Hauerwas is provocative, but not for provocation’s sake. Instead, he calls us back to the disruptive words of Jesus, and to the church – to a community of ordinary people who are meant to learn to follow Jesus in the concreteness of our lives in a complex world. He is clear that following Jesus will always come at a cost and will disassemble most of our expectations about how our lives should turn out.

America’s theologian isn’t worried about the death of cultural Christianity.