So Barth acquired a new dramatic concept of Christianity: the point was not to explain a worldview to skeptical outsiders but to perform this cultic rhetoric. The priority of preaching to theology was absolute. – Reinventing Liberal Christianity

Famspod Heisman: Yes. That is Barth and Hauerwas follows in his footsteps. Learn to “speak Christian” and maybe people will be puzzled and want to learn more.

Otherwise here’s what we’re left with. This is from elca bishop Elizabeth eaton. I thought about presenting this to the class:

But why do we want people to join our church? What does church mean to us? When I have asked that question, people often spoke about church as community or family. People talked about the good and important work their congregations carried out to feed the hungry or shelter the homeless. Some said the best thing about their congregations wasn’t programs but people.

It was rare that anyone mentioned God or spoke about an encounter with the transcendent. I don’t believe our people lack faith or don’t know Jesus, but I wonder if we have lost the language to speak about the love of God that has been given to us in the crucified and risen Christ. Maybe we just assume Jesus. Maybe Jesus has become like wallpaper: we know it’s there and everyone can see it, but we don’t have to talk about it.

The best thing about the church, the thing that is uniquely the church, is not programs or people but Jesus. If we as a people, and as congregations, don’t get that right it doesn’t matter how many programs we come up with.

In Christ through the Spirit, God has invited us into a deeply intimate and loving relationship with God and with each other. Being church is abiding in that love. We are God’s beloved people gathered around word and sacraments. That’s what gives us life. That’s what shapes us. That’s what sends us out into the world to do justice and to love kindness (Micah 6:8). And this must be the kind of community to which we invite others—not because we want to grow or pay for the boiler or attract young people, but because we have received this incredible life-changing gift and want everyone to be touched and claimed and transformed by it too.

So the objection to the Lee Stroebel enterprise is not just that the arguments are lame, but that it misses the point.