The Ecclesial Turn: Putting Stanley Hauerwas’s Vision for Christian Higher Education into Practice

Abstract

In his essay “Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana,” theologian Stanley Hauerwas argues that Christian universities must distinguish themselves from their secular counterparts by forming students according to the particular narrative of the church rather than inculcating students with the supposedly universal values of the modern nation state. In this essay, I describe my attempt to put Hauerwas’s vision into practice by designing a Christian Scriptures course taught at Baylor University not only with the goal of information acquisition but also with the goal of ecclesial formation. After describing how I designed the course, I report on the challenges and successes of its implementation and conclude by offering four lessons that I took away from my experiences.