This is a little summery of a book I just read. It will challenge you to the core. It will stoke your passion for Jesus and the Church, or it will make you stop and really think about who you are. Don't get discouraged... Christ has risen! Let us journey together in righteous fellowship!
In Resident Aliens, coauthors, Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon make their case that preceding the early 1960’s, the American Church, in particular, has been naively living in the delusion that Christianity is relevant to culture: this thought is a direct result of Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313. However, throughout Resident Aliens, Hauerwas and Willimon refute this terminal delusion by calling the Church out of its catastrophic Constantinian compromise and into a new way of life—back into the Biblical story of what it means to be a distinct people of God, an alien colony amid a foreign land. Exemplified through the Biblical lens of the Gospel—the supreme reality of God with his people—and grounded in the seismic implications for the Church, in Christ’s life, death and resurrection, it is Hauerwas and Willimon’s assertion for pastors and laity alike, to rethink and rediscover what it means to faithfully live out a socio-political alternative—the radically-free and exciting journey of Christianity—in a compelling contrast to a modern culture plagued with disbelief and self-promotion; in the ministerial hope of reconciling the world back to God through a unique witness—a colonial community of faith: the church.
In chapter one, Hauerwas and Willimon open up the book by describing a shift in popular American worldview from Christendom to post-Christendom. They exposed the delusion that America is a Christian culture, while giving the brief history of modernism from 313AD to 1989AD, the publishing year of this book. This delusion inaccurately shaped the politics and ethics of the church. However, they go on to proclaim that through living in subversive rejection to the-powers-that-be, the church experiences the true freedom of God with his people. By living a radically different story, it allows the church to ask correct theological questions for the present age in which it exists. The author’s point out that what was seen as the climax of modernity in Nazi Germany, modern theology failed to ask the right questions or stick to the truth. Therefore, exposing the church as an impotent piece of society without the ability to resist evil when it came to significant societal pressure to conform. The church is called into the heterogeneous tension of life in, but not of, the world. This is to be lived out throughout the adventurous gospel of Jesus.
Continuing in chapter two, the author’s proceed to explain that through baptism believers become part of a new polis—the church. They explain, that in fact, Christianity is less of a system of belief, but rather that the gospel is political. They explain that historically the church has taken different political agendas and tried to fit Christianity into the one that seemed to work best for the individual at the time. First, there were the “private,” or soul savers, and “public,” or social action, both operated out of Constantinian framework within the American system. Both were faulty. Secondly, they presented the ironic poster metaphor of a dove “of peace” flying away from a world of unbelief seeking justice. Rightfully, when the world is placed on anything but Christ, true peace and true justice are never unified. The author’s point out that the American system is flawed and fallen. The church has participated in three other church types: the activist (secularism: working towards a better society), the conversionist (individualism: seeks only personal change) and, the confessing (seeks to be the visible change it wishes to see in the world). It is through the politics of the cross that there is a visible people of God who are emboldened to live in victory over the powers.
Chapters three and four continue to proclaim the church as an adventurous journey. The author’s explain that, through baptism, the faithful in the church become part of a movement that is commitment to remember that in Christ incarnate, God is redeeming the world through his people. It is also in the Bible that the church is to make sense of God’s story with and for his people. This is what separates the church from the unbelieving word: the church has a narrative that transcends itself, while the world lacks any coherent story connect them to anything outside themselves. The authors give examples, such as in Deuteronomy 6:21-23, where Moses reminds Israel that they were in the land of Egypt, under the oppression of Pharaoh, but that God was faithful to fulfill his promise to, literally—through fire and cloud—bring them into the promised land. It is in this journey that transformation through ethics, namely the ethics of revolution, which occurs best through discipline. Revolutionary values, such as honesty, confrontation and character are also highly desired. However, the author’s continue in pointing out that only in Jesus do Christian ethics have meaning. Jesus through the Sermon on the Mount emphatically made this point. It is only his followers—the colony of resident aliens—who can see the merit in being called to an even higher ethic that what they had traditionally known. For the Christian, blessing comes out of the abnormal. This runs in contrast to the world. The Christian ethic then is a unifying movement to follow Jesus into a community of the end, to be a people who stand at odds, set apart, against the norms of the empire.
Chapter five makes know the significance of saints to the world. It is only in the act of being a colony in contrast to the world that the world can know who it is—a people in need of redemption. The author’s admit that it is only in the world existing in contention with the church, who is to live out a vulnerable, child-like love, that the world can see its ways are miss aligned and misdirected from the truth. This thought also translates to our rational, which, the author’s suggest comes out of our tradition. This rational is learned and is not an easy subject to grasp. It is a call into the seemingly insignificant, which ultimately has the most meaning. As the church continues to daily follow Jesus, practicing his ethics, the church has the opportunity to be a witness in the simplest way, but with the most impact. Such as the Southern Baptist preacher who faithfully served his congregation and community and on an opportune day, his words of remorse for his congregations’ lack of discipleship stood out in epic proportions.
In Chapter six, Hauerwas and Willimon, call the church to share in Christ work along side the pastors and clergy. As part of the baptismal transformation in to the church, laity as well as pastors are called to be theologians and preachers of the gospel, and to worship God through their service to the world. However, in the example of the young preacher at Gladys church, some of what is being taught must be unlearned and rethought. Or worse yet, some members of the church have become better cynics of the church than preachers. The ironies that the author’s present is that sometimes the best ministers are the loneliest: as exemplified in Jesus. However, God is with those ministers and when God is present uses his church to remind them they are not alone: as exemplified in the story of Tom and Nancy.
Finally, chapter seven integrates the vital component of integrity as the foundation for the empowerment of the church through provoking their imagination to the wonders of living out the adventure of church ministry. The author’s entice the church into the scandalous good news of Jesus, whose ministerial rational is so fantasist that it sustains pastoral ministry through the most dissatisfying times. They go onto explain that one does not need to leave America to find violence, corruption and pain. It is in some of America’s darkest corners—Philadelphia—that the kingdom of heaven is most easily seen. The gospel is essential in this dark corner. The author’s deftly unpack Ephesians 6:10-20; expressing its unmatched implication for how the church is to do life, fully equipped, ready to powerfully engage the-powers through the bold proclamation of the gospel. In this, they explain communal suffering as a part of the inevitable for the gospel’s truth. While this metaphor enables one for battle, it is not the aimlessly destructive battle of the modern nation’s atomic bomb, but rather a defensive alternative with the means to survive the perverted attacks of the enemy. Consequently, continuing God’s story, his disciples continue to move in power and truth. Continuing, the author’s revisit the polis of the church, being rooted in hope and truth. It is the responsibility of the seminary professor to accurately teach the pastor, the pastor must then boldly proclaim the gospel and faithfully administer the sacraments to the laity who is to find renewal and empowerment in this act.
Resident Aliens poses many implications for this for our life. From start to finish the author’s take the reader on a journey that is similarly as fast paced and exciting as the gospel of Mark. They draw the parallels of a politically charged gospel directly into the thick of this book, discussing Christian ethics and politics in words of truth and hope, honesty and integrity, boldness and action. In addition, they speak of following and knowing Jesus just as his first disciples did; in that one may know the truth and become ushered into a story that is bigger than self—as a piece of the community of faith, which began with the Word being spoken, was sustained through Calvary, and who will be consummated at return of Christ. This book is fantastically challenging in that it is deconstructing the lens in which one has traditionally viewed Jesus, the church and Christianity as a whole.
I am stoked to continue to learn what it means to be apart of this adventurous colony we are a part of as being the church. I know that this is only the beginning. As a christian I am bound to Christ and his church. I am apart of his story and I must make it a point to live as he lived. It is a challenge, but rewarding, there is freedom in being obedient to Christ. Let's walk together and figure it out!
