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Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony
In this bold and visionary book, two leading Christian thinkers explore the "alien" status of Christians in today's world and offer a compelling new vision of how the Christian church can regain its vitality, battle its malaise, reclaim its capacity to nourish souls, and stand firmly against the illusions, pretensions, and eroding values of today's world. Hauerwas and Willimon call for a radical new understanding of the church. By renouncing the emphasis on personal psychological categories, they offer a vision of the church as a colony, a holy nation, a people, a family standing for sharply focused values in a devalued world.
175 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Stanley Hauerwas
153 books257 followersStanley Hauerwas (PhD, Yale University) is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He is the author of numerous books, including Cross-Shattered Christ, A Cross-Shattered Church, War and the American Difference, and Matthew in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible.
America's Best Theologian according to Time Magazine (2001), though he rejected the title saying, "Best is not a theological category."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews
September 3, 2013
Who doesn't love a repeated swift kick in the backside?
As a loud and clear call for the Church to start acting like the Church, this book was a gem. There is a reason, it is becoming a modern ecclesial classic. Although many of the socio-political references are dated (Reagan, Iran/Contra, yuppies, etc.) the attitudes behind the critiques are not. Some of the pokes at mainline denominations are even funnier (and thus more sad) because the criticisms are still true (i.e. one mainline denomination's "peace with justice" week comes to mind). Reading it cursorly one might think that Willimon and Hauerwas are against politics, peace, and justice. They're not. They're simply fed up with a Church who takes their cues from a sinful American culture instead of allowing the Church to be the Church who takes their lead from the God who has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures.
As a loud and clear call for the Church to start acting like the Church, this book was a gem. There is a reason, it is becoming a modern ecclesial classic. Although many of the socio-political references are dated (Reagan, Iran/Contra, yuppies, etc.) the attitudes behind the critiques are not. Some of the pokes at mainline denominations are even funnier (and thus more sad) because the criticisms are still true (i.e. one mainline denomination's "peace with justice" week comes to mind). Reading it cursorly one might think that Willimon and Hauerwas are against politics, peace, and justice. They're not. They're simply fed up with a Church who takes their cues from a sinful American culture instead of allowing the Church to be the Church who takes their lead from the God who has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures.
March 20, 2024
Back in my Hauerwas era. Hauerwas argues that Christianity is no longer the dominant culture in the US and that Christians should stop trying to make our ethics make sense to a secular culture. Instead, Christians should embrace being strange and that the church should see itself as a colony, trying to live out the Christian story in a world that is hostile to it. Lots of interesting examples of this, I especially liked the stories of pastors in Southern churches who (unpopularily) fought for integration and pacifism, something that doesn't make sense outside of Christianity. Great book, my favorite Hauerwas so far.
Quotes
"We Christians have never handled success very well. We seem to be at our best as salt, as a struggling congregation in inner-city Philadelphia rather than St. Peter’s in Rome."
"Without Jesus, Peter might have been a good fisherman, perhaps even a very good one. But he would never have gotten anywhere, would never have learned what a coward he really was, what a confused, then confessing, courageous person he was, even a good preacher when he needed to be."
"In his teaching and preaching, Jesus was forever calling our attention to the seemingly trivial, the small, and the insignificant—like lost children, lost coins, lost sheep, a mustard seed. The Kingdom involves the ability to see God within those people and experiences the world regards as little and of no account, ordinary."
Quotes
"We Christians have never handled success very well. We seem to be at our best as salt, as a struggling congregation in inner-city Philadelphia rather than St. Peter’s in Rome."
"Without Jesus, Peter might have been a good fisherman, perhaps even a very good one. But he would never have gotten anywhere, would never have learned what a coward he really was, what a confused, then confessing, courageous person he was, even a good preacher when he needed to be."
"In his teaching and preaching, Jesus was forever calling our attention to the seemingly trivial, the small, and the insignificant—like lost children, lost coins, lost sheep, a mustard seed. The Kingdom involves the ability to see God within those people and experiences the world regards as little and of no account, ordinary."
February 14, 2023
This is the first book I’ve read by Hauerwas and I was compelled by many of his (and Willimon’s) arguments, especially his emphasis on the Church as necessary to practice Christian ethics. In short, he argues that there can be no such thing as Christian ethics without the Church. His opposition to any formulation of Christian ethics divorced from the Church was particularly challenging for me as I have felt at times that churches are morally impotent, now more than ever. (It's been nearly 25 years since this book was published, and I wonder how Hauerwas would respond to today's Christian Nationalism). Hauerwas seems to share that frustration. For Hauerwas and Willimon, the problem is the church’s aspiration towards socio-political relevance and influence, rather than viewing itself as a social and political instution that offers a radical alternative to the powers and principalities of “the world”. Hauerwas imagines a church that actively engages society through an unashamed loyalty to the Gospel rather than the aims of social democracy, liberalism, or conservative politics. He makes this especially clear in comparing the rhetorical similarities between Jerry Falwell and Reinhold Niebuhr and the negative implications of their “accomodationist” theology.
For someone who admires Niebuhr and some theologians he has influenced, Martin Luther King, Jr. and James H. Cone among them, I was definitely challenged by his view of social “liberation” theology as necessarily accomodationist. My understanding of liberation theology does not involve liberation of the “self” as the final aim, but liberation of the poor and marginalized from imperial oppression (a consistent Biblical theme). Hauerwas does oppose the social sins of racism, imperialism, unfettered capitalism, and militarism, as I think any Christian should, but he is hesitant to claim “liberation” as an adequate eschatological moral vision of society. This claim seems to undermine and minimize the roots of liberation theology in the United States, a tradition born from American slavery and nurtured through an imaginative interpretation of the Biblical story that is heavily concerned with the Exodus story, the Jubilee tradition, the Prophets, and the Cross. In other words, the story of what God is doing in the world, which Hauerwas claims is ethically vital, is not lost in these articulations of theology. While Reinhold Niebuhr may not be a helpful comparison to Falwell in order to defend the term “liberation” (James Cone discusses Niebuhr’s complicated silence on racism in The Cross and the Lynching Tree), placing Falwell alongside someone like Dr. King may serve to demonstrate what social and political liberation means to a man gripped by the story of Jesus, committed to the struggle for Black civil rights, and faithful to the Church as a catalyst for social good and alternative to American political status-quo. Falwell’s vision of the good society pales in comparison to the vision of the church and society offered by Dr. King. That being said, the implication of arguments from some contemporary proponents for liberation theology that improved federal programs and progressive legislation are the ultimate end of Christian ethics, while important aims, does seem unsatisfactory and incomplete in comparison to Christ’s transformative eschatological vision of the Kingdom; the Church being an active participant in bringing this to fruition. In this respect, I can somewhat understand Hauerwas’s rub.
After reading this book, I am very motivated to read more of Hauerwas’s work and I’m curious to learn more about the theologians and philosophers he credits to his understanding of theology and ethics (obviously Alasdair MacIntyre is a big one). I am really compelled by his major claim that a constant retelling and communal formation around the Biblical narrative is necessary for Christian ethics, which, as he says, is not a “new” or original claim. The way he articulated this claim helped me better understand its importance. At this point in my theological journey, I still find value in critical social theory and some of the theologians that Hauerwas doesn’t regard as helpful for Christian theology and ethics (although I just found out that Tillich was a super-icky dude and a little suspect when Hitler came to power, so I’ll give him that one); however, I think there is much I can learn from Hauerwas, especially his commitment to and faith in the Church, a gift I’m learning to love again. In a recent interview with Hauerwas, he said something to the extent of, "Protestantism as we know it is dying". Based on the arguments in this book, perhaps he thinks this is a good thing for the future of the Church and Christian ethics. I think I would agree with him.
For someone who admires Niebuhr and some theologians he has influenced, Martin Luther King, Jr. and James H. Cone among them, I was definitely challenged by his view of social “liberation” theology as necessarily accomodationist. My understanding of liberation theology does not involve liberation of the “self” as the final aim, but liberation of the poor and marginalized from imperial oppression (a consistent Biblical theme). Hauerwas does oppose the social sins of racism, imperialism, unfettered capitalism, and militarism, as I think any Christian should, but he is hesitant to claim “liberation” as an adequate eschatological moral vision of society. This claim seems to undermine and minimize the roots of liberation theology in the United States, a tradition born from American slavery and nurtured through an imaginative interpretation of the Biblical story that is heavily concerned with the Exodus story, the Jubilee tradition, the Prophets, and the Cross. In other words, the story of what God is doing in the world, which Hauerwas claims is ethically vital, is not lost in these articulations of theology. While Reinhold Niebuhr may not be a helpful comparison to Falwell in order to defend the term “liberation” (James Cone discusses Niebuhr’s complicated silence on racism in The Cross and the Lynching Tree), placing Falwell alongside someone like Dr. King may serve to demonstrate what social and political liberation means to a man gripped by the story of Jesus, committed to the struggle for Black civil rights, and faithful to the Church as a catalyst for social good and alternative to American political status-quo. Falwell’s vision of the good society pales in comparison to the vision of the church and society offered by Dr. King. That being said, the implication of arguments from some contemporary proponents for liberation theology that improved federal programs and progressive legislation are the ultimate end of Christian ethics, while important aims, does seem unsatisfactory and incomplete in comparison to Christ’s transformative eschatological vision of the Kingdom; the Church being an active participant in bringing this to fruition. In this respect, I can somewhat understand Hauerwas’s rub.
After reading this book, I am very motivated to read more of Hauerwas’s work and I’m curious to learn more about the theologians and philosophers he credits to his understanding of theology and ethics (obviously Alasdair MacIntyre is a big one). I am really compelled by his major claim that a constant retelling and communal formation around the Biblical narrative is necessary for Christian ethics, which, as he says, is not a “new” or original claim. The way he articulated this claim helped me better understand its importance. At this point in my theological journey, I still find value in critical social theory and some of the theologians that Hauerwas doesn’t regard as helpful for Christian theology and ethics (although I just found out that Tillich was a super-icky dude and a little suspect when Hitler came to power, so I’ll give him that one); however, I think there is much I can learn from Hauerwas, especially his commitment to and faith in the Church, a gift I’m learning to love again. In a recent interview with Hauerwas, he said something to the extent of, "Protestantism as we know it is dying". Based on the arguments in this book, perhaps he thinks this is a good thing for the future of the Church and Christian ethics. I think I would agree with him.
March 2, 2019
Resident Aliens is a book that I found to be extremely important for the Church today. It is a book that the people around me quote often and I have quoted often, but have never sat down and read the whole thing. I am glad I finally did. I feel like I and maybe the church have been floundering at how to handle our world right now. We feel a panic to do something. We feel like a new sense of urgency to change the world before it crashes down on us. Ad we feel a bit hopeless. I find people like Hauerwas are important people for the church to be listening to and reading today. If I had to sum it up, I would say something like this, Don't Panic, Be the Church. Steep yourself in the Story of God and be the people of God. This is a book that is is a call to pastors and ministers to lead the people of God to be the people of God.
Hauerwas and Willimon (H&W) call the church to again Follow Jesus. In today's political climate we feel an urgency to side with the right side of history politically. And do something about that. But Resident Aliens calls us to follow Jesus. This is the heart of it all. They say, "That which makes the church 'radical' and forever 'new' is not that the church tends to lean toward the left on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus and the world does not." And in order to do this we need to soak in the story of God. We need to understand and breathe the ways of the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount. This needs to become our new way of life. Not to just side with the right or the left. But to live the way of the sermon on the mount. This is the way of God.
Or this, "Christian community, life in the colony, is not primarily about togetherness. It is about the way of Jesus Christ with those whom he calls to himself. It is about disciplining our wants and needs in congruence with a true story, which gives us the resources to lead truthful lives. In living out the story together, togetherness happens, but only as a by-product of the main project of trying to be faithful to Jesus." H&W always emphasis that living this way cannot be done alone and must be about living in a community of people, to be that city on a hill. But it is a people who follow Jesus.
One of the other challenges they put forth is in order to do this, we actually have to believe that this story we are a part of is true. Does the church actually believe in God? Do I actually believe in this God? Because if we do, it changes everything. Do I believe that this God sent Jesus to live and be God among us and eventually go to the cross? And do I believe then that because of Christ's death and resurrection, that the church can now participate in the way of Christ and ourselves live in the way of enemy, non violent love?
One finally challenge i believe they give which is important. Living in the colony may not seem effective in changing the world. Non violence doesn't feel effective. Loving our enemy doesn't make sense. Living the way of the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount doesn't make sense in our world. But we have to remember that we are living in the Kingdom of God as followers of Christ. So weather we make a difference or not, we live the way of the Kingdom, not just as blind followers, but because we actually believe in this God and this Story. And we believe that one day, God will gather and make all things new. And the slaughtered lamb, Jesus, will be the one to reign.
Hauerwas and Willimon (H&W) call the church to again Follow Jesus. In today's political climate we feel an urgency to side with the right side of history politically. And do something about that. But Resident Aliens calls us to follow Jesus. This is the heart of it all. They say, "That which makes the church 'radical' and forever 'new' is not that the church tends to lean toward the left on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus and the world does not." And in order to do this we need to soak in the story of God. We need to understand and breathe the ways of the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount. This needs to become our new way of life. Not to just side with the right or the left. But to live the way of the sermon on the mount. This is the way of God.
Or this, "Christian community, life in the colony, is not primarily about togetherness. It is about the way of Jesus Christ with those whom he calls to himself. It is about disciplining our wants and needs in congruence with a true story, which gives us the resources to lead truthful lives. In living out the story together, togetherness happens, but only as a by-product of the main project of trying to be faithful to Jesus." H&W always emphasis that living this way cannot be done alone and must be about living in a community of people, to be that city on a hill. But it is a people who follow Jesus.
One of the other challenges they put forth is in order to do this, we actually have to believe that this story we are a part of is true. Does the church actually believe in God? Do I actually believe in this God? Because if we do, it changes everything. Do I believe that this God sent Jesus to live and be God among us and eventually go to the cross? And do I believe then that because of Christ's death and resurrection, that the church can now participate in the way of Christ and ourselves live in the way of enemy, non violent love?
One finally challenge i believe they give which is important. Living in the colony may not seem effective in changing the world. Non violence doesn't feel effective. Loving our enemy doesn't make sense. Living the way of the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount doesn't make sense in our world. But we have to remember that we are living in the Kingdom of God as followers of Christ. So weather we make a difference or not, we live the way of the Kingdom, not just as blind followers, but because we actually believe in this God and this Story. And we believe that one day, God will gather and make all things new. And the slaughtered lamb, Jesus, will be the one to reign.
January 27, 2015
Self-righteous, self-congratulatory, pompous, and unambitious: This book is a clear example of what is wrong with Seminarians. There are good ideas here (Christianity shouldn't be a slave to tradition or society), but the good ideas are underdeveloped, unsupported, and drowned in a sea of hyperbole.
The authors say things like, "God demands that we sacrifice the lives of our children and those we love to our interpretation of His will!", "Democracy and individual rights are idols!" "Biblical
authority is more important than compassion or kindness!"
I don't buy any of that and I won't endorse it.
The authors say things like, "God demands that we sacrifice the lives of our children and those we love to our interpretation of His will!", "Democracy and individual rights are idols!" "Biblical
authority is more important than compassion or kindness!"
I don't buy any of that and I won't endorse it.
October 6, 2020
A great challenge
This book presents a great challenge to pastors and laypeople that want to dare to make how they live as Church “an adventure” as opposed to simply living like the world has set the rules we must live by. It was also harrowing in the challenges and response presented that a future pastor must live with to make sure his church is actually living lives together subsumed by Christ’s story. We are trapped in a matrix that demands a certain life by Christ’s true death and resurrection.
Millennial and Gen Z readers should continue to read despite baby boomer obsession/fixation of “The Bomb™️” and “The Vietnam War,” choosing to focus on the principles shown through their frequent use as illustrations by the authors.
This book presents a great challenge to pastors and laypeople that want to dare to make how they live as Church “an adventure” as opposed to simply living like the world has set the rules we must live by. It was also harrowing in the challenges and response presented that a future pastor must live with to make sure his church is actually living lives together subsumed by Christ’s story. We are trapped in a matrix that demands a certain life by Christ’s true death and resurrection.
Millennial and Gen Z readers should continue to read despite baby boomer obsession/fixation of “The Bomb™️” and “The Vietnam War,” choosing to focus on the principles shown through their frequent use as illustrations by the authors.
September 20, 2021
I read this book with my husband. It brings up some probing questions about how we do church and Christian community. However, we both thought it lacked a satisfying answer to the question of how we should do it.
February 15, 2022
I finally read Hauerwas :)
"Resident Aliens" is easily one of the best books I've ever read (Thanks, Dr. Griffith, for the initial recommendation in 2019). The content is intellectually stimulating, personally challenging, and brilliantly argued. It reads as if written to Christians in 2022, though it was in fact published in 1989.
The authors describe how, in the twilight of the "Constantinian synthesis" in America (Christians compromising their witness by making the gospel credible to the world in such a way that the church becomes the "dull exponent of conventional secular political ideas with a vaguely religious tint"), faithful Christians can refocus on what we should have been doing all along: being the church--nothing more; nothing less. We can focus on being that called out community of people who, because of Christ, understand the world in a way that the world does not.
After discussing what the church is (it's Christological and eschatological foundation and purpose) the authors examine the state of Christian clergy and exhort church leaders to speak truth and embrace the countercultural ramifications of the gospel.
"Resident Aliens" is a must read for any Christ follower, in my humble opinion.
"Resident Aliens" is easily one of the best books I've ever read (Thanks, Dr. Griffith, for the initial recommendation in 2019). The content is intellectually stimulating, personally challenging, and brilliantly argued. It reads as if written to Christians in 2022, though it was in fact published in 1989.
The authors describe how, in the twilight of the "Constantinian synthesis" in America (Christians compromising their witness by making the gospel credible to the world in such a way that the church becomes the "dull exponent of conventional secular political ideas with a vaguely religious tint"), faithful Christians can refocus on what we should have been doing all along: being the church--nothing more; nothing less. We can focus on being that called out community of people who, because of Christ, understand the world in a way that the world does not.
After discussing what the church is (it's Christological and eschatological foundation and purpose) the authors examine the state of Christian clergy and exhort church leaders to speak truth and embrace the countercultural ramifications of the gospel.
"Resident Aliens" is a must read for any Christ follower, in my humble opinion.
January 31, 2024
A great book on the identity of the church and its relation to American society. The book is dated. What I found is that some of the things said in the book were not as new/radical as they were when Willimon and Hauerwas first wrote the book. I believe that's a testament to the influence of the book on pastors and teachers over the past several decades. Though it came out in the 1980s, the message is still needed today. I recommend getting the 25th anniversary publication as the authors interact with their work. The Afterword was especially helpful as Hauerwas interacts with the criticisms from well-respected thinkers. May the church truly and always be strange/alien to the world.
January 11, 2023
Probably the best book I’ve read in some time.
November 1, 2019
Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon is a book I remember reading in seminary. I remember not enjoying the book very much during those days, so I must admit that I wasn’t looking forward to revisiting it. However, once I re-read the book I was able to appreciate it much more than I remember appreciating it during seminary. It doesn’t mean that this is my favorite book by any means, but well we’ll get to that.
In some ways, I have a hard time encapsulating what the message of Resident Aliens is. It is a book that is about the church, primarily about how the church is called to be a unique colony within the culture and not simply another group lobbying for the support of the culture, be it government or popular opinion. Many of the examples are dated, this book was written in 1989, but the message of the book is still relevant today.
For example, it talks about abortion. The authors then talk about how for many Christians the first thoughts are trying to figure out what laws need to be enacted by the government about abortion and how to go about convincing the government to take this Christian position. The problem with this, according to the authors, is that we’re ultimately relying on the government to define what is moral and ethical instead of the church. To Hauerwas and Willimon this seems to present that we believe the nations rule the world much more than we believe God rules the world.
Now while I think that what the book talks about is still relevant today and that they do have insightful things to say, something about this book bothered me throughout. Part of it was that it isn’t the most well organized book. Maybe this is the result of dual authorship, but it just seems that they are a bit all over the place. They talk about the problems of democracy, individualism, the idea of Christians trying to transform culture, not having good reasons for having or not having children, seminary education and while these things are not bad, they tend to lack anything cohesive other than the idea of the Christian church as a colony.
This idea of Christian colony is something that I felt they talked about, but didn’t develop the most. The best presentation of it was in the giving of what one of their churches does for confirmation. Even then I felt that they deconstructed popular ideas like transforming culture or being involved with government, and talked about how Christianity and Christian ethics are not common sense and are rather peculiar, but didn’t really show how that would work on the ground. They usually just relied on saying that the church needs to be the church, which just didn’t seem enough for me.
I guess overall, I felt that Resident Aliens had some good points, but the message was just so all over the place that I had a hard time thinking about what this would actually look like. Does the fact that we are to be the church mean we shouldn’t be involved in government? They didn’t seem to say this, but then how does the church engage in politics in way that holds God as the ultimate lord? If Christian ethics are so very peculiar then how do we account for the areas of overlap within our own culture? These and other questions popped up throughout the book, it is good for a book to make you ask questions, but I felt that many of the questions were about what they were presenting, because it wasn’t always clear.
The message being all over the place also made certain chapters go smoother than others. Honestly, I felt that as the book came to a close the chapters took a dive. This was primarily when they stopped focusing a lot on the church and switched to focusing primarily on the pastor. The next to last chapter was by far the worst in my mind. Too much focus on a lady named Gladys, too narrow of a focus on the story of Ananias and Sapphira in regards to how to act as a pastor, and a good amount of critique on seminary education just wound up looking like a jumbled mess to me.
As I’ve said the book is all over the place, they have some good insights peppered throughout, but I’m not sure I’d re-read this book again. They have quotes that I’d use or ideas that I agree with, but I have a hard time knowing whether to recommend it or not. I somewhat enjoyed it, and read through it rather fast, but at the same time felt there were many shortcomings in the book too. Resident Aliens does challenge you on how you live your faith, it deconstructs a lot of how we may approach our Christian life, but I feel it puts little down as a foundation beyond the vague notion of a Christian colony.
In some ways, I have a hard time encapsulating what the message of Resident Aliens is. It is a book that is about the church, primarily about how the church is called to be a unique colony within the culture and not simply another group lobbying for the support of the culture, be it government or popular opinion. Many of the examples are dated, this book was written in 1989, but the message of the book is still relevant today.
For example, it talks about abortion. The authors then talk about how for many Christians the first thoughts are trying to figure out what laws need to be enacted by the government about abortion and how to go about convincing the government to take this Christian position. The problem with this, according to the authors, is that we’re ultimately relying on the government to define what is moral and ethical instead of the church. To Hauerwas and Willimon this seems to present that we believe the nations rule the world much more than we believe God rules the world.
Now while I think that what the book talks about is still relevant today and that they do have insightful things to say, something about this book bothered me throughout. Part of it was that it isn’t the most well organized book. Maybe this is the result of dual authorship, but it just seems that they are a bit all over the place. They talk about the problems of democracy, individualism, the idea of Christians trying to transform culture, not having good reasons for having or not having children, seminary education and while these things are not bad, they tend to lack anything cohesive other than the idea of the Christian church as a colony.
This idea of Christian colony is something that I felt they talked about, but didn’t develop the most. The best presentation of it was in the giving of what one of their churches does for confirmation. Even then I felt that they deconstructed popular ideas like transforming culture or being involved with government, and talked about how Christianity and Christian ethics are not common sense and are rather peculiar, but didn’t really show how that would work on the ground. They usually just relied on saying that the church needs to be the church, which just didn’t seem enough for me.
I guess overall, I felt that Resident Aliens had some good points, but the message was just so all over the place that I had a hard time thinking about what this would actually look like. Does the fact that we are to be the church mean we shouldn’t be involved in government? They didn’t seem to say this, but then how does the church engage in politics in way that holds God as the ultimate lord? If Christian ethics are so very peculiar then how do we account for the areas of overlap within our own culture? These and other questions popped up throughout the book, it is good for a book to make you ask questions, but I felt that many of the questions were about what they were presenting, because it wasn’t always clear.
The message being all over the place also made certain chapters go smoother than others. Honestly, I felt that as the book came to a close the chapters took a dive. This was primarily when they stopped focusing a lot on the church and switched to focusing primarily on the pastor. The next to last chapter was by far the worst in my mind. Too much focus on a lady named Gladys, too narrow of a focus on the story of Ananias and Sapphira in regards to how to act as a pastor, and a good amount of critique on seminary education just wound up looking like a jumbled mess to me.
As I’ve said the book is all over the place, they have some good insights peppered throughout, but I’m not sure I’d re-read this book again. They have quotes that I’d use or ideas that I agree with, but I have a hard time knowing whether to recommend it or not. I somewhat enjoyed it, and read through it rather fast, but at the same time felt there were many shortcomings in the book too. Resident Aliens does challenge you on how you live your faith, it deconstructs a lot of how we may approach our Christian life, but I feel it puts little down as a foundation beyond the vague notion of a Christian colony.
March 13, 2018
One of the most powerful and pertinent messages this book offers is its depiction of a church narrative enslaved to the doctrines of democracy and consumerism. It paints both liberals and conservatives as two sides of the same coin, both looking to the government and her articulation of freedom, human rights, power, peace, and prosperity as method and mode of salvation. They cite Yoder’s paradigm: The “activist” church desires to transform the world in a way that makes God and Christ unimportant and unnecessary, and the “conversionist” church is selfishly consumed with an individualistic saving of souls. Both are subjugated to the almighty nation-state and consumed by its heretical perspectives.
They offer instead the narrative of a Christian colony - in the world but not of the world - following Jesus the way the disciples did, worshiping God as only they can. They describe salvation as an “adventure that is nothing less than God’s purpose for the whole world” and the church as a community “training us to fashion our lives in accordance with what is true rather than what is false” (p. 52). In this depiction, elders apprentice new followers as all members remember and articulate the invasion of God into the world, “taking the disconnected elements of our lives and pulling them together into a coherent story that means something” (p. 53). As revolutionary community members, Christians bump up against one another and the world speaking this coherent meaning in direct opposition to individualistic and "worldly" wisdom.
However, the authors flail at times in their attempts to maintain the tension that is their thesis, a narrative that is neither conservative nor liberal but altogether political in an altogether different way. Their examples are poignant and helpful, but they are followed by more and more two-dimensional, straw-man arguments that venture into the very abstract conceptualizations they said they wanted to avoid. They denounce things like the helping profession, personal boundaries, and most theological and higher education, for example, as if there is no Christ there, no double-edged truth in the narratives of other disciplines confronting the idolatrous church the way the church should be confronting the world.
I disagree that it is only the church who can worship, only the church who can see and speak truth, only the church who ultimately witnesses to God. The notion runs contrary to their own depiction of the intrusion of God into the world as a fundamentally relational being that created the very world with which these authors seem so intrinsically at war. It seems to elevate the church, particularly their own vague, culturally formed and influenced articulation of the church, to god-like status - which seems dangerous considering their critique of that same church!
No, God has used “the world” to critique and correct his people over and over again. But this humility seems missing from the authors’ narrative.
They offer instead the narrative of a Christian colony - in the world but not of the world - following Jesus the way the disciples did, worshiping God as only they can. They describe salvation as an “adventure that is nothing less than God’s purpose for the whole world” and the church as a community “training us to fashion our lives in accordance with what is true rather than what is false” (p. 52). In this depiction, elders apprentice new followers as all members remember and articulate the invasion of God into the world, “taking the disconnected elements of our lives and pulling them together into a coherent story that means something” (p. 53). As revolutionary community members, Christians bump up against one another and the world speaking this coherent meaning in direct opposition to individualistic and "worldly" wisdom.
However, the authors flail at times in their attempts to maintain the tension that is their thesis, a narrative that is neither conservative nor liberal but altogether political in an altogether different way. Their examples are poignant and helpful, but they are followed by more and more two-dimensional, straw-man arguments that venture into the very abstract conceptualizations they said they wanted to avoid. They denounce things like the helping profession, personal boundaries, and most theological and higher education, for example, as if there is no Christ there, no double-edged truth in the narratives of other disciplines confronting the idolatrous church the way the church should be confronting the world.
I disagree that it is only the church who can worship, only the church who can see and speak truth, only the church who ultimately witnesses to God. The notion runs contrary to their own depiction of the intrusion of God into the world as a fundamentally relational being that created the very world with which these authors seem so intrinsically at war. It seems to elevate the church, particularly their own vague, culturally formed and influenced articulation of the church, to god-like status - which seems dangerous considering their critique of that same church!
No, God has used “the world” to critique and correct his people over and over again. But this humility seems missing from the authors’ narrative.
September 1, 2018
Completely delusional
The authors compare clergy to being used like prostitutes. They must live a very sheltered life where issues like the need for affordable childcare are wickedly promoting non Christian values like single parent households or both parents working. They preach poverty while themselves living lives of privilege. They can’t even agree with themselves. Not sure if the run on sentences and use of specialized vocabulary add to the confusion. I was told by my pastor that the forward was supposed to be sarcastic. During which they criticize the episcopal church and Obama administration. If you want to know why people are leaving the church look to the chapter on how clergy are so abused. How dare people expect someone that’s called by God to help them in times of need?!?! They talk about the world vs Christ a lot. No. It’s the world vs church. I’ve yet to see in the New Testament where it says you need a theology degree to be called. This book is elitist crap.
The authors compare clergy to being used like prostitutes. They must live a very sheltered life where issues like the need for affordable childcare are wickedly promoting non Christian values like single parent households or both parents working. They preach poverty while themselves living lives of privilege. They can’t even agree with themselves. Not sure if the run on sentences and use of specialized vocabulary add to the confusion. I was told by my pastor that the forward was supposed to be sarcastic. During which they criticize the episcopal church and Obama administration. If you want to know why people are leaving the church look to the chapter on how clergy are so abused. How dare people expect someone that’s called by God to help them in times of need?!?! They talk about the world vs Christ a lot. No. It’s the world vs church. I’ve yet to see in the New Testament where it says you need a theology degree to be called. This book is elitist crap.
June 23, 2013
The first several chapters present the authors' neo-anabaptist social ethic. The last few are more focused toward ministers. This is somewhat of a "movement" book. If you buy hard into the vision the authors are selling, it's great. For outsiders, there are few takeaways.
October 31, 2020
I don't quite track theologically with Hauerwas, but there's a great deal for Christians to consider in this text about the relationship of the church to the world and the nature of the church itself.
September 21, 2020
Provocative and readable, this is a nice introduction to the thought of Stanley Hauerwas, especially his ideas related to the Church as polis or colony.
November 13, 2020
A challenging read but a very profitable one.
October 21, 2022
As a Christian living in 2022, I am quite prone to yearn for 1989. If only I lived in a more conservative America, in which people were a bit more hush about their sexual sin and Reagan would occasionally quote the Bible in a presidential speech. Nostalgia is a cowardly lie, and Hauerwas’ scathing critique of the American Church in the late 1980s is a harsh, yet necessary reminder that warm sentiments of a bygone era will never satisfy. Hauerwas pronounced the death of Christendom in 1963, and I say good riddance. Gone are the days when the global west masks its individualist idolatry in polite, moralistic ‘Christianity’. Gone are the days when we imagine our neighbors as “Christian until proven otherwise”. We are the inhabitants of a strange new world.
In Hauerwas’ day and mine, the Western Church finds herself at a crossroads. Will she pick a side, right or left, make a deal with her preferred devil, and speak the language of her captors in exchange for her survival, or stand apart as the prophetic voice in the wilderness she is, and witness against the world and all its evils? Although he rarely, if ever, used the phrase, Hauerwas contends for the holiness of the Church, and her purity from the heresies of progressive and fundamentalist ‘Christianities’. The Church must once again live as an alien colony within a foreign empire.
As an aspiring pastor, I found his final two chapters particularly terrifying and comforting. The pulpit must be the platform of the prophet, not the stage of the entertainer. The pastor must be a shepherd to his people against the wolves of secular individualism, many adorned in sheepskin (Locke). The pastor must be stand upon the authority of the Word of God, and cannot be seduced by the fanciful speech of historical criticism, nor the ‘common sense’ reductionism of the fundamentalist, both of which make Christian theology inconsequential. An alien colony requires the hard-hitting truth of the gospel in its most offensive form.
I will get off my soap box now. Not that there’s much competition, but Hauerwas has earned his spot atop my ‘favorite Methodists’ list.
In Hauerwas’ day and mine, the Western Church finds herself at a crossroads. Will she pick a side, right or left, make a deal with her preferred devil, and speak the language of her captors in exchange for her survival, or stand apart as the prophetic voice in the wilderness she is, and witness against the world and all its evils? Although he rarely, if ever, used the phrase, Hauerwas contends for the holiness of the Church, and her purity from the heresies of progressive and fundamentalist ‘Christianities’. The Church must once again live as an alien colony within a foreign empire.
As an aspiring pastor, I found his final two chapters particularly terrifying and comforting. The pulpit must be the platform of the prophet, not the stage of the entertainer. The pastor must be a shepherd to his people against the wolves of secular individualism, many adorned in sheepskin (Locke). The pastor must be stand upon the authority of the Word of God, and cannot be seduced by the fanciful speech of historical criticism, nor the ‘common sense’ reductionism of the fundamentalist, both of which make Christian theology inconsequential. An alien colony requires the hard-hitting truth of the gospel in its most offensive form.
I will get off my soap box now. Not that there’s much competition, but Hauerwas has earned his spot atop my ‘favorite Methodists’ list.
Read
April 13, 2024Prophetic. Provocative. Powerful.
A few quotes. Might add more later:
“That which makes the church ‘radical’ and forever ‘new’ is not that the church tends to lean toward the left on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus, whereas the world does not. In the church’s view, the political left is not noticeably more interesting than the political right; both sides tend toward solutions that act as if the world has not ended and begun in Jesus.”
“The challenge of the gospel is not the intellectual dilemma of how to make an archaic system of belief compatible with modern belief systems. The challenge of Jesus is the political dilemma of how to be faithful to a strange community, which is shaped by a story of how God is with us.���
“The confessing church knows that its most credible form of witness (and the most effective thing it can do for the world) is the actual creation of a living, breathing, visible community of faith…. Witness without compromise leads to worldly hostility. The cross is not a sign of the church’s quiet, suffering submission to the powers that be, but rather the church’s revolutionary participation in the victory of Christ over those powers. The cross is not a symbol for general human suffering and oppression. Rather the cross is a sign of what happens when one takes God’s account of reality more seriously than Caesars.”
A few quotes. Might add more later:
“That which makes the church ‘radical’ and forever ‘new’ is not that the church tends to lean toward the left on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus, whereas the world does not. In the church’s view, the political left is not noticeably more interesting than the political right; both sides tend toward solutions that act as if the world has not ended and begun in Jesus.”
“The challenge of the gospel is not the intellectual dilemma of how to make an archaic system of belief compatible with modern belief systems. The challenge of Jesus is the political dilemma of how to be faithful to a strange community, which is shaped by a story of how God is with us.���
“The confessing church knows that its most credible form of witness (and the most effective thing it can do for the world) is the actual creation of a living, breathing, visible community of faith…. Witness without compromise leads to worldly hostility. The cross is not a sign of the church’s quiet, suffering submission to the powers that be, but rather the church’s revolutionary participation in the victory of Christ over those powers. The cross is not a symbol for general human suffering and oppression. Rather the cross is a sign of what happens when one takes God’s account of reality more seriously than Caesars.”
May 28, 2019
A provocative yet empowering account on how Christians are not meant to "change the world" as understood by both conservatives and liberals, evangelicals and progressives, but rather to live together in faithfulness through sacraments, confess, forgive, and support each other, proclaiming the Gospel through words and deeds, and stay in unity, like a colony surviving together as a resident alien in a world that does not understand God.
The flow and narrative reeks of post-modernism, yet somehow it makes so much sense because it is true that we as people of faith tend to struggle to translate our language of faith into digestible, modern, cognitive terms. Christianity as it is should be understood through life in a fellowship, or a colony, in the form of Church, where ordinary people are empowered by Christ to be saints, supporting each other, in their weakness, yet in their clarity of minds and deeds of what it means to be Christian, to be countercultural and to live a life against what society views to be "normal".
This book can be a good reminder for a lot of us who strives so hard to make Christian "relevant" or "reigning supreme" (a la Christendom) while the fact of the matter is the truth in Christianity is not meant to be "relevant" or "new". Truth is truth, that must be experienced in church as a community, and lived out against the rulers of the world who try their hardest to suppress, oppress, and co-opt those who want to live a genuine life understood through lens of Christ.
The flow and narrative reeks of post-modernism, yet somehow it makes so much sense because it is true that we as people of faith tend to struggle to translate our language of faith into digestible, modern, cognitive terms. Christianity as it is should be understood through life in a fellowship, or a colony, in the form of Church, where ordinary people are empowered by Christ to be saints, supporting each other, in their weakness, yet in their clarity of minds and deeds of what it means to be Christian, to be countercultural and to live a life against what society views to be "normal".
This book can be a good reminder for a lot of us who strives so hard to make Christian "relevant" or "reigning supreme" (a la Christendom) while the fact of the matter is the truth in Christianity is not meant to be "relevant" or "new". Truth is truth, that must be experienced in church as a community, and lived out against the rulers of the world who try their hardest to suppress, oppress, and co-opt those who want to live a genuine life understood through lens of Christ.
October 11, 2022
A 30 year old book that is still completely relevant, I would argue even more relevant, today than when it was written.
An interesting argument for how to live as “Church” without becoming just a social club with a set of “rules.”
It is easy to agree with his prognosis but carrying out the application must be difficult as one has to imagine this would be more of a popular opinion in the church if it was easy to do.
An interesting argument for how to live as “Church” without becoming just a social club with a set of “rules.”
It is easy to agree with his prognosis but carrying out the application must be difficult as one has to imagine this would be more of a popular opinion in the church if it was easy to do.
August 10, 2022
This is an excellent book when it deals with how western Christianity has largely sold out to the empire since Constantine. Otherwise it sounds like what it is, seminary professors talking about pastoral ministry in a way that shows they have no real wisdom to add. Like most seminary professors they are men of thought not action and lack humility or curiosity usually only gained by acting and failing and learning - I’d like to give it higher marks in its attempt to challenge civic Christianity but their thoughts on local congregations and clergy life are mostly a complete waste of breath, that takes me back to my seminary days😂
November 22, 2018
When I loved this book, I really loved it; and when I hated it, I really hated it; either way I won't stop talking about it. Which means it is probably a commendable read for anyone trying to figure out what it means to be a Christian - or more importantly - what it means to be the church today.
July 6, 2020
This book helped me refocus my energy when it comes to politics in America by shifting my attention from the bipartisan train wreck to helping the Church be the Church (which includes inviting all of us to a different kind of politic).
You can read my full review here: https://joeburnham.com/review/residen...
You can read my full review here: https://joeburnham.com/review/residen...
January 1, 2018
A refreshing vision of what the church should be, I recommend for any Christian to read, especially any Christian in America.
February 19, 2017
Inspiring. I kept thinking, how could I be a catalyst for change in a large urban Lutheran church. The examples in this book are inadequate. Makes me wonder if what is being advocated is only possible in very small congregations of like minded believers with some strong awareness of how spiritual pride can so easily corrupt the best intentions.
February 11, 2018
As a layperson with limited knowledge of theological context, based on what I’ve heard Resident Aliens was a fairly important work of theology when it was published in 1989.
The most surprising thing to me was the ease and speed with which I was able to finish this book. It is neither pretentious in its word choice nor in its construction of sentences, something I’ve come to expect from theology, philosophy, and literary criticism. I realize nuances are important when explaining ideas in these fields, but Resident Aliens manages these explanations without frustrating a non-theologically trained audience.
A few themes stuck out to me, which are more impressions than a direct translation.
1) Liberal theology (e.g. Tillich, Neibhur) is mistaken in its attempt to justify the Church to the world and in its attempt to find ways to meet the world where it stands. The Church has something unique to offer, and it doesn’t require capitulation to do so. In our efforts to be the Church to the world, we have too often aligned our message of good things--justice, service, etc.--with the world’s message of how good can and should be accomplished. This is old habit; the Constantinian period of the church (the church receiving the support of government and vice versa) lasted, after all, for centuries. But when we find ourselves in the majority, there is good reason to be skeptical, even when regarding apparently good moral stances.
2) One of the ways the Church should contrast with the culture in which it finds itself is in the prioritizing of its values. For example, individualism is sacred in most of the western world, and particularly in the US. The true Church rejects this as a positive value. Within its community, any individual’s problem is our problem.
3) The community of the Church should offer a visible contrast to the ways the world approaches problems: paralyzing xenophobia, dealing with conflict, helping those in need, serving all, making friends of strangers. The actions of church and world may at times appear to differ little, but the reasons for performing them may differ greatly. We may seek social justice, for example, not because it is fair, but because we live in God’s world, God’s kingdom, not to “make things right” but simply to live out our lives in the ways Jesus exemplified. We love everyone not because they are good or because everyone should feel noticed but because this is the world of God that Jesus described, one in which mourners are comforted, the poor in spirit receive the kingdom of heaven, and even enemies are loved.
As a book of theology, of course, the content in Resident Aliens is often theoretical, an expression of something less than a concrete image of what the Church should be. The application of these ideas is left for discerning clergy to determine for the most part, though a number of illustrations help create images of these ideals in a number of spots. In the end, it’s easy to say, Yes! This is what the Church should be, how the Church should look, but it is much more difficult to be one of the communities who paints the picture.
The most surprising thing to me was the ease and speed with which I was able to finish this book. It is neither pretentious in its word choice nor in its construction of sentences, something I’ve come to expect from theology, philosophy, and literary criticism. I realize nuances are important when explaining ideas in these fields, but Resident Aliens manages these explanations without frustrating a non-theologically trained audience.
A few themes stuck out to me, which are more impressions than a direct translation.
1) Liberal theology (e.g. Tillich, Neibhur) is mistaken in its attempt to justify the Church to the world and in its attempt to find ways to meet the world where it stands. The Church has something unique to offer, and it doesn’t require capitulation to do so. In our efforts to be the Church to the world, we have too often aligned our message of good things--justice, service, etc.--with the world’s message of how good can and should be accomplished. This is old habit; the Constantinian period of the church (the church receiving the support of government and vice versa) lasted, after all, for centuries. But when we find ourselves in the majority, there is good reason to be skeptical, even when regarding apparently good moral stances.
2) One of the ways the Church should contrast with the culture in which it finds itself is in the prioritizing of its values. For example, individualism is sacred in most of the western world, and particularly in the US. The true Church rejects this as a positive value. Within its community, any individual’s problem is our problem.
3) The community of the Church should offer a visible contrast to the ways the world approaches problems: paralyzing xenophobia, dealing with conflict, helping those in need, serving all, making friends of strangers. The actions of church and world may at times appear to differ little, but the reasons for performing them may differ greatly. We may seek social justice, for example, not because it is fair, but because we live in God’s world, God’s kingdom, not to “make things right” but simply to live out our lives in the ways Jesus exemplified. We love everyone not because they are good or because everyone should feel noticed but because this is the world of God that Jesus described, one in which mourners are comforted, the poor in spirit receive the kingdom of heaven, and even enemies are loved.
As a book of theology, of course, the content in Resident Aliens is often theoretical, an expression of something less than a concrete image of what the Church should be. The application of these ideas is left for discerning clergy to determine for the most part, though a number of illustrations help create images of these ideals in a number of spots. In the end, it’s easy to say, Yes! This is what the Church should be, how the Church should look, but it is much more difficult to be one of the communities who paints the picture.
July 14, 2014
This profound book teeters on the brink of being amazing, but occasionally falls just a little short.
The "resident alien" metaphor (the church's allegiance is not first to the state, so she is a "colony" of resident aliens) is apt, insightful, and freeing. The church need not make sense to its culture nor be a partner to the state in creating a "Christendom", but rather is free to live in a way that points to God's work of redeeming and reclaiming the world.
The first half of the book deals with the conceptual foundations of this understanding. It was good, but I'll admit that in some of the deeper areas I was treading water just to keep my head up. The authors seem to do a better job at critiquing various flawed paradigms than fully developing their new/true paradigm.
The second part gets into discussion of how church leaders and laity could live out this "colony of resident aliens" idea, and the authors gave some fascinating examples. Here is one; a member of a church education committee voices her questions about a proposed day-care program:
On the topic of pastor burnout, the authors acknowledge the usual advice of taking time off, saying no, delegating, etc., but choose to emphasize the bigger context:
While some of the references are dated (written in 1989!), the questions and concerns are largely valid and much of the authors' advice has yet to be adopted by the North American church.
The "resident alien" metaphor (the church's allegiance is not first to the state, so she is a "colony" of resident aliens) is apt, insightful, and freeing. The church need not make sense to its culture nor be a partner to the state in creating a "Christendom", but rather is free to live in a way that points to God's work of redeeming and reclaiming the world.
The first half of the book deals with the conceptual foundations of this understanding. It was good, but I'll admit that in some of the deeper areas I was treading water just to keep my head up. The authors seem to do a better job at critiquing various flawed paradigms than fully developing their new/true paradigm.
The second part gets into discussion of how church leaders and laity could live out this "colony of resident aliens" idea, and the authors gave some fascinating examples. Here is one; a member of a church education committee voices her questions about a proposed day-care program:
“That’s not true, and you know it’s not true. It is not hard for anyone in this church, for anyone in the neighborhood to put food on the table. Now there are people in this town for whom food on the table is quite a challenge, but I haven’t heard any talk about them. They wouldn't be using this day-care center. They wouldn't have a way to get their children here. This day-care center wouldn't be for them. If we’re talking about ministry to their needs, then I’m in favor of the idea. No, what we’re talking about is ministry to those for whom it has become harder every day to have two cars, a VCR, a place at the lake, or a motor home. That’s why we’re all working hard and leaving our children. I just hate to see the church buy into and encourage that value system. I hate to see the church telling these young couples that somehow their marriage will be better or their family life more fulfilling if they can only get another car, or a VCR, or some other piece of junk. Why doesn't the church be the last place courageous enough to say, ‘That’s a lie. Things don’t make a marriage or a family.’ This day-care center will encourage some of the worst aspects of our already warped values.”
On the topic of pastor burnout, the authors acknowledge the usual advice of taking time off, saying no, delegating, etc., but choose to emphasize the bigger context:
What pastors, as well as the laity they serve, need is a theological rationale for ministry which is so cosmic, so eschatological and therefore counter-cultural, that they are enabled to keep at Christian ministry in a world determined to live as if God were dead. Anything less misreads both the scandal of the gospel and the corruption of our culture.
While some of the references are dated (written in 1989!), the questions and concerns are largely valid and much of the authors' advice has yet to be adopted by the North American church.
January 15, 2019
The first few chapters are dynamite and the final couple chapters fade a bit. It made me wonder if Hauerwas wrote the first few chapters and Willimon wrote the last few. The punchy and provocative aspects of the first few chapters are almost completely absent in the last few chapters. There is a lot to like about the way the church is described and the encouragements for the ways the church should be a politically subversive colony of heaven. Or as I often say it at my church, an Embassy :)
My outline:
Main Thesis - The church, as those called out by God, embodies a social alternative that the world cannot on its own terms know. This social alternative is called the polis, the people of God, and the true political concern of the church. On page 15, the authors state, “this book is about a renewed sense of what it means to be Christian, more precisely, of what it means to be pastors who care for Christians, in a distinctly changed world.
Chapter One
The argument of this chapter is that the problem of the church today is not one of unbelief and that a fundamental change in the world has enabled the American church to regain some of its lost integrity.
o The first section on learning to ask the right questions has to do with the argument that the problem of the church today is not one of unbelief. Since the Enlightenment, the questions facing the church have revolved around making the gospel credible to the modern world, but these are the wrong questions. In short, the authors argue that the Bible does not care about our modern questions and only cares about whether or not we are going to be faithful to the gospel. The theologian's job is not to make the gospel credible to the world, but to make the world credible to the gospel.
o This is further described as the demise of the Constantinian worldview. By this, they mean that the church does not need some sort of Christian culture to prop it up and mold its youth. The authors believe these changes are not a death to lament, but a great opportunity to celebrate.
Chapter Two
This chapter suggests that the way to follow Jesus in the world today is to understand the political dilemma of how to be faithful to a strange community.
o After a discussion about mixing the church with politics, they argue that the political task of Christians is to be the church rather than transform the world. They explain that the reason why the church has not had this perspective is that the American church has been stuck with Constantinian perspectives.
o They explain why they believe the Niebuhr book Christ and Culture has been one of the greatest hindrances to an accurate assessment of our situation. The reason is that the world has tamed the church and the church is not focused on the right questions anymore.
o They believe the church should not choose a social strategy for how they will engage the world, the church is a social strategy. The church does not need to worry about whether or not it will be in the world and instead the focus should be on how the church will be in the world, in what form and for what purpose.
Chapter Three
This chapter argues that the church exists today as resident aliens which is an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief.
o They explain that to be a colony demands an offensive rather than a defensive posture of the church. The church must settle in, stake out a claim, build fences, and guard their turf.
o To speak of the church as a colony means not a place, but a people who are on the move.
o Christians are those who hear the story of salvation and are able to tell that story as their story of salvation. This is one of the great responsibilities of preachers.
o The adventure of the Christian life is not to receive Christ and then be cut free from responsibilities and commitments. Instead to be the church Christ has called us to be Christians who will have a far richer range of commitments and duties. Coming to Christ is not to be set free on our own so that we can pursue the freedom to be our own person. Coming to Christ means to be set free so that we can be attached to Christ.
Chapter Four
This chapter aims to present the local church as the basis for Christian ethics. In other words, any ethical position by followers of Christ needs to be made credible by the church living it out.
o The authors argue that many American Christians have gotten into a bad habit of acting like the church really does not matter in the ways we go about living like Christians. They describe this habit as the Constantinian habit and that it is very hard to break.
o Christian ethics are therefore church-dependent.
o After explaining how the Sermon on the Mount and discipleship to Jesus should be a community project, they then go on to suggest that the Christian colony is not just any kind of community. In fact, they argue that Christians should be very suspicious about the talk on the community because the natural sinful person will be drawn to the general community. Christ-like community is radically different because it brings together people from all walks of life and consists of various strangers who love one another in Christ.
o Whenever people are living out together the story of Christ, then they will be put at odds with the world.
Chapter Five
The main idea of this chapter is that the world needs the ordinary people of the church so that the world can know what it means to be redeemed.
o Ethics do not take the place of the community any more than the rules of grammar can replace the act of speaking the language. Ethics are always a secondary enterprise and is parasitic to the way people live together in a community.
o The church provides models for imitation and discipleship is fundamentally a process of imitation.
o Too many Americans are Kantian in their thinking of ethics because they believe that ethics are simply something to be learned through reason. Christian ethics arise out of communities who attach themselves to Christ.
o The remainder of the chapter illustrates what this might look like if a church put this into practice for its confirmation process.
Chapter Six
This chapter focuses on pastors and encourages pastors faithfully preach God’s word so that the church will be equipped to be the colony of God’s righteousness.
o The church is the bridge where the Scripture and people meet.
o Biblical interpretation is more of a political and an ecclesial issue before it is an intellectual issue.
o Much of the chapter is filled with illustrative conversations about what it looks like for a pastor to be successful in ministry. These conversations highlight the different perspectives pastors have from being trained in seminary versus being trained in the church through the community of Christ’s people.
Chapter Seven
The goal of this chapter is to empower people in the church by exciting their imaginations with what wonderful opportunities lie at the heart of the Christian ministry.
o They excite the imagination by explaining how a cosmic theological rationale is needed. The gospel demands a countercultural ministry in the world.
o The colony of Christ is full of resident aliens who know what is happening in the world and what to do about it. In contrast, many American Christians are working to transform the world instead of putting on the whole armor of God as they live out the gospel in the church.
o They assert politics for the church are both truthful and hopeful. The main political significance of the church lies in assisting the secular state in its presumption to make a better world for its citizens, but the church is a polis of ordinary people who are living their lives based on the truth. This is why the church is both truthful and hopeful.
o Unless pastors and churches embrace this view, pastors will continue to be robbed of the joy and vitality that they should have in the ministry.
My outline:
Main Thesis - The church, as those called out by God, embodies a social alternative that the world cannot on its own terms know. This social alternative is called the polis, the people of God, and the true political concern of the church. On page 15, the authors state, “this book is about a renewed sense of what it means to be Christian, more precisely, of what it means to be pastors who care for Christians, in a distinctly changed world.
Chapter One
The argument of this chapter is that the problem of the church today is not one of unbelief and that a fundamental change in the world has enabled the American church to regain some of its lost integrity.
o The first section on learning to ask the right questions has to do with the argument that the problem of the church today is not one of unbelief. Since the Enlightenment, the questions facing the church have revolved around making the gospel credible to the modern world, but these are the wrong questions. In short, the authors argue that the Bible does not care about our modern questions and only cares about whether or not we are going to be faithful to the gospel. The theologian's job is not to make the gospel credible to the world, but to make the world credible to the gospel.
o This is further described as the demise of the Constantinian worldview. By this, they mean that the church does not need some sort of Christian culture to prop it up and mold its youth. The authors believe these changes are not a death to lament, but a great opportunity to celebrate.
Chapter Two
This chapter suggests that the way to follow Jesus in the world today is to understand the political dilemma of how to be faithful to a strange community.
o After a discussion about mixing the church with politics, they argue that the political task of Christians is to be the church rather than transform the world. They explain that the reason why the church has not had this perspective is that the American church has been stuck with Constantinian perspectives.
o They explain why they believe the Niebuhr book Christ and Culture has been one of the greatest hindrances to an accurate assessment of our situation. The reason is that the world has tamed the church and the church is not focused on the right questions anymore.
o They believe the church should not choose a social strategy for how they will engage the world, the church is a social strategy. The church does not need to worry about whether or not it will be in the world and instead the focus should be on how the church will be in the world, in what form and for what purpose.
Chapter Three
This chapter argues that the church exists today as resident aliens which is an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief.
o They explain that to be a colony demands an offensive rather than a defensive posture of the church. The church must settle in, stake out a claim, build fences, and guard their turf.
o To speak of the church as a colony means not a place, but a people who are on the move.
o Christians are those who hear the story of salvation and are able to tell that story as their story of salvation. This is one of the great responsibilities of preachers.
o The adventure of the Christian life is not to receive Christ and then be cut free from responsibilities and commitments. Instead to be the church Christ has called us to be Christians who will have a far richer range of commitments and duties. Coming to Christ is not to be set free on our own so that we can pursue the freedom to be our own person. Coming to Christ means to be set free so that we can be attached to Christ.
Chapter Four
This chapter aims to present the local church as the basis for Christian ethics. In other words, any ethical position by followers of Christ needs to be made credible by the church living it out.
o The authors argue that many American Christians have gotten into a bad habit of acting like the church really does not matter in the ways we go about living like Christians. They describe this habit as the Constantinian habit and that it is very hard to break.
o Christian ethics are therefore church-dependent.
o After explaining how the Sermon on the Mount and discipleship to Jesus should be a community project, they then go on to suggest that the Christian colony is not just any kind of community. In fact, they argue that Christians should be very suspicious about the talk on the community because the natural sinful person will be drawn to the general community. Christ-like community is radically different because it brings together people from all walks of life and consists of various strangers who love one another in Christ.
o Whenever people are living out together the story of Christ, then they will be put at odds with the world.
Chapter Five
The main idea of this chapter is that the world needs the ordinary people of the church so that the world can know what it means to be redeemed.
o Ethics do not take the place of the community any more than the rules of grammar can replace the act of speaking the language. Ethics are always a secondary enterprise and is parasitic to the way people live together in a community.
o The church provides models for imitation and discipleship is fundamentally a process of imitation.
o Too many Americans are Kantian in their thinking of ethics because they believe that ethics are simply something to be learned through reason. Christian ethics arise out of communities who attach themselves to Christ.
o The remainder of the chapter illustrates what this might look like if a church put this into practice for its confirmation process.
Chapter Six
This chapter focuses on pastors and encourages pastors faithfully preach God’s word so that the church will be equipped to be the colony of God’s righteousness.
o The church is the bridge where the Scripture and people meet.
o Biblical interpretation is more of a political and an ecclesial issue before it is an intellectual issue.
o Much of the chapter is filled with illustrative conversations about what it looks like for a pastor to be successful in ministry. These conversations highlight the different perspectives pastors have from being trained in seminary versus being trained in the church through the community of Christ’s people.
Chapter Seven
The goal of this chapter is to empower people in the church by exciting their imaginations with what wonderful opportunities lie at the heart of the Christian ministry.
o They excite the imagination by explaining how a cosmic theological rationale is needed. The gospel demands a countercultural ministry in the world.
o The colony of Christ is full of resident aliens who know what is happening in the world and what to do about it. In contrast, many American Christians are working to transform the world instead of putting on the whole armor of God as they live out the gospel in the church.
o They assert politics for the church are both truthful and hopeful. The main political significance of the church lies in assisting the secular state in its presumption to make a better world for its citizens, but the church is a polis of ordinary people who are living their lives based on the truth. This is why the church is both truthful and hopeful.
o Unless pastors and churches embrace this view, pastors will continue to be robbed of the joy and vitality that they should have in the ministry.
September 29, 2013
Hauerwas and Willimon do a nice job articulating a vision for the church that transcends political loyalties, refusing to confuse loyalty to a political party with loyalty to Jesus Christ. In many ways, the book is an exhortation for Christians to create culture that embodies the eschatological kingdom. This entails a strong emphasis on the defining story for Christians, that of Jesus, His sacrifice, His resurrection, and His return. The community (the church)defined by this story is a community that seeks to advance ideals that reflect what we believe to be true about the future eternal kingdom. While the book does well laying out this broad vision, there was some fuzziness around the edges that I would have liked to see sharpened, particularly in the discussion about the church as a new polis or culture, and its relationship to the current culture. The takedown of Niebuhr's faulty presupposition was provocative, but I find myself wondering how their positive vision of the church relates to the culture(s) of the world as it is now. Overall, though, I appreciated this stimulating work. I've reproduced a few quotes I liked:
"It is Jesus’ story that gives content to our faith, judges any institutional embodiment of our faith, and teaches us to be suspicious of any political slogan that does not need God to make itself credible."
"The church is the one political entity in our culture that is global, transnational, transcultural. Tribalism is not the church determined to serve God rather than Caesar. Tribalism is the United States of America, which sets up artificial boundaries and defends them with murderous intensity. And the tribalism of nations occurs most viciously in the absence of a church able to say and to show, in its life together, that God, not nations, rules the world."
"We would like a church that again asserts that God, not nations, rules the world, that the boundaries of God’s kingdom transcend those of Caesar, and that the main political task of the church is the formation of people who see clearly the cost of discipleship and are willing to pay the price."
"The Christian claim is not that we as individuals should be based in a community because life is better lived together than alone. The Christian claim is that life is better lived in the church because the church, according to our story, just happens to be true. The church is the only community formed around the truth, which is Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life."
"It is Jesus’ story that gives content to our faith, judges any institutional embodiment of our faith, and teaches us to be suspicious of any political slogan that does not need God to make itself credible."
"The church is the one political entity in our culture that is global, transnational, transcultural. Tribalism is not the church determined to serve God rather than Caesar. Tribalism is the United States of America, which sets up artificial boundaries and defends them with murderous intensity. And the tribalism of nations occurs most viciously in the absence of a church able to say and to show, in its life together, that God, not nations, rules the world."
"We would like a church that again asserts that God, not nations, rules the world, that the boundaries of God’s kingdom transcend those of Caesar, and that the main political task of the church is the formation of people who see clearly the cost of discipleship and are willing to pay the price."
"The Christian claim is not that we as individuals should be based in a community because life is better lived together than alone. The Christian claim is that life is better lived in the church because the church, according to our story, just happens to be true. The church is the only community formed around the truth, which is Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life."
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