Where Resident Aliens Live: Exercises for Christian Practice

Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon return with spirited offensive strategies for feisty resident aliens. A resident alien knows who the enemy is, and here is a guide to the Christian initiation, practice, and discipline that is required for a people at war with the world.

Some Christian liberals think that resident aliens are sectarian, and that they wish to withdraw from engagement with the world. God forbid! The book is thus full of stories of resident aliens who have been baptized, trained, and conditioned -- like Marines in boot camp -- to be new citizens and find a new home in the distinctly Christian community.

Some Christian conservatives want a "to do" list that lays out the program for becoming a congregation or small group of resident aliens. Or perhaps they want a list of beliefs that might be defended. You won't find that here, for these desires are what ails the disestablished church. A list of options and choices, or an elective program for "wannabe" resident aliens, is an accommodation to the false god of freedom. Resident aliens are imitated and understood by telling their stories, by enfleshing their practices in the narrative that becomes part of the unfolding Christian story.

Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at the Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He has written a voluminous number of articles, authored and edited many books, and has been the subject of other theologians' writing and interest. He has been a board member of the Society of Christian Ethics, Associate Editor of a number of Christian journals and periodicals, and a frequent lecturer at campuses across the country.