Customer Reviews

After Christendom?: How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas

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Although this is not Hauerwas' best book, it is still an excellent read. Hauerwas challenges commonly held conceptions about how the church should interact with a democratic society. He then offers an alternative paradigm for the church, one that involves the discipline of a community to help people learn to worship God. In the last two chapters, Hauerwas explores some concrete practices that should accompany such an understanding of the church. Whether you agree with it or not, this book will certainly make you think about the way Christians should live in a democracy.

I always like the additional nuggets of interest found in introductions. Hauerwas expounds on American exceptionalism where Australia seems to be better off, never placing its religion as a 'beacon' for the rest of the world.

The first chapter is all about ethics in light of liberalism. Christians have come to defend ethics as individual freedoms and equality. Even if we no longer kill for the church we now kill for the state. Which one was better? The church is for salvation so now how can its organization benefit the world political system?

The job of the church is to be a witness. When the church has limited its involvement to social liberal ideas it is really caving to the enlightenment. Freedom and liberalism are the gods of the age and the church is trying to find its place, make itself relevant in carrying that message. Instead, the church should focus on witnessing to the story of Christ. Compassion should be important but not at the cost of witness.

I don't think I fully know how Hauerwas intends Christians to act in light of politics. He's not looking strictly at political theology. But, combining Hauerwas' other works makes this book easier to grasp.

Quite simply an excellent followup to Hauerwas/Willimon's "Resident Aliens." A must read for all those concerned about the current redefinition of church under a nationalistic rubric.

You have to love Stanley for his inimitable style and personality. I read a lot of theology (Moltmann, Brueggeman, etc.) and found this book confusing and contradictory at times. It certainly is not the easy read that Resident Aliens is. Hauerwas is long on analysis and short on prescribing any solution on how Christians are to live or what they are to do in a post-Christian culture. The new introduction has him apologizing at length for this. But it would have been better to add a chapter which helps us to set a new course.

I found this book to be a heavy read, but it certainly got me thinking seriously about what it really means to be a Christian in a so-called Christian Nation.