Here is what I will return to as the point of debate I have with Smith over his critique of Wallis:

What have Basel (Barth) and Goshen (Yoder) to do with one another? While it remains a curious amalgam, the possibility of the synthesis is found in Barth and Yoder’s shared emphasis on the antithesis of revelation vis-a-vis given cultural forms. Both deeply resist the correlational and Constantinian projects of modern theology, and both emphasize the practices of being the church, informed by the narrative of Scripture, constituting an alternative community and a peculiar people. Echoing Barth, Yoder emphasizes that the norm for Christian existence — and hence theology and proclamation__ must derive from the gospel as modeled by Jesus, not from the supposedly neutral norms of a public social ethics independent of revelation.

Wallis himself is a “disciple” of Yoder. That does not mean that he doesn’t in some ways misinterpret him , or for that matter, that Smith doesn’t do the same. But that Wallis frequently bows to Yoder and draws upon his work is a fact. Wallis also calls upon the church to BE the church. It is his engagement with the “public sqaure” where Smith locates his problem with Wallis, and I can “sympathize” with Smith’s complaints as to his wanting Wallis to talk about the church. But does one properly “recommend” the church by talking anout it, or actually trying it out? It would seem that the latter is the emphasis of Yoder, Hauerwas, and Smith himself.

This is great stuff (not what I’m wrting, but this conversation, and the energy I’m getting from it— and venting)