Quotes from Shane Claiborne

As Don Everts says in his book Jesus with Dirty Feet, "Referring to the church as a building is like referring to people as two-by-fours.

ordinary radicals are committed to doing small things with great love.

As French theologian Jacques Ellul once said, "Christians should be troublemakers, creators of uncertainty, agents of a dimension incompatible with society.

I remain convinced to this day that if we continue to lose young people in the church, it won't be because we made the gospel too hard but because we made it to easy. We

So for those of us who have nearly given up on the church, may we take comfort in the words of St. Augustine: "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother." She

The US has 5 percent of the world's population, and 25 percent of the world's prison population.

According to Mother Teresa, it is among the wealthy that we can find the most terrible poverty of all—loneliness. So perhaps I was still among the poorest of the poor, but these poor folks had some cash!

There are far too many Christians who believe that theological conformity is a prerequisite for community.

I once heard a pastor say, "The church is like Noah's ark. It stinks, but if you get out of it, you'll drown." I

Lord, thank you for using the foolish to confound the wise and the weak one: to shame the strong. Help us live with the shrewdness of serpents and the innocence of doves. Keep our feet from fatigue, our spirits from despair, and our hands from failing to rise in praise to you. Amen.

That's why we give people fish, and also teach people to fish, and then also do something about who owns the pond. These all have to go together like a tripod or a three-legged stool. Without one leg, the stool get a little wobbly and out of balance. Charity workers need to also have a vision for justice. And justice workers need to keep their feet on the streets of injustice.

It's not always a bad thing to struggle. In fact, if you want to find the church alive, you look at places of struggle. Whenever we have triumphed and dominated, we get sick. Christianity is best when it is humble.

There are many false prophets (and false profits) out there, and all kinds of embarrassing things being done in the name of God.

God's deepest longing is for the church to be united as one body. In Jesus' longest recorded prayer, he prayed that we would be "one as God is one." As one old preacher said, "We gotta get it together, because Jesus is coming back, and he's coming for a bride, not a harem.

Wouldn't we all go to a church that believes in ordinary fools and ragamuffins and whose gospel is actually good news? I

I also heard a good metaphor from a rancher. He was talking cows, but I think it works with people too. He explained that there are two ways to keep your cows together. One is by building fences and gates. The other is by creating a really good food source. When you create a really good food source in the center, you don't have to worry as much about all the gates and fences and who's in and who's out.

Leo the Great preached, "Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the incarnation. From the time when Christ came, the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, demons take to flight, the power of death is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error driven out, truth has been brought back, and the speech of kindliness diffused. A heavenly way of life has been implanted on the earth.

Rosa Parks commented, "People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

If you find yourself climbing the ladder of success, be careful or else on your way up you might pass Jesus on his way down.

We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody else; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way. And doctrine is not very attractive, even if it's true. Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to say to the world and offers them only life after death, when what people are really wondering is whether there is life before death. As

I remain convinced to this day that if we continue to lose young people in the church, it won't be because we made the gospel too hard but because we made it to easy.

Mother Teresa always said, "Calcuttas are everywhere if only we have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta.

Some folks give people fish. Others teach people to fish. Others ask, "Who owns the pond? And why does a fishing license cost so much?

Little people with big dreams are reimagining the world. Little movements of communities of ordinary radicals are committed to doing small things with great love. Now