Rating: 
Summary: A shockingly candid and timely book, even 10 years later
Review: This book has me hooked on Stanley Hauerwas. I have heard of him and his unusual approach to theological ethics and I thought I'd read this book as my professor recommended it to me. I was startled to find that he had a whole new way of looking at things that I never really quite thought of as lucidly as he and Willimon have. Not only does he highly criticize the church for continually buying in to a Constantinian view of the church, he even critiques such great Theologians as Neibuhr! When someone does that, they either are supremely misinformed or have something very thoughtful to say, and, indeed this book does the latter. Resident Aliens will make you see the church in a whole new light. Members of congregations and pastors alike must read this book as I think it would impact you ministry for God more than any other "seeker friendly" or "purpose-driven" book could possibly do. It particularly is a book that both uplifts and criticized the role of a pastor in a church. While often bleak, Hauerwas and Willimon are brutally honest in the church impotence in BEING the church and instead has often simply become little different than a club where people come to get their "needs" met. The colony image, while not perfect, is challenging as it highlights our need to care for one another, to be, as Rodney Clapp says, "A Peculiar People", and to have our ethics driven by a biblical community, not a national idea of "rights" and "liberties". If I could suggest a book to read for Christians this year, this would be it! Unfortunately, this book has been out for years and I do not see that it has had the impact that it should have. When the full weight of the reality of the post-Christian society we live in in the West hits us, books like this will be our saving grace. Either that, or we compromise until we become indistinguishable from the people around us.
Rating:
Summary: A shockingly candid and timely book, even 10 years later
Review: This book has me hooked on Stanley Hauerwas. I have heard of him and his unusual approach to theological ethics and I thought I'd read this book as my professor recommended it to me. I was startled to find that he had a whole new way of looking at things that I never really quite thought of as lucidly as he and Willimon have. Not only does he highly criticize the church for continually buying in to a Constantinian view of the church, he even critiques such great Theologians as Neibuhr! When someone does that, they either are supremely misinformed or have something very thoughtful to say, and, indeed this book does the latter. Resident Aliens will make you see the church in a whole new light. Members of congregations and pastors alike must read this book as I think it would impact you ministry for God more than any other "seeker friendly" or "purpose-driven" book could possibly do. It particularly is a book that both uplifts and criticized the role of a pastor in a church. While often bleak, Hauerwas and Willimon are brutally honest in the church impotence in BEING the church and instead has often simply become little different than a club where people come to get their "needs" met. The colony image, while not perfect, is challenging as it highlights our need to care for one another, to be, as Rodney Clapp says, "A Peculiar People", and to have our ethics driven by a biblical community, not a national idea of "rights" and "liberties". If I could suggest a book to read for Christians this year, this would be it! Unfortunately, this book has been out for years and I do not see that it has had the impact that it should have. When the full weight of the reality of the post-Christian society we live in in the West hits us, books like this will be our saving grace. Either that, or we compromise until we become indistinguishable from the people around us.
Rating: 
Summary: We are Christians, so, be the Church
Review: This book is about what it means to be the Church, and more importantly, the Church in the world. This book is often critical of various theologies/philosophies that form the very foundation of the Western world, and how the Church has viewed (and consequently, interacted with) the world. Frankly, if you are not already familiar with the philosophies and theologies this book interacts with, you (like myself) will fill somewhat lost trying to figure out what exactly the authors are trying to say. I say this as a Jr. in Bible College. This book is probably better off read by those who are finishing Seminary. I will have to read this book a second time to get a better feel for what it is saying, because my lack of upper-level education makes it difficult to interact with. I feel that many will probably have to do the same.
Rating: 
Summary: resonating theme; poorly written
Review: This work is overrated. It does importantly remind Christians to stay on task as the Church. However, there are serious problems in its construction. Hauerwas has recited ideas, and Willimon has written them down. The scholarship behind the work is weak; the wording is often sweeping, generalized, and misrepresentative -- particularly in the condemnations of Paul Tillich and H. Richard Niebuhr. Niebuhr particularly spoke out against confusing our Christian commitment with nationalism, but Hauerwas & Willimon present him as someone who cannot distinguish the Gospel from the world. Take their assessment of other theologians with a serious grain of salt.
Rating:
Summary: resonating theme; poorly written
Review: This work is overrated. It does importantly remind Christians to stay on task as the Church. However, there are serious problems in its construction. Hauerwas has recited ideas, and Willimon has written them down. The scholarship behind the work is weak; the wording is often sweeping, generalized, and misrepresentative -- particularly in the condemnations of Paul Tillich and H. Richard Niebuhr. Niebuhr particularly spoke out against confusing our Christian commitment with nationalism, but Hauerwas & Willimon present him as someone who cannot distinguish the Gospel from the world. Take their assessment of other theologians with a serious grain of salt.
Rating:
Summary: An Earth-Shattering Book
Review: When I read this book it literally helped turn my world upside down (or may I should say right side up). In this fascinating and provocative work, Hauerwas and Willimon issue a startling call for the church to take seriously its vocation as the church. The main social ethical task of the church, as Hauerwas and Willimon point out is for the church to be the church rather than to transform the world. Hauerwas and Willimon briliantly critique both the conservative and liberal churches in that they both privatize religion and neglect the inherently political nature of the gospel. As an alternative to either form of accomodation of the church to culture, Hauwerwas and Willimon argue that the church must return to its calling as the confessing church that is committed to allegiance to Christ and his peaceable kingdom over against all other lords (be they capitalism, democracy, or more simply, America).
Hauerwas and Willimon show very clearly the eschatological context presupposed by the New Testament as normative for Christian ethics. On this basis the critique the failed project of Christendom on the basis of its falsely over-realized eschatology. Thus, they argue for an ethic grounded in the Christian narrative, centered on the cross and ressurrection of Christ as the criterion of Christian ethics.
Thus, they reject liberalism and its attempt to translate Christian ethics into categories that can be "reasonable" to all people. When the particularity of the cross and the Christian story is understood, it becomes clear that those who reject Christ as the meaning of history cannot possibly live according the vision of the world set forth in Christ. For them it is "reasonable" to kill of false and contrived borders, whereas for Christians it makes all the sense in the world to love one's enemies and refuse to kill them since Christ has called us to reconcilliation and witness to his peaceable kingdom.
There is certainly much more in this book than I have described. It is a viatally important book for the church to read and reckon with today. The rampant accomadation of the chruch to the hegemonic powers of the United States is an affront to Christ and the church must come to see that for us "there is another king, Jesus." (Acts 17:7)
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