This comment by Dave Belcher (the below is an excerpt which echoes some of what I have been writing this morning earlier) is important

Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank: Dispatches from Spain: 3

All of this aside–which is extremely important to me–I am just baffled that most of the theologians involved in this conference make up these two “schools” I referred to above, and yet it is these two schools that are supposed to be giving us the answer to our “postmodern” and “postliberal” predicament. I mean does that sound presumptuous to anyone else? There’s a time for critique and then there’s a time for humility. I have yet to see humility from Hauerwas or radical orthodoxy–at least with regards to “liberals.” I’m not a “liberal,” offended by those who are out to thwart me or something…I’m asking that we might think about what it means to “love our enemies” within theological dialogue–*that* I see very little of in contemporary theological debate…because it’s always just that, a fucking argument.

I guess that the above expresses the same “discomfort” I feel when certain elements that I have been indebted to in my own story are seemingly “brushed aside” by comments that seem dismissive. I suppose I can relate, since my own rants tend to resort to one-liners that rarely tell the whole story. One person’s entertaining one-liner is a cause for another’s indignation at being so labelled or minsunderstood. I feel a bit embarassed and a bit irritated when Hauerwas does this, as well as JKA Smith. “Embarassed” about the part of me that sees what they’re saying, but a little ticked at how easy it seems to relegate decades of service and hard work within Christendom to do what seems to be the calling of God upon their life , to the “dustbin” of “see, I told you so, I’ve been saying it for years” kind of judgment. Thus far, it seems that Hauerwas does a better job of trying to give someone their due before proceeeding to reveal his problems with their approach. But he writes so damn much that he still has scores of “quick drive-bys” on a host of people (like one I saw in Resident Aliens where he takes apart a piece on prayer by Frederick Buechener, an author of about 17 books sitting on my shelf. It is still a bit of a shock to read criticisms of one formerly beloved author by another , more newly discovered beloved author.