Hauerwas on Vulnerability & Holiness

Stanley Hauerwas talking to 'holiness' people about the weaknesses of their conception of personal salvation which he describes as follows:

"I had this experience of Jesus and it was great. Other people ought to have it too, that way we can all enjoy our narcissistic fascination with our own spiritual biographies. That's what Matthew 18 is against. It won't let you think that somehow or the other I just get to have my Jesus and my life too. It means that what it means to be a Christian is to find yourself in a body of people in which you're vulnerable to their demands and judgements, and that that's what holiness is.

Holiness isn't some kind of idea of personal purity. I mean, that might be okay but it won't take you very far. Holiness is to be part of a body of people through which your body is made vulnerable to judgements that will save you from being captured by the powers that will otherwise possess your life. And don't ever trust your own presumptions that you're free from them."


Hauerwas talk/interview at Renovatus Church on June 29, 2008. Podcast available here.