The authors of this book argue that faithful Christian discipleship is more to do with developing good habits than following rules. And forming good habits requires participation in communities that transform us, and those around us, into the kind of people who can live God's way in God's world.
The book introduces key approaches to Christian ethics through a conversation between theologians, church leaders, and Christians equipping the church for action. The main conversation partners are Stanley Hauerwas and Sam Wells who present some of their key ideas in the essays and then enter into facinating conversations with Jo Bailey Wells, Luke Bretherton, Steve Chalke, Shane Clairbourne, and Russ Rook. They explore how we can live out loud as a faithful witness of Christ in our contemporary context.
The Reverend Dr. Sam Wells (Ph.D., Durham University) has been Dean of Duke University Chapel, North Carolina since 2005. His pastoral experience before coming to Duke included a spell as a community worker in inner-city Liverpool. He served four parishes as a Church of England priest from 1991-2005. In addition to his role at Duke Chapel, Sam is also Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke Divinity School. He has published six single-author works Transforming Fate into Destiny (Carlisle: Paternoster and Eugene: Cascade, 1998); Community-Led Estate Regeneration and the Local Church (Cambridge: Grove, 2003); Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Brazos and London: SPCK, 2004); Gods Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics (Oxford, UK and Malden, Massachusetts, 2006) Power and Passion: Six Characters is Search of Resurrection (The Archbishop of Canterburys Lent Book 2007, Grand Rapids: Zondervan) and Speaking the Truth: Preaching in a Pluralistic Culture (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008) He has also issued three jointly-edited volumes: Faithfulness and Fortitude (with Mark Thiessen Nation, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000); The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (with Stanley Hauerwas, Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2004) and Living Out Loud: Conversations about virtue, ethics, and evangelicalism (Paternoster, 2010)