Wilderness Wanderings

Wilderness Wanderings slashes through the tangled undergrowth which Christianity in America has become to clear a space for those to whom theology still matters. Stanley Hauerwas engages, often quite critically, with the thought of major theological and philosophical figures, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Martha Nussbaum, Jeff Stout, Tristram Engelhardt, Iris Murdoch, John Milbank, and Martin Luther King. These interrogations shed light on why theology must reclaim its own politics and ethics. Intent on avoiding abstraction, Hauerwas intervenes with his customary precision and panache in current debates around medicine, the culture wars, and race. 'Stanley Hauerwas believes that a day without a good argument is probably not a good day. He needles and provokes, calling on all of us to clarify our assumptions, spell out our commitments, and confront reality straight on with zest and hope: Jean Bethke ELshtain, University of Chicago 'Few contemporary thinkers have so relentlessly and respectfully engaged their contemporaries in argument as has Stanley Hauerwas ... His life's work is an argument ... an argument of surpassing importance which reveals new dimensions as it encounters new challenges ... Readers of Wilderness Wanderings will come to understand, if they did not understand before, why Hauerwas and his work figure so prominently in the pages of this journal: First Things 'Hauerwas, as always, is provocative, and that is reason enough to read this new collection of essays ... Readers who know Hauerwas will recognize ... the staccato, cantankerous, often humorous voice of these occasional pieces, and new readers will come to know the voice quickly. Both will find the encounter rewarding. Publishers Weekly Stanley M Hauerwas is the Gilbert T Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University. His many books include After Christendom?, Against the Nations, and A Better Hope. He co-edits, with Peter Ochs, the Radical Traditions series.