Why tolerance and voluntaryism are bad ideas: Stanley Hauerwas’s summons to Baptists and other “enlightened” Christians

Abstract

I here argue that, among Stanley Hauerwas’ many other salutary influences on Baptists, not the least of them is his pointing us beyond tolerance and voluntaryism as Christian virtues. I show how he has helped us discern that the church will be tolerated by an increasingly dominating nation-state only if we Christians behave as the state demands, especially in moral matters, and that we must thus learn how to live in a non-tolerant manner. I also argue that Hauerwas’ case against a strictly voluntarist idea of Christian faith helps us to reclaim the Church’s original understanding of baptism as the act whereby, even among us who advocate believers’ baptism, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ. It is not something we voluntarily choose but rather the gift that we non-voluntarily receive.