes for good lives. And, if you are a certain kind of person, you must be able to live in a way that makes sense within the context of those stories. Otherwise, any talk of a good life is just not possible.

If you’re looking for the answer to the question of whether democracy can cultivate a good life, Hauerwas’s answer is no.

The shift from local to global markets had a lot to do with why so many of the rules changed. We are obsessed with the culture wars. But the heartland of the country isn’t hollowing out and small towns aren’t dying because of “wokeness.”

It’s not an easy sermon. Hauerwas holds that Christians — in their faith in different stories — are fundamentally different. Their job, he says, isn’t to make the democracy fairer or more just. In his view, that difference — in living by Christian stories rather than secular stories — is what makes the secular world stand out in relief.

I don’t understand that point. It seems to me that we are all in the boat, no matter how different our stories are.

But the sermon did help me understand the desperation of many of my neighbors. The fear is of losing a way of life. It's not just about the loss of political influence.

• Source: Stanley Hauerwas, “Is Democracy Capable of Cultivating a Good Life? What Liberals Should Learn From Shepherds”; stanleyhauerwas.org, Nov. 2, 2016. You can find videos online. The text is at Hauerwas’s website.