Quotes from Shane Claiborne

The greatest sin of political imagination: Thinking there is no other way except the filthy rotten system we have today.

We are faithful not to the triumphant golden eagle (ironically, also an imperial symbol of power in Rome) but to the slaughtered Lamb.

Jesus taught us a prayer of community and reconciliation, belonging to a new people who have left the land of 'me'.

You can't really learn God's hope like you learn the logic of an argument or the details of a story. It's more like learning to belly laugh. You catch hope from someone who has it down in their gut.

All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don't tiptoe.

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination.

We can tell the world that there is life after death, but the world really seems to be wondering if there is life before death.

We know the Church wasn't born 200 years ago. It's encouraging to see some of the post-denominational churches actually wanting to reconnect with the story and the prayer life of the larger Church.

I think in the end, God's justice is redemptive, it's restorative, it's about giving life, not taking life.

What is the point in calling anything God if it does not also hold sway in every part of one's life--especially one's politics?

We can also cling to the treasures of our faith and get rid of the things that are cluttering that. It is a time we are seeing some trending away from the things that were cluttering our faith.

The end of war begins with people who believe that another world is possible and that another empire has already interrupted time and space and is taking over this earth with the dreams of God.

The time has come for a new kind of conversation, a new kind of Christianity, a new kind of revolution.

Liturgy and worship were never meant to be confined to the cathedrals and sanctuaries. Liturgy at its best can be performed like a circus or theater - making the Gospel visible as a witness to the world around us.

This is what Jesus had in mind: folks coming together, forming close-knit communities and meeting each other's needs-- no kings, no major welfare systems, no presidents necessary. His is a theology and practice for the people of God, not a set of suggestions for empire.

I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor...I truly believe that when the rich meet the poor, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end.

Today the logic goes something like this: 'Calling a ruler Son of God is out of style. No one really does that nowadays. We can support a president while also worshiping Jesus as the Son of God.' But how is this possible? For one says that we must love our enemies, and the other says we must kill them; one promotes the economics of competition, while the other admonishes the forgiveness of debts. To which do we pledge allegiance?

But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn't fit together. As I read Scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first.

Sometimes people call folks here at the Simple Way saints. Usually they either want to applaud our lives and live vicariously through us, or they want to write us off as superhuman and create a safe distance. One of my favorite quotes, written on my wall here in bold black marker, is from Dorothy Day: "Don't call us saints; we don't want to be dismissed that easily

When the church takes affairs of the state more seriously than they do Jesus, Pax Romana becomes its gospel and the president becomes the Son of God.

We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it.

The history of the church has been largely a history of "believers" refusing to believe in the way of the crucified Nazarene and instead giving in to the very temptations he resisted--power, relevancy, spectacle.

If you have the gift of frustration and the deep sense that the world is a mess, thank God for that; not everyone has that gift of vision. It also means that you have a responsibility to lead us in new ways.

we can live without sex, but we cant live without love.