This Tuesday through Thursday, I will be participating in The President's Theological Seminar, hosted by President Mouw on Fuller's main campus here in Pasadena. The topic of discussion is "Church and Kingdom: New Theological Challenges". I made a special effort to be part of this since two of the three faculty presenting, have been professors of mine.

As well, two of the three assigned readings have been particularly forceful and fruitful in my theological reflection and imagination for what the church is called to be. First, is Resdient Aliens, written by Duke theological ethicist and TIME magazine's 'America's best theologian' Dr. Stanley Hauerwas and former Duke chaplain Will Willimon. I first read Hauerwas and Willimon's provacative clarion call to the church, while studying business and theology in my undergraduate program at Azusa Pacific University. The second, assigned title for this seminar is entitled Jesus and Community, by German New Testament scholar Gehard Lohfink (Tubingen). This text is becoming widely assinged in courses at Fuller, and offers a Hauweras like proposal from the standpoint of thoroughly wrestling with the meaning of Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and the types of communities which were formed in the early church.

For now I will leave you with what I consider to be one of Hauerwas' most powerful statements in the book. I hope to do a follow up post with pictures and comments on the seminar.

"From a Christian point of view, the world needs the church, not to help the world run more smoothly or to make the world a better and safer place for Christians to live. Rather, the world needs the church because, without the church, the world does not know who it is. The only way for the world to know that it is being redeemed is for the church to point to the Redeemer by being a redeemed people. The way for the world to know that it needs redeeming, that it is broken and fallen, is for the church to enable the world to strike hard against something which is an alternative to what the world offers. Unfortunately, an accomodationist church, so intent on running errands for the world, is giving the world less and less in which to disbelieve. Atheism slips into the church where God really does not matter, as we go about building bigger and better congregations (church administration), confirming people's self-esteem (worship), enabling people to adjust their anxieties brought on by their materialism (pastoral care), and making Christ a worthy subject for poetic relflection (preaching). At every turn the church must ask itself. Does it really make any difference, in our life together, in what we do, that in Jesus Christ God is reconciling the world to himself?"(p.94-95)
Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life Inside the Christian Colony. Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN. 1989.