In this small but powerful book, renowned theologian Stanley Hauerwas offers a moving reflection on Jesus's final words from the cross. Touching in original and surprising ways on subjects such as praying the Psalms and our need to be remembered by Jesus, Hauerwas emphasizes Christ's humanity as well as the sheer "differentness" of God. Ideal for personal devotion during Lent and throughout the church year, this book offers a transformative reading of Jesus's words that goes directly to the heart of the gospel. Now in paperback.

What "don't" Christians believe? Is Jesus really divine? Is Jesus really human? Can God suffer? Can people be saved by their own efforts?
The early church puzzled over these questions, ruling in some beliefs and ruling out others. "Heresies and How to Avoid Them" explains the principal ancient heresies and shows why contemporary Christians still need to know about them. These famous detours in Christian believing seemed plausible and attractive to many people in the past, and most can still be found in modern-day guises. By learning what it is that Christians don't believe--and why--believers today can gain a deeper, truer understanding of their faith.

This commentary brings the stimulating insights of world-renowned theologian Stanley Hauerwas to the first Gospel. This volume, like each in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, is designed to serve the church--through aid in preaching, teaching, study groups, and so forth--and demonstrate the continuing intellectual and practical viability of theological interpretation of the Bible.

A radical vision for a society transformed by the teachings and spirit of Jesus. Do you feel powerless to change the injustice at every level of society? Are you tired of answers that ignore the root causes of human suffering? This selection of writings by Eberhard Arnold, who left a career and the established church in order to live out the gospel, calls us to a completely different way. Be warned: Arnold doesn't approach discipleship as the route to some benign religious fulfillment, but as a revolution-a transformation that begins within and spreads outward to encompass every aspect of life. Arnold writes in the same tradition of radical obedience to the gospel as his contemporaries Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Wilderness Wanderings slashes through the tangled undergrowth that Christianity in America has become to clear a space for those for whom theology still matters. Writing to a generation of Christians that finds itself at once comfortably ?at home? yet oddly fettered and irrelevant in America, Stanley Hauerwas challenges contemporary Christians to reimagine what it might mean to ?break back into Christianity? in a world that is at best semi-Christian. While the myth that America is a Christian nation has long been debunked, a more urgent constructive task remains; namely, discerning what it may mean for Christians approaching the threshold of the twenty-first century to be courageous in their convictions. Ironically, reclaiming the church's identity and mission may require relinquishing its purported ?gains??which often amount to little more than a sense of comfort, the seduction of feeling ?at ease in Zion?? to take up again the risk and adventure of life ?on the way.? Accordingly, this book gives no comfort to the religious right or left, which continues to think Christianity can be made compatible with the sentimentalities of democratic liberalism.Such a re-visioned church will not establish itself through conquest or in a reconstituted Christendom, but rather must develop within its own life the patient, attentive skills of a wayfaring people. At least a church seasoned by a peripatetic life stands a better chance of noticing the changing directions of God's leading. The wilderness, therefore, ought not to appear to contemporary Christians in America as a foreboding and frightening possibility but as an opportunity to rediscover the excitement and spirit, but also the rigorous discipline, of faithful itinerancy. At such a crucial time as this, Hauerwas challenges Christians to eschew the insidious dangers that attend too permanent a habitation in a place called America and to assume instead the holy risks and hazards characteristic of people called out, set apart

What does Jesus have to say about violence, just war, and killing? Does Jesus ever want his disciples to kill in order to resist evil and promote peace and justice? This book by noted theologian and bestselling author Ronald J. Sider provides a career capstone statement on biblical peacemaking. Sider makes a strong case for the view that Jesus calls his disciples to love, and never kill, their enemies. He explains that there are never only two options: to kill or to do nothing in the face of tyranny and brutality. There is always a third possibility: vigorous, nonviolent resistance. If we believe that Jesus is Lord, then we disobey him when we set aside what he taught about killing and ignore his command to love our enemies. This thorough, comprehensive treatment of a topic of perennial concern vigorously engages with the just war tradition and issues a challenge to all Christians, especially evangelicals, to engage in biblical peacemaking. The book includes a foreword by Stanley Hauerwas.

Wilderness Wanderings slashes through the tangled undergrowth that Christianity in America has become to clear a space for those for whom theology still matters. Writing to a generation of Christians that finds itself at once comfortably ?at home? yet oddly fettered and irrelevant in America, Stanley Hauerwas challenges contemporary Christians to reimagine what it might mean to ?break back into Christianity? in a world that is at best semi-Christian. While the myth that America is a Christian nation has long been debunked, a more urgent constructive task remains; namely, discerning what it may mean for Christians approaching the threshold of the twenty-first century to be courageous in their convictions. Ironically, reclaiming the church's identity and mission may require relinquishing its purported ?gains??which often amount to little more than a sense of comfort, the seduction of feeling ?at ease in Zion?? to take up again the risk and adventure of life ?on the way.? Accordingly, this book gives no comfort to the religious right or left, which continues to think Christianity can be made compatible with the sentimentalities of democratic liberalism.Such a re-visioned church will not establish itself through conquest or in a reconstituted Christendom, but rather must develop within its own life the patient, attentive skills of a wayfaring people. At least a church seasoned by a peripatetic life stands a better chance of noticing the changing directions of God's leading. The wilderness, therefore, ought not to appear to contemporary Christians in America as a foreboding and frightening possibility but as an opportunity to rediscover the excitement and spirit, but also the rigorous discipline, of faithful itinerancy. At such a crucial time as this, Hauerwas challenges Christians to eschew the insidious dangers that attend too permanent a habitation in a place called America and to assume instead the holy risks and hazards characteristic of people called out, set apart, and led by God. Wilderness Wanderings is a clarion call for Christians to relinquish the impermanent citizenship of a home that can never be the church's final resting place and confidently take up a course of life the horizons of which are as wide and expansive as the God who promises to lead.The book engages, often quite critically, with major theological and philosophical figures, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Martha Nussbaum, Jeff Stout, Tristram Engelhardt, Iris Murdoch, John Milbank, and Martin Luther King Jr. These interrogations illumine why theology must reclaim its own politics and ethics. Intent on avoiding abstraction, Hauerwas intervenes in current debates around medicine, the culture wars, and race.

These essays reflect possibilities and practices of radical democracy and radical ecclesia that take form in the textures of relational care for the radical ordinary. Hauerwas and Coels point out political and theological imaginations beyond the political formations, which seems to be the declination and the production of death. The authors call us to a revolutionary politics of 'wild patience' that seeks transformation through attentive practices of listening, relationship-building, and a careful tending to places, common goods, and diverse possibilities for flourishing.

How did violence become OK? And is there any way back? At some point between George Floyd's killing on May 25 and the invasion of the US Capitol on January 6, America's consensus against political violence crumbled. Before 2020, almost everyone agreed that it should be out of bounds. Now, many are ready to justify such violence - at least when it is their side breaking windows or battling police officers. Something significant seems to have slipped. Is there any way back? As Christians, we need to consider what guilt we bear, with the rise of a decidedly unchristian "Christian nationalism" that historically has deep roots in American Christian culture. But shouldn't we also be asking ourselves what a truly Christian stance might look like, one that reflects Jesus' blessings on the peacemakers, the merciful, and the meek? Oscar Romero, when accused of preaching revolutionary violence, responded: "We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross." If we take Jesus' example and his call to nonviolence at face value, we're left with all kinds of interesting questions: What about policing? What about the military? What about participating in government? This issue of Plough addresses some of these questions and explores what a life lived according to love rather than violence might look like. In this issue: - Anthony M. Barr revisits James Baldwin's advice about undoing racism. - Gracy Olmstead describes welcoming the baby she did not expect during a pandemic. - Patrick Tomassi debates nonviolence with Portland's anarchists and Proud Boys. - Scott Beauchamp advises on what not to ask war veterans. - Rachel Pieh Jones reveals what Muslims have taught her about prayer. - Eberhard Arnold argues that Christian nonviolence is more than pacifism. - Stanley Hauerwas presents a vision of church you've never seen in practice. - Andrea Grosso Ciponte graphically portrays the White Rose student resistance to Nazism. - Zito Madu illuminates rap's role in escaping the violence of poverty. - Springs Toledo recounts his boxing match with an undefeated professional. You'll also find: - An interview with poet Rhina P. Espaillat - New poems by Catherine Tufariello - Profiles of Anabaptist leader Felix Manz and community founder Lore Weber - Reviews of Marly Youmans's Charis in the World of Wonders, Judith D. Schwartz's The Reindeer Chronicles, Chris Lombardi's I Ain't Marching Anymore, and Martin Espada's Floaters Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus' message into practice and find common cause with others.

Two contemporary theologians, Samuel Wells and Stanley Hauerwas, add their voices to the ongoing conversation about Christian life in the twenty-first century. This third book in the In Conversation series dives deeply into the theological and personal ideas and motivations for the work of two prominent Christian thinkers. Readers will discover their thoughts on the Trinity, parish ministry, and non-violence, along with anecdotes and intimate notions on marriage, family, and even baseball. Followers of Wells's and Hauerwas's theological and homiletical work will find out what has influenced them most, and where they'd like to go from here. A fascinating read for Episcopalians and Anglicans, and those who enjoyed the first two In Conversation books.

How are Christians to live in a violent and wounded world? Rather than contending for privilege by wielding power and authority, we can witness prophetically from a position of weakness. The church has much to learn from an often-overlooked community-those with disabilities. In this fascinating book, theologian Stanley Hauerwas collaborates with Jean Vanier, founder of the worldwide L'Arche communities. For many years, Hauerwas has reflected on the lives of people with disability, the political significance of community, and how the experience of disability addresses the weaknesses and failures of liberal society. And L'Arche provides a unique model of inclusive community that is underpinned by a deep spirituality and theology. Together, Vanier and Hauerwas carefully explore the contours of a countercultural community that embodies a different way of being and witnesses to a new order-one marked by radical forms of gentleness, peacemaking, and faithfulness. The authors' explorations shed light on what it means to be human and how we are to live. The robust voice of Hauerwas and the gentle words of Vanier offer a synergy of ideas that, if listened to carefully, will lead the church to a fresh practicing of peace, love and friendship. This invigorating conversation is for everyday Christians who desire to live faithfully in a world that is violent and broken. This expanded edition now includes a study guide for individual reflection or group discussion.

Living through an apocalyptic time, Swiss theologian Karl Barth influenced Christianity in the twentieth century profoundly. He publicly rejected Hitler's Nazism, advocated on behalf of workers and laborers, and ministered to prisoners. Barth was named by Pope Pius XII as "the greatest theologian since Thomas Aquinas" and in 1962 even appeared on the cover of Time magazine. In Fully Alive, one of America's best and most provocative theologians, Stanley Hauerwas, demonstrates that Barth's radical theological perspective is particularly relevant and applicable to the challenges of our own time. Hauerwas argues that Barth's engagements with the social and political struggles of his day can help us see what it means to be fully human in the twenty-first century. The ecclesiastical and the political were inseparable for Barth; similarly, Hauerwas shows why it is crucial for theological claims to produce insights that make it possible for our lives to be well lived. Including chapters on race, disability, and the church in Asia, Hauerwas shows how Barth's political theology can be read as a training manual that can help us maintain our humanity in a world in crisis.

"Living Well and Dying Faithfully" explores how Christian practices -- love, prayer, lament, compassion, and so on -- can contribute to the process of dying well. Working on the premise that one dies the way one lives, the book is unique in its constructive dialogue between theology and medicine as offering two complementary modes of care.

This is a book of genuine wisdom, one that invites readers not to go back to the way things were before September 11, but to see how they might try to walk with God in a world that now seems more shattered than before. In these essays written expressly for this book, renowned spiritual writers and theologians wrestle with the problems of the human condition in the world today and what a walk with God might reveal about them. Contributors include Elie Wiesel, Theodore Hesburgh, Frederick Buechner, Stanley Hauerwas, William Sloan Coffin, Wendy Doniger, Karen Armstrong, Jurgen Moltmann, Virgil Elizondo, and others.

Western culture and art were not born of unknown parents. Christianity, while receiving its mother tongues and its first canonical texts within Hebrew and Greco-Roman civilizations, has provided its own major contributions to the art and culture of the last two millennia. In this volume, scholars of international reputation, clerics and lay, Catholic and Protestant have reflected on how Christians have dialogued with diverse cultures and religions, even as they forged directions unique to the Gospel.The contributors of ""Christianity and the West"" scrutinize past achievements in order to face the postmodern secularization of western society and the globalization of communication, trade, and travel that claim a right to experimentation, free from long-standing values and detached from communities where the quality of culture and art makes a difference. It is argued that the creative manifestations of culture express the genius of human agents, authors, and artists, but they find their acid test in relationship with the flourishing of human persons and society. However, a human social standard is assured by a divine one. Culture risks becoming destructive when the aesthetic is severed from sources of faith and reason about human origins and ends.In order to face this risk, the present volume explores the interaction between Christianity, art, and culture in the West, especially in fine art and architecture, theatre and cinema, literature and politics. It demonstrates that Christianity has served as a living memory for humanity, above all, concerning the unity of the physical and spiritual dimensions that constitute the human person and culture.

In the past half-century, few theologians have shaped the landscape of American belief and practice as much as Stanley Hauerwas. His work in social ethics, political theology, and ecclesiology has had a tremendous influence on the church and society. But have we understood Hauerwas's theology, his influences, and his place among the theologians correctly? Hauerwas is often associated-and rightly so-with the postliberal theological movement and its emphasis on a narrative interpretation of Scripture. Yet he also claims to stand within the theological tradition of Karl Barth, who strongly affirmed the priority of Jesus Christ in all matters and famously rejected Protestant liberalism. These are two rivers that seem to flow in different directions. In this New Explorations in Theology (NET) volume, theologian David Hunsicker offers a reevaluation of Hauerwas's theology, arguing that he is both a postliberal and a Barthian theologian. In so doing, Hunsicker helps us to understand better both the formation and the ongoing significance of one of America's great theologians. Featuring new monographs with cutting-edge research, New Explorations in Theology provides a platform for constructive, creative work in the areas of systematic, historical, philosophical, biblical, and practical theology.

Only when the Church enacts its scandalous Jesus-centered tradition will it truly be the body of Christ and transform the world. Twenty-five years after its first appearance, Resident Aliens remains a prophetic vision of how the 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.

Resident Aliens discusses the nature of the church and its relationship to surrounding culture. It argues that churches should focus on developing Christian life and community rather than attempting to reform secular culture. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon reject the idea that America is a Christian nation; instead, Christians should see themselves as "resident aliens" in a foreign land. According to Hauerwas and Willimon, the role of Christians is not totransform government but tolive lives that model the love of Christ. Rather than try to convince others to change their ethics, Christians should model a new set of ethics that are grounded in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ."

Sermons from one of the country's best-known theologians 17 sermons, from "Saints" and "Letting Go," to "Recognizing Jesus/Seeing Salvation" and "Clothe Your Ministers in Righteousness" Two bonus presentations on "Leadership" and "An Open Letter to Christians Beginning College" in the appendix

Description: As an explicitly christological witness, martyrdom offers a limited but vital description of the present within the various and unpredictable arenas of living, suffering, and dying. That is to say, martyrdom is not the tragic conclusion of some fatal ideological conflict but a momentary truthful glimpse of present circumstances. Martyrdom reveals, clarifies, and illumines what we take for the real. Martyrs are therefore significant for the church today because they exhibit the sort of truthful living that refuses the claims of history and power without Christ; they show the sort of living and dying that returns forgiveness upon murder, and patience beyond domination. Meditating primarily on the second-century martyrdoms in Lyons and Vienne, France, Pilgrim Holiness offers a view of Christian martyrdom that challenges prevalent misunderstandings about what martyrs are doing in sacrificing their lives. Joshua J. Whitfield argues that martyrdom is a moment of truthful disclosure and thus a moment of forgiveness and peace--gifts for which we are in desperate need. Endorsements: ""In a time when critics of Christianity, and religion in general, point to the practices of martyrs as examples of the inherently irrational, violent, and dangerous character of religious devotion, Whitfield challenges Christians to reconsider Christ's call to ""take up one's cross"" by suspending our suspicions and listening to the stories of the martyrs in conversation with contemporary theological voices such as Rowan Williams, Stanley Hauerwas, Sam Wells, and others."" --J. Warren Smith Duke University ""We are not superior or inferior to those who came before us, we are simply in the same situation as them: called to bear witness--in our lives and perhaps in our deaths--to the nonviolent truth embodied by Jesus Christ. This book, which is steeped in the patristic martyr narratives, unpacks this simple statement in skillful dialogue with contemporary thought. Its goal is to show that the hoped-for unity of Christians has no other plausible basis than peaceful imitation of Christ."" --Charles K. Bellinger Brite Divinity School ""Joshua Whitfield has concocted a perceptive and important antidote to the secular politics of death-making. Insisting that martyrs die for love of truth armed only with the power of description, Whitfield stands against the acrimonious caricatures du jour by uncoupling Christian martyrdom from power but not from truth. This book is a clarion call to any church that has brokered an unholy trade-off in producing members who would more readily kill than die."" --Craig Hovey author of To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today's Church ""In this erudite tome, Whitfield offers an account of martyrdom that refuses the shackles of liberal secular politics. Such refusal, however, is not rooted in a rejection of the world and its attempts to regulate sacred narratives; rather, Whitfield reminds us that its refusal is predicated on the eschatological promise that God will bring all creation to completion. The witness of the martyr, therefore, is not a discourse about the individual agent; it is a discourse about the saving activity of the Triune God."" --Tripp York author of The Purple Crown: The Politics of Martyrdom About the Contributor(s): Joshua J. Whitfield is an Anglican priest and rector of the Church of Saint Gregory the Great in Mansfield, Texas.

These reflections on Jesus' final words from the cross open our ears to the language of the Bible while opening our hearts to a truer vision of God. Hauerwas touches in original and often surprising ways on fundamental themes, emphasising both the humanity of Jesus and the sheer 'differentness' of God. Ideal for personal devotion during Lent and throughout the year, Cross-Shattered Christ offers a transformative reading of Jesus' words that goes directly to the heart of the gospel. This short book is perhaps the most powerful and poignant ever written by the man described by Time magazine as our 'greatest theologian'.

With the concept of socialism back in mainstream conversations and increasing numbers of Christians unhappy with “Sunday Christianity,” it’s time to give the lifestyle of Jesus’ first followers another look. This issue of Plough Quarterly does just that, profiling intentional Christian communities past and present and gleaning wisdom on the daily practicalities and pitfalls of communal living from those with years of experience in following Jesus together. Hear from Stanley Hauerwas, Rick Warren, Leonardo Boff, Chiara Lubich, C. S. Lewis, Jean Vanier, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Eberhard Arnold, and D. L. Mayfield. Then there’s new poetry, book reviews, a children’s story by Kwon Jong-saeng, and world-class art by Salvador Dali, Wassily Kandinsky, Juan Rizi, Marianne Stokes, Francisco de Zurbarán, Dong-Sung Kim, Christian Schussele, Gustave Caillebotte. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.