From a friend...

Jeff Jaynes wrote this in the comments for the Hauerwas post. I thought it was meaningful and felt it should be posted for everyone:

Jimmy, Mark, Stephen,
First of all I just came across this site (can't believe it took me this long without Roller telling me about it) and I want to thank you for what you are doing for the church. The church needs to hear your words. Thankfully, I get to hear the words of Willimon and Hauerwas all the time (I work at Duke Chapel and have class with Stanley in the fall) and I wanted to pass on something Hauerwas said to us at a dinner the other night so that more people can hear it: "You want to live a life for Christ? I can tell you how to live a life for Christ in two words: don't lie. Try putting that one into practice." It seems that as a church we also have to stop lying. Whatever the cost may be to our numbers, budgets, building programs and images, we have to be upfront and challenging to a world that doesn't truly understand our behavior. Until Constantine decided to make "confession" a cross of good luck, confessing Christ was dangerous. The Romans thought that Christianity was a demonic sect of orgiastic, cannibalistic rebels who were ruining their economy. Our world today understands Christ almost as well. Until we can get back to the point at which confession means something again, as Hauerwas and Willimon point out so effectively, our "living, breathing, visible community of faith" will be about as meaningful as a hastily painted cross on a Roman shield. Hauerwas' point that night at dinner was that being a Christian isn't easy. It isn't easy to stop lying, whether that lying is done by us as individuals or by the body of people as a Church. That doesn't mean, however, that the lying doesn't need to stop. Thank you for your honest words to our body. I'll be back often.

Jeff

Thanks for the great words, Jeff! Keep talking like that and we'll end up reading your books some day and quoting them!
posted by Jimmy at 12:01 AM | |