MARIETTA - Noted Christian theologian Dr. Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University will be speaking at 7 p.m. Aug. 2 at St. James' Episcopal Church at 161 Church St. in Marietta Square.

In 2001, Hauerwas was proclaimed by Time magazine as "America's Best Theologian." He is the author of more than 30 books, the most recent, "Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir," was published in April. Hauerwas is expected to discuss the topic of faith in an address titled, "America's God." The event is free and open to the public.

"He will look at religion in American society," said the Rev. Wallace Marsh. "He can at times be a critic of religion in America."

Marsh, St. James' associate rector, invited the theologian, a fellow Yale graduate, to speak at the church. Marsh was a graduate student studying theology at the university in 2007, when Hauerwas returned to give a lecture there. He said he expects Hauerwas to challenge the audience's thoughts.

Hauerwas, 70, is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. He is also on the university's law school faculty. Before teaching at Duke, Hauerwas was a professor at the University of Notre Dame. A Texas native, he was educated at Southwestern University and Yale.

In his most recent work, "Hannah's Child," Hauerwas writes about his working-class background, growing up in the Methodist faith and his intellectual journey to becoming a leading theologian. His mother, he recalls, prayed the same prayer of Hannah in the Bible after giving birth to a stillborn child. Her desperate prayers to have a child were answered when he was then born, he said.

When Hauerwas was selected by Time as the best theologian in America, the story's writer, University of Chicago Divinity School Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain, described him as an unlikely pacifist with an explosive personality, high-energy style and Texas twang.

"Hauerwas has been a thorn in the side of what he takes to be Christian complacency for more than 30 years," Elshtain wrote.

"For him, the message of Jesus was a radical one to which Christians, for the most part, have never been fully faithful. Christians, he believes, are called to be a pilgrim people who will always find themselves in one political community or another but who are never defined completely by it."

Marsh said Hauerwas' influential book published in 1983, "The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer In Christian Ethics," reveals the theologian's conviction that nonviolence is critical to Christian ethics.

"He comes from the pacifist tradition. He is against war," said Marsh. He is "probably in the tradition of (Martin Luther) King and some of those guys. I mean he's definitely out of that tradition."

In a 2002 interview in Duke Magazine, Hauerwas spoke about his nonviolent beliefs in the wake of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

"For Christians to be nonviolent is not just another political position, but rather at the very heart of what it means to be Christian, of what it means to be human," Hauerwas said.

"I believe God created all that is with the desire to be nonviolent. We are not meant to be killers. That is why we have to be trained to kill. God wants us to be in love with God and with one another in a manner that our differences challenge our self-imposed desires. Christians in America have difficulty responding to Sept. 11 as Christians because we are more American than we are Christian."

Marsh said he is excited to be bringing a theologian of Hauerwas' stature to downtown Marietta for people to listen to and ask questions of. The Episcopal priest said he has invited Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and others to attend the event.

"We're just hoping that people will come and enjoy hearing his lecture and maybe being challenged by it, and asking some questions," Marsh said.