A conversation worth having - Hauerwas and Gustafson on substance in theological ethics

When a debate is misplaced, new problems are cast in the distorting languag e of the settled problems of the past while, at the same time, the particip ants in the debate are assimilated into communities of thought with which t hey have little in common. The result is that their work, and our response to it, is distorted. This article contends that the polemical debate betwee n James Gustafson (and his followers) and Stanley Hauerwas (and his followe rs) is just such a misplaced debate. In fact, both can be shown to be Troel tschian historicists, and it is only when this commonality is recognized th at their very real and deep differences can be rightly appreciated as emble matic of the true sources of disagreement at the growing edge of the discip line.