Stuff Shane Claiborne Said

Shane Claiborne is probably best known for writing The Irresistible Revolution, a book that was instrumental in my nephew's move to Ethiopia to dig wells. At the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing 2012. Mr. Claiborne sported dreds and cargo pants and told how his group was recently informed by the authorities that they were breaking the brothel law (too many people coming and going) in Philadelphia as they tried to perform acts of hospitality and feed the homeless.

They ended up in a court where the judge's name was Jesus, and their volunteer pro-bono lawyer was Jewish. The group was told they weren't zoned to start a shelter, so they complied and told the authorities that after praying about it, they were instead beginning a revival that would begin at 8 p.m. and end at 10a.m. They would have a two-hour service of formal praise followed by eight hours of silent meditation. Irony: When Claiborne and Sister Margaret got arrested for feeding the poor,  they were sentenced to citizenship training.

I appreciated Claiborne's thinking about justice. The phrase “social justice” makes some people think of “social gospel,” which for them evokes connotations of "all good works and no God." Claiborne acknowledges that the kind of justice we must seek is tricky to define. But he noted that “righteousness” and “justice” are the same word in the Bible. There justice is not about simply getting what you deserve, but setting right the wrong. It needs a forgiveness element. The best [term for it] is restorative justice. Reconciliation is required. All of us should be looking for this—to set both oppressed and oppressors free. He said, “God loves the 1% rich who are suffering, though not suffering in the same ways as the poor, but they have high rates of loneliness, depression, and suicide.” We are to preach “good news to the poor; set free the rich,” which by implication are the captives.

Here’s a sampling of other stuff Claiborne said:

Our faith isn’t a reason to escape this world, but a reason to engage it.

On terrible things that happen: “God: “Why don’t you do something?” God: “I did. I made you.”

How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore a homeless man onMonday?

[The arts] provoke the possibilities of how we could re-imagine the world.

To an Iraqi pastor: “I didn’t know there were so many Christians in Iraq!” Reply: “You didn’t invent the church in North America. You just domesticated it. You tell the church in North America that we are praying for you to remember who you are.”

An Iraqi doctor on treating the children injured by bombings in Iraq: “This violence is from a world that has lost its imagination.”

Quoting Karl Barth "We need to read with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other."

We're going to stop complaining about the church we've experienced and start becoming the church we dream of.

Quoting Dr. King: “We are living in extreme times. The question is not whether we will be extremists but what kind of extremists we will be.”



The difference between a flute and a stick in the mud is that the flute is emptied of itself so it can make beautiful music.

Two things are critical to community: Straight talk and confession. Straight talk meaning not being too polite to be honest, and not murmuring (per St. Benedict) or talking around issues. And confession involves saying “I’m sorry.”

An old African proverb says that if you want to get something done fast, go together; if you want to do it slowly, go alone.

It’s important not to be alone as we grieve. Grief is part of community. Jesus didn’t even carry His cross by Himself.

Quoting Dostoevsky: “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”