William Willimon
Willimon and Hauerwas’s out-of-season words on pastoral care
Pastors coping with the pandemic need our encouragement, not our carping.
Pastoral care is part of Christian formation
A response to Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas
Kenosis and Christendom: Resident Aliens at 25
Like Willimon and Hauerwas, Donald MacKinnon began with Philippians 2.
Accidental impact: Resident Aliens at 25
Resident Aliens, a work of theology, was put to use as applied sociology. The description of life in the Christian colony became, paradoxically, a formula for success.
Against hegemony, not state: Resident Aliens at 25
We need the spiritual agility to recognize counter-hegemonic "citizenship in heaven" whenever and however it becomes flesh.
Locating loyalty: Resident Aliens at 25
Resident Aliens helped convince a generation that there is no Christian identity apart from the church. But where exactly is Hauerwas and Willimon's "adventuresome" church?
Church against state? Resident Aliens at 25
A funny thing happened on the way to the church-as-polis: I can now imagine being a resident alien and invested in the state, in all of its glorious failing.
The wrong preferential option: Resident Aliens at 25
I once actually was a resident alien. I wonder if Hauerwas and Willimon have any clue what it means to occupy that space.
Unintended aid: Resident Aliens at 25
Denigrating "social activist churches" was central to Hauerwas and Willimon's agenda. Yet Resident Aliens revived social gospel arguments.
Targeted medicine: Resident Aliens at 25
The image of a resident alien offers an important biblical corrective. But it isn't the only such image we need.
White Protestants aren't aliens: Resident Aliens at 25
It is disingenuous to deem ourselves alien to a culture and society we benefit from—a culture and society we created.
Better religion: Resident Aliens at 25
I understand Resident Aliens as a response to the sort of civil religion that makes people worse than they would be otherwise.
The wall of identity: Resident Aliens at 25
Resident Aliens affirmed the strange way we Americans deal with our racial history and its current realities by indirection, innuendo, and avoidance.
Sent to serve: William Willimon on being bishop
“I find little support for democracy in scripture," says William H. Willimon. "Bishops have power to send because all ministry in Jesus’ name is ‘sent.’”