A Theologian's Memoir

Before going off to Cambridge in early July I read Stanley Hauerwas' Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir. This is the first book by Hauerwas I've read and it won't be the last.

This memoir is more of a theological reflection upon his story than what we would know by the literary genre of biography. Here are some passages I noted on the way through.

p. 52 writing about our use of language to talk about God
our language about God is necessarily analogical, which means that theology has the task of helping the church not say more about God than needs to be said.
In Jan 1999 I heard Jim Packer speaking about analogical use of language, and that he preferred this description to allegorical language. Of especial interest in the Hauerwas quote is the notion of not saying more about God than needs to be said. Reformed theologians have often been accused of this, no sense of mystery and a great desire to explain everything. These are temptations we need to resist.

p. 59 on the task of theology
The presumption of many scholars at the time was that the task of theology was to make the language of the faith amenable to standards set by the world. ... From my perspective, if the language was not true, then you ought to give it up. I thought the crucial question was not whether Christianity could be made amendable to the world, but could the world be made amenable to what Christians believe?
Well said. Too often we are asked to change the faith, to change our understanding of God and his gospel to make it fit in with what the world likes and wants. This must be resisted - I hope many in the Church of Scotland wake up to this point!

p. 158 on creation
That something had to start it all is not what Christians mean by creation. Creation is not "back there", though there is a "back there" character to creation. Rather, creation names God's continuing action, God's unrelenting desire for us to want  to be loved by that love manifest in Christ's life, death and resurrection.
Not only back there, but not less than back there. If the first article of the Creed is not true we are adrift in a universe without purpose or future.

All in all a good book which I warmly commend. If you've read Hauerwas, where should I start?