Meet this stellar TA, Chris Haw! When he’s not working towards his Ph.D., he wows his students with his ability to delve deeper into a topic than they ever thought possible, using his seemingly boundless knowledge of such diverse topics as history, linguistics, theology, and political theory.
Name: Chris Haw
Hometown: Crystal Lake, Illinois
Alma Maters: Eastern University (BA, Theology & Sociology), Villanova University (Masters, Theology & Religious Studies)
Currently: Working towards his doctorate in Theology & Peace Studies!
You’ve got an amazing life story. Can you tell us a little about it?
I spent ten years living in Camden, New Jersey, where I moved into an abandoned crack house and remodeled it. I worked at an inner city school for a few years, and then I worked in community (housing) development for a few years. Part of my work in Camden, at least in my last few years, was connecting with the families of those who had been murdered there. Camden has the highest murder rate in the U.S., so besides my normal carpentry work, I built small crosses for the families of those murdered, for public demonstrations of the city’s murder rate.
I’ve written two books. The first was Jesus for President, which I coauthored with Shane Claiborne in 2008. We did a 21-city US book tour, a 5-city European book tour…it sold about 80,000 copies. The second book was From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart in 2012.
What led you to Notre Dame?
I had been an adjunct for a few years…
What’s that?
…(An adjunct is a professor that is paid in cups of dirt), and I wanted to step up to a more professional, doctoral level, maybe becoming a full professor. The combination of studying both peace studies and theology was of interest to me, and the Kroc Institute here was great for that; I liked being able to do both.
At what point in your life did you decide to focus on peace studies?
I had always been very interested in the problems of poverty in Chicago; I spent a lot of time visiting with the homeless there. Also, I think my coming of age time was around 9/11, and my concerns about the US’s questionable military strategies in the world contrasted with my sense of privilege and comfort. It’s a bit much to bear… it makes me want to focus on the difficult challenges that our world is undergoing, and not just “how can I make the most money?”
I think that many ND students feel the same way you did. Do you have any advice for them?
If they share my concern about how the world is doing, I advise always tempering or qualifying that concern with the discomforting thought that many problems in the world come from rich, white, well-meaning people trying to help. In other words, the well-meaning urge to go improve the world is nice, but potentially dangerous. So, the caution is that it would be very possible to go into studying peace studies with a Messiah complex (no one thinks they have one, of course). Notre Dame has a very natural, reasonable desire to go help the world, but the caution I have stated is an invitation to be self-reflexive about our intentions to help, or intervene, or give aid.
In light of recent events, I think it would be relevant to ask…do you have any commentary on Paris, Beirut, and the situation in the Middle East in general?
Well, the situation has to be analyzed at least back to the Sykes-Picot agreement after WWI (the standing powers after WWI decided who got which properties in the Middle East, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire), because ISIS has explicitly stated that they’re trying to redraw the lines from that agreement. In terms of cultural memory, we should see that agreement as just a few weeks ago. Since then, there’s been just waves of chaos, and I don’t think that there’s any real, easy solution to it.
I think that the US’s intervention in 2003 and several year occupation was wrong— I don’t think that’s even controversial— and is responsible partly for ISIS. And so, until people are aware of those things…we’re not thinking deeply enough.
I see Paris as one of those blips along the last 100 years of Western occupation. And since Israel and Palestine are one of the factors in Muslim unrest in the Middle East, I don’t think anything will really change until the US’s bankrolling of Israel stops.
On a lighter note, are there any fun facts about you that you’d like to share?
I’m a potter, I’m a ceramist [laughs] when I’m not being a doctoral student. I built a reclaimed wood coffee bar in South Bend this past summer, The Local Cup. I have two kids, and a wife. And four chickens.
Thank you so much!
Be sure to check out Chris’s website for more info! Who knows, he might end up being your professor someday.
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Images: 1, 2, and 4 provided by interviewee, 3