Prayers Plainly Spoken [Paperback]

Stanley M. Hauerwas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003

The prayers God wants are our prayers, Hauerwas argues, in this collection of prayers in everyday language, Together they demonstrate how to pray with passion, turbulence and life.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592441378
• ISBN-13: 978-1592441372
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the test of a theologian is how they pray ..., October 18, 2000

By 

forehandshanker (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prayers Plainly Spoken (Hardcover)

Hauerwas doesn't just pray in a plain fashion ...

The classical language of the Christian tradition is brilliantly woven in, with snippets of belly-splitting subversiveness (e.g. his prayer to the Ultimate Reality at a Duke University academic luncheon). Hauerwas' enemies may like to retitle this book "Prayers Vulgarly Spoken", but he also has a prayer for them, too!

This only gets a 4 star, because some of the other theology books I've rated are true classics (in comparison). But this does not take away from the FUN and CONVICTION that Hauerwas brings to the stuffy halls of theological reflection.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Theologian Prays, August 26, 2002

By 

Jeffrey Sykes (Overland Park, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Prayers Plainly Spoken (Hardcover)

For a theologian who insists that Christian theology is about the task of learning to pray, a book of his prayers is very helpful to understanding his theology. Certainly these short prayers contain the nub of what he expresses elsewhere in his work. Thus, this book serves in some ways as a primer to Haurewas' thought. More importantly, the book is a challenging book of prayers that may be prayed so that God can change his Church to be a people conformed to the image of his son Jesus Christ.

I disagree with the other reviewer that Hauerwas is a "self-righteous demagogue." Indeed, one would be hard pressed to advance that Hauerwas sees 11 September 2001 as the judgment of God on America. While other Christian "leaders" advanced that view, that view would be in fundamental theological contradiction to other prayers in the book.

Instead, Hauerwas is expressing his deep conviction that Christians must be peaceful people. How could one pray "Save us from our American Power" without also praying "Mercy for the War-Dead?"

Here is that prayer: "Dear Lord, at our feet lie dead Iraqis, dead Kuwaitis, dead Kurds, dead Croats, dead Slavs, dead Salvadorans, dead Americans, dead Palestinians, dead Israelis, dead Jews, dead children, dead Christians--dead, dead, dead. We ask your mercy on these war-dead sisters and brothers. We ask for the same mercy for ourselves, for our failure to be your peace, to be the end of war. Save us from the powers that capture or imagination so we think our only alternative is war. We know we cannot will our way to peace, for when we try we end up fighting wars for peace. So compel us with your love that we might be your peace, thus bringing life to this deadly world. AMEN."

What some take to be Hauerwas' bombastic approach is really a frankness that is refreshing to read. These prayers reveal a person who lives and feels (read "On the Death of a Cat") and is on the journey with the rest God's people.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good, February 19, 2006

By 

John (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Prayers Plainly Spoken (Hardcover)

Hauerwas claims in the introduction that he's not a poet. That's one time when he's wrong. In these prayers, he seems to me to be doing what a poet does, remaking language. These prayers are beautiful, almost despite being written in our Christian language that has been so worn out for so long. These are definitely not typical sentimental, flowery prayers. Instead, as the title of the volume suggests, they're plain, and all the better for it. As other reviewers have noted, there's an edge here (often a humorous one), and that's a good thing. There's a sense of immediacy present that demands from the reader a loss of complacency and also a sort of revisioning of life. And it seems like making those sorts of demands are exactly what good poets and theologians do. This is well worth a read.