Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony

For a new generation of church leaders, the book articulates much of what we have struggled with as the modern church tries to live in the postmodern era.

No matter how one sees the church and God's people, you will be provoked, disagree, laugh, and will be forced to think about the challenges that the authors lay before you.

I am glad I read and re-read the book. I found it that good.


We are Christians, so, be the Church   June 25, 2003
James T Humphrey II (Huntersville, NC United States)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

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.


Provocation to be the Church   January 27, 2003
rodboomboom (Dearborn, Michigan United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

In your face challenges to the contemporary church in America which says reclaim what you are, and tells it how: to be not about the current psychological, self-help but countercultural scandal of pure gospel particularity.

They bemoan the historical-critical method and academia which prepares no pastor for church service. Bless their boldness and conviction!

Although the book starts rather slow at getting to its agenda, by the time it reaches the later chapters it is right on. One might summarize its diagnosis of current church leadership by this quote: "What we call church is often a conspiracy of cordiality." "This accounts for why, to many people, church becomes suffocatingly superficial. Everybody agress to talk about everything here except what matters."

The call is to readjust what is meant by a successful ministry. What an insightful analogy used here: To be a successful pastor today is almost as damning as having a happy marriage" i.e. one free from conflict. "Many successful pastors are happy only because they surrendered so early."

To not surrender means preaching the gospel purely and administring the Sacraments according to God's mandate.

What a daring book that for a pastor to ignore is dangerous. To contemplate is worthwhile. To implement is God pleasing.


Insightful assessment of the Church and culture   December 12, 2002
Duane T. Garner (Monroe, LA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

Theaters screen movies on the Lord's Day. Little League baseball and soccer schedules go uninterrupted over the entire weekend. One can find as many shopping opportunities on Sunday afternoon as are available any other day of the week. According to Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, this is a good thing.

The Church has hidden too long behind the Constantinian veneer of an assumed establishment in and acceptance by Western culture. Only now, in light of the West's pronounced cultural apostasy over the last forty years (which in their view was simply the culture ridding itself of a dead relic which it never really respected in the first place), can the Church shake off its lethargy and face the fact that it does not have a true ally in the kingdoms of this world. Rather than taking a defensive or retreatist position however, Willimon and Hauerwas advocate an aggressive position of attack against the Church's exposed enemies.

The answer, say the professors, is for the Church to take this incredible historical opportunity to refocus her energies and resources onto those things which are of essential and primary importance and to take hold of the "adventure of being the church". Rather than disassociating the gospel from its covenant context and presenting it as a set of abstract philosophical ideas apart from Christ, as the Church has done in an effort to make it more agreeable to the post-modern palate, the only hope for the Church is to present the gospel as it was intended by its Author; a relationship between Jesus and His people.

The authors seem strongly opposed to the notion that the task of the Church is one of marketing the gospel in such a way that would make it appear more appealing to the world around her. While for some the correct approach to ministry and evangelism is in a basic sense similar to adding enough sugar to the cough medicine to make it go down and stay down, Willimon and Hauerwas are of the persuasion that the Church is at its best when it is at its boldest. They propose that the goal of the gospel is not to redefine a set of thoughts about the mysteries of God until they make sense, but rather to drastically change lives and to re-form them in the light of the stunning claims of the Word of God.

The meat of the book is wrapped up in the statement, "So the theological task is not merely the interpretive matter of translating Jesus into modern categories but rather to translate the world to Him. The theologian's job is not to make the gospel credible to the modern world, but to make the world credible to the gospel."

It is their thesis that the Church's primary mission is to simply be the Church, the community of Christ, confessing the gospel without apology. The result is a Church that is a culture within a culture, a colony of foreigners in a foreign land passing their language, customs and lifestyle on to their children, loving each other and their God.


No more plastic Jesus   March 22, 2002
Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA)
57 out of 58 found this review helpful

"What we call 'church' is too often a gathering of strangers who see the church as yet another 'helping institution' to gratify further their individual desires." (p. 138) So say Hauerwas and Willimon in this profoundly disturbing, profoundly liberating book. Their general thesis is that the church has lost its bearings because it's forgotten its Jesus-centered tradition. Rather than dwelling within that tradition, realizing that the church's mission is to build community that exemplifies the Kingdom and the Kingdom's values, Christians too frequently accommodate to the world in order to make their beliefs acceptable. In doing whatever they can to ameliorate the "scandal" of the gospel so as not to offend anyone, they betray the Kingdom and their tradition--and God.

This is a disconcerting challenge to those of us who try to be Christians. Even if one doesn't completely agree with Hauerwas and Willimon--in fact, even if one outright disagrees with them--their message deserves serious consideration. In grappling with the thorny question of how to live in the world without being of the world--that is, how to be "resident aliens"--they force us to reconsider our commitment to the good news.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is a theme that Hauerwas has discussed in several of his other books: ethics is primarily a way of seeing the world rather than an objective, rational enterprise. All ethical systems presuppose a view of reality (even the ones that claim to be rational), and this means that in order to get to the heart of a particular ethics, one must examine the tradition from which it comes. Hauerwas and Willimon use this model to argue that Christian ethics, which is based on the eschatological tradition outlined in the Sermon on the Mount, simply can't accommodate ethical principles generated in nongospel traditions. Attempts to do so are misguided.

Read this book. It will upset you, as it has upset me. But it's a good upset.