Quotes from Shane Claiborne

Jesus was Jewish. He went to synagogue "as was his tradition" and celebrated holy days such as Passover. But Jesus also healed on the Sabbath. Jesus points us to a God who is able to work within institutions and order, a God who is too big to be confined. God is constantly coloring outside the lines. Jesus challenges the structures that oppress and exclude, and busts through any traditions that put limitations on love. Love cannot be harnessed.

I began to wonder if anyone still believed Jesus meant thos things He said. I thought if we just stopped and asked 'what if He really meant it?' it could turn the world upside down. It is a shame christians have become so normal.

People always want to define you by what you do. I started saying: 'i am not too concerned with what i'm going to do. I am more interested in who i am becoming. I want to be a lover of God and people.

MOST of the ugliness in the human narrative comes from a distorted quest to possess beauty. COVETING begins with appreciating blessings: MURDER begins with a hunger for justice. LUST begins with a recognition of beauty. GLUTTONY begins when our enjoyment of the delectable gifts of GOD starts to consume us. IDOLATRY begins when our seeing a reflection of God in something beautiful leads to our thinking that the beautiful image bearer is worthy of WORSHIP.

Charity is merely returning what we have stolen.

The church is like Noah's ark. It stinks, but if you get out of it, you'll drown.

Looking into the eyes of people who love us may be the clearest glimpse of God many of us get in this world.

We have placed such idolatrous faith in our ability to protect ourselves that we call it more courageous to die killing than to die loving.

The world of efficiency and anonymity dehumanises us. We have to ask who the invisible people are. Who makes our clothes? Who picks our vegetables? And how are they treated?

In an age of million-dollar mansions for God, it's hard to imagine that our God prefers tents.

Lord, you call us out of captivity into the freedom of your beloved community. As we pass through the wilderness spaces of our lives, grant us ears to hear you, eyes to see you, and hearts that ache for you, that we might not turn away from the brothers and sisters who help us remember who we are. Amen.

Lord, keep us from following the gods of pride, stubbornness, vanity, sloth, greed, and comfort that beckon for our allegiance every day. You brought us through the night watches, you who neither slumber nor sleep. We pray to follow you along the path of generosity, humility, and love throughout this day. Amen.

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.

The question becomes not just how to accumulate more, but how to covet less.

There is nothing more sickening than talking about poverty over a fancy dinner.

The lives of the thirty thousand children who die of starvation each day is like 6 september 11ths every single day, a silent tsunami that happens every week.

Protesters are still on the fringes like satellites, revolving around the system. But prophets and poets lead us into a new world, beyond simply yelling at the old one.

It's not that the law has no meaning; it's just that grace has the last word.

Lord, in our work for justice, let us not seek after martyrdom for its own sake, but neither let us turn away from your truth because we fear suffering. Give us grace to live faithfully whatever the cost. Amen.

Augustine of Hippo said, "Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence. Let us look within ourselves and see whether there is some delightful hidden place inside where we can be free of noise and argument. Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it.

Every time our government chooses to use military force to bring about change in the world, it once again teaches our children the myth of redemptive violence, the myth that violence can be an instrument for good.

Violence is for those who have lost their imagination.

Lord, we know that you will come again in glory to raise the living and the dead. Resurrect us now from the death of comfort, complacency, sloth, and shallowness that we might witness to your love in life and death. Amen.

We often miss the irony that the same Paul who writes "submit to the authorities" goes to jail and is condemned for subverting the authorities! He