The Character of Virtue, Letters to a Godchild by Stanley Hauerwas

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I remain in two minds about this book…

The introduction by Sam Wells, in which he sings the praises of Stanley Hauerwas, feels like it is mostly there to remind us how clever Sam Wells is in selecting someone of the standing of Hauerwas to be Godfather. And there is something about the whole project that is an affectation – I none of the letter Stanley (as this feels like a collection that puts you on first name terms), Stanley notes that his wife has asked if he is writing the letter with the intension that they will be published – a question about who he was writing for – and you wonder how much of a say Laurie Wells had in the decision to publish “his” letters – it would all feel more authentic if they were being published by Laurie in later life having treasured them.

As the letters go on Laurie as a particular person being addressed begins to emerge, a little, and I think that helps to ground the collection. It also helps to give that sense of Stanley writing as an old man speaking to Laurie’s youth – that intergenerational dialogue is so rare, and it feels very precious.

There is also an unease that this is a conversation taking place very much in the context of privilege, something that Stanley acknowledges – but it doesn’t manage to break out of this.

These are nevertheless strong reflections as one would expect from Hauerwas. In the letter on Kindness I found these word stand out “To be kind is to know when not to speak because nothing can be said that is not false.” and the way he draws out kindness and constancy seemed to be the core for me.

And toward the end of the book, in the letter Faith, a longer quote (as it is not a book that offers up quotes easily – ideas are shared across the whole of a letter not a sound-bite)

“Which finally bring me back to the world you’re confronting in boarding school. Not too long ago, to be English and to be Christian were assumed to be pretty much the same. To ‘be of the Christian faith’ suggested a status rather than a virtue that was the result of habits acquired by undertaking an arduous task or journey. You didn’t need to be on a journey because it was assumed you had arrived. Happily, that world, the world in which being English and being Christian were assumed to be equivalent, is now gone. So to be the son of a mother who’s a bishop means you had better have faith in God because, in no doubt very different ways, God has found a way to make your life odd. I think you’ll discover that to be odd and to be a person of faith may be different ways of saying ‘I’m a Christian.’ But I think you’ll find nothing is more important than you ability to say ‘I have faith in God, the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit.’”