An Ethic For Christians And Other Aliens In A Strange Land

From 'An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land': America is a fallen nation. Americans exist in time, in the era biblically called the Fall. America is a demonic principality, or conglomeration of principalities and powers in which death furnishes the meaning, in which death is the reigning idol. Enshrined in multifarious forms and guises, it enslaves human beings, exacts human sacrifices, captures and captivates Presidents as well as intimidating and dehumanizing ordinary citizens. Strong statements, yes, but timely in the biblical context which forms William Stringfellow's perspective of our contemporary situation. Identifying America as a fallen nation with the parable of Babylon in the Book of Revelation - not with Jerusalem the holy nation, as Americans are naively and vainly wont to do - Dr. Stringfellow issues as trenchant an indictment of our society as has been made since Philip Wylie's 'Generation of Vipers'. Shockingly prophetic, dismaying, and sobering, William Stringfellow's rigorous biblical theology will surely offend the self-righteous. But the citizen of Jerusalem, alien in Babylon, will welcome the bluntness and insight with which he speaks.

From 'An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land': America is a fallen nation. Americans exist in time, in the era biblically called the Fall. America is a demonic principality, or conglomeration of principalities and powers in which death furnishes the meaning, in which death is the reigning idol. Enshrined in multifarious forms and guises, it enslaves human beings, exacts human sacrifices, captures and captivates Presidents as well as intimidating and dehumanizing ordinary citizens. Strong statements, yes, but timely in the biblical context which forms William Stringfellow's perspective of our contemporary situation. Identifying America as a fallen nation with the parable of Babylon in the Book of Revelation - not with Jerusalem the holy nation, as Americans are naively and vainly wont to do - Dr. Stringfellow issues as trenchant an indictment of our society as has been made since Philip Wylie's 'Generation of Vipers'. Shockingly prophetic, dismaying, and sobering, William Stringfellow's rigorous biblical theology will surely offend the self-righteous. But the citizen of Jerusalem, alien in Babylon, will welcome the bluntness and insight with which he speaks.

This unique theological biography traces the emergence of William Stringfellow's theology and the place of biblical politics within it. It highlights the centrality of life and work to his theology, and the inseparability of one from another. It tells the story of an ordinary life made less ordinary, radicalized through becoming a biblical person. Amidst periods in America of threat and prosperity (1950s), and later dissent and protest (1960s), Dancer examines not only how Stringfellow held America to account, but the way in which he offered a hopeful alternative in which the place of the Bible and the world were both central. It explores the way Stringfellow learned that the Bible makes sense of us and not us of it. This is biblical politics--a radicalizing, organizing engagement with the person and the world of which the church seems to sadly have lost both sight and interest.The advocacy of Karl Barth, his love of the circus, his scholarship to LSE, the National Conference on Religion and Race, his love for his parable of hope, Anthony Towne, and his prophetic confrontation with Johnson's "Great Society," all offer clues and insights into this radicalizing force at work in his life. Yet it was a life-threatening illness and personal confrontation with death in many ways became the final point of radicalization that lead to the production of Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land-ethics as pertinent to today as they are to any age.

An astute, outspoken lay theologian talks to Christians about how they can today find freedom in obedience to Christ's gospel and about the urgent necessity of trying to live this kind of freedom now. He insists that his readers look realistically and relentlessly at their own condition, at the condition of the church -- and that they see how these relate and compare to Christ's gospel. His book, based on certain passages from Hebrews, thus becomes a call to freedom and a call to revolutionary Christianity. William Stringfellow begins by spelling out, in impressive and telling detail, how the church has become mired in secular idolatries and ideologies, both economic and political. Then, in constrast to this situation, he examines Christ's resistance to the temptations of worldly power. Stringfellow ends his book by emphasizing the meaning of the resurrection as the exercise of the freedom of God and sets forth the victory over death and bondage given in Christ. Only in that gift is the Christian free to offer his own life to the world. Only thus is he free in obedience.

This "Stringfellow reader" collects the most significant of William Stringfellow's works--currently all out of print--plus important material not previously published. A thorough bibliography of his writings is appended.

Stringfellow, in Dissenter in a Great Society, is not concerned with partisan politics but applies the standards of biblical prophetism to current attitudes to poverty and property, the continuing war between the races, protest movements, and the search for commitment. As Nat Hentoff said in The Nation, Stringfellow is no liberal. He is a radically relevant Christian - an extremely rare species. He argues that to be a Christian is to be truly human - radically involved in the conflicts and controversies of society. He advocates no naive social gospel, but dares to speak of the liturgy as a political event, and exposes the pietists, pharisees, and do-gooders who betray the idea of Christian involvement. Mary McCarthy has written, Stringfellow has been prompted by a spirit that is like the ghost of Simone Weil.

In 1980, lawyer/theologian William Stringfellow experienced the loss of his close friend and companion, poet Anthony Towne. Totally unexpected, Towne's death brought Stringfellow face-to-face with his most personal encounter with grief. These pages eloquently record his year of mourning, thus becoming both a tribute to Towne and a way of celebrating life--past and future. Five of Towne's poems appear here, brilliantly capturing the mood and tone of Stringfellow's text. Through the course of Stringfellow's dialogue with grief, he teaches us that bereavement can be a special source of inner peace. We discover that to know life in its fullest is to know and face death. 'A Simplicity of Faith' is a spiritual odyssey of rare intensity. It is a convincing argument that biography, reflected upon, becomes theology. Though in many aspects focused on death, it is a powerful statement of what it means to be totally alive.