Feature

Locating loyalty: Resident Aliens at 25

In 1989, Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon sparked a lively debate about church, ministry, and Christian identity with their book Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony. Twenty-five years later, we asked several pastors and theologians to offer their perspective on the book and its impact. (Read all responses.)

Resident Aliens gave its readers the courage to love the church. Not naively or uncritically—real love is always truthful, after all—but deeply and unapologetically. And it helped convince a generation that there is no Christian identity apart from the church.

Still, the work of Hauerwas and Willimon always seems to elicit the question: Where exactly is this adventuresome church?