A House United: How the Church Can Save the World
By entering the culture wars, churchgoers in the United States have ushered the Left and the Right to even greater extremes. Battles over moral issues like abortion rights and homosexuality have now widened to include taxation and size of government, so that specific church affiliation has become an accurate predictor of political party affiliation. The extremists in American politics rely on Christians to be the engine that pushes the culture farther right or left.
Allen Hilton believes that religion isn't inherently divisive, and he suggests a new role for Christianity. Jesus prayed that his disciples might all be one, and this book imagines a proper answer to that prayer in the context of American polarization.
Rather than asking people to leave their political and theological beliefs at the church door, Hilton promotes a Christianity that brings people together with their differences. Through God's transforming work, he writes, we can create a house united that will help our nation come back together.
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"Raised in conservative farm country, educated in liberal graduate schools, and having pastored congregations in settings across the entire country while teaching in both liberal arts colleges and theological seminaries, Allen Hilton is uniquely qualified to convene this most critical conversation. In a world that is becoming more sorted, enclaved, and factioned, Hilton dares to believe that if we really hear the words of Jesus, we can learn to come together in unity for the common good of the world. And not only can we, we must. With a scholar's insight and a pastor's heart, Hilton enters the fray and brings empathy, insight, winsomeness, and a bit of prophetic impatience to remind the followers of Jesus that we follow the divisiveness of our day at our own peril. Calling people of faith who have allowed the divisions of tribe and temperament to create chasms of distrust, this book is both bracing and encouraging, challenging and empowering. If you are a Christian leader, yearning to help your people be light in the darkness, make this your next read." --Tod Bolsinger, VP and chief of the Leadership Formation Platform at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Canoeing the Mountains
"A House United should be required reading for every person who seeks to faithfully follow Jesus Christ during this tumultuous time in the church and in American culture. Allen Hilton challenges the church to take seriously Jesus's call to unity not simply for its own sake but for the sake of the world. His book is biblical, scholarly, well-documented, and readable. I am so grateful for Hilton's timely challenge." --Mary Beth Anton, director of the Women in Ministry Program at Princeton Theological Seminary
In A House United Allen Hilton makes an important declaration: polarization is not inevitable; things could be different. What a polarized world needs most of all is a unified Christian church. In pointing out the possibility of a path to a unified and big tent church, Hilton helps us move past our daily experiences of echo chambers that isolate, algorithms that segregate, and hermeneutics that justify our self-righteousness. A House United offers an approach to reading Scriptures together in humility as we become the unified, formed, and transformed people for whom the world groans in eager anticipation. This book should be read as shared congregational study throughout all of Christendom." --David Anderson Hooker, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
"Allen Hilton's A House United dissects how our culture is deeply divided and sorting into tribalistic perspectives. But with erudition, wit, and insight, he shows a way to a better future. And surprise, it is the Christian church that could play a crucial role in reducing the venomous polarization poisoning our communal life. (Yes, the same Christian church that we imagine fuels much of the division could actually heal the rifts if it discovers its true role.) If you are a pastor looking for a book that merits a congregation-wide study, stop looking. This book will captivate, motivate, and exhilarate your congregation." --Jim Keck, senior minister of First-Plymouth Church, UCC, in Lincoln, Nebraska
"In A House United Allen Hilton adroitly addresses the huge problem of alienation in American churches. He provides a brilliant blueprint on how we can come together on the goals we share, even when we disagree on methodology, without attacking each other's motivations. This book has huge potential to heal that growing rift, which would allow the misplaced focus and energy on what divides us to be directed toward the work we are called to and bring a smile to the face of Jesus." --Ward Brehm, author of Bigger Than Me
"In these days of divisive dialogue and virtual vitriol, we need more than social civility--we need deeply spiritual direction from the heart of a pastor. That's what we get from Allen Hilton: a brilliant, biblically based presentation of the problem and practical solutions for creating a brave new world rooted in Jesus's prayer that 'they may all be one.'" --John Ross, senior minister at Wayzata Community Church in Wayzata, Minnesota
"In an America that is profoundly divided, the Christian church has largely capitulated to tribalism and failed to offer an alternative. Allen Hilton cogently analyzes this situation and calls the church to claim its deeper identity as a community of reconciliation and unity." --Dwight J. Zscheile, author of The Agile Church
