Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular

"The study of rocks by geologists is legitimate, but God just does not seem to be an appropriate subject to constitute a respectable discipline in the contemporary university. Which creates a wonderful opportunity for those of us who remain theologians. Since we are never going to make it as academics, or anything else, we might as well have fun," writes Stanley Hauerwas, in the introduction to this terrifically fun book. A few hours with Hauerwas, a professor of Theological Ethics at Duke, will give you bigger jolts than a month's worth of electroshock therapy. Regardless of your theological prejudices, he'll show you the beams in your eyes, then show you how to see through them. Dispatches from the Front collects some of his best essays (such as "Why Gays (as a Group) Are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group)" and "Constancy and Forgiveness: The Novel as a School for Virtue"), in a useful, accessible, and defiantly unboring book. --Michael Joseph Gross