This book, more than any theological book I have ever read, has formed my beliefs and my calling to give my life as a UMC pastor. Happy 25th anniversary.

Originally posted on A Peculiar Prophet:

RESIDENT ALIENSSurprises and Thanksgivings for Resident Aliens 25 Years Later

 

This year Abingdon Press has released a new edition of Resident Aliens on the book’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Stanley Hauerwas and I have written a foreword and afterword for the new edition. Here is the second part of my foreword. Stanley and I will present at this year’s Alumni Convocation at Duke Divinity School in early October.

Surprises after Resident Aliens was published? Of course I was thrilled that Christians, particularly new and younger Christians on the plains of Canada, or in the outback of Australia, or in a sheep farm in New Zealand, or in a bleak German innercity read the book and found hope for the future. That which Stanley and I tended to speak of as future possibility we quickly discovered was present reality in a Christian commune in Oregon, a house church in Detroit, or even in…

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