Shane Claiborne quotes
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“Recognizing that something is wrong is the first step toward changing the world.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“The Christian icon is not the Stars and Stripes but a cross-flag, and its emblem is not a donkey, an elephant, or an eagle, but a slaughtered lamb.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw (2009). “Jesus for President”, p.197, Harper Collins
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“Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.24, ReadHowYouWant.com
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“There are some things to die for but none to kill for.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“When we ask God to move a mountain, God may give us a shovel.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne, Tony Campolo (2012). “Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?”, p.33, Thomas Nelson Inc
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“Biological family is too small of a vision. Patriotism is far too myopic. A love for our own relatives and a love for the people of our own country are not bad things, but our love does not stop at the border.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.176, ReadHowYouWant.com
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“The more I get to know Jesus, the more trouble he seems to get me into.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : "What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff?" by Shane Claiborne, www.esquire.com. November 18, 2009.
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“As an American, and especially as a Christian, I am convinced that a love for our own people is not a bad thing, but love doesn't stop at borders. Love is infinitely boundless and all about holy trespassing and offensive friendships.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“The work of community, love, reconciliation, restoration is the work we cannot leave up to politicians. This is the work we are all called to do.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne, Tony Campolo (2012). “Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?”, p.184, Thomas Nelson Inc
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“If we believe terrorists are past redemption, we should just rip up like 1/2 the New Testament because it was written by one.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“Christianity can be built around isolating ourselves from evildoers and sinners, creating a community of religious piety and moral purity. That’s the Christianity I grew up with. Christianity can also be built around joining with the broken sinners and evildoers of our world crying out to God, groaning for grace. That’s the Christianity I have fallen in love with.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.196, ReadHowYouWant.com
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“Perhaps there is no more dangerous place for a Christian to be than in safety and comfort, detached from the suffering of others.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw (2009). “Jesus for President”, p.292, Harper Collins
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“How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.18, ReadHowYouWant.com
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“For even if the whole world believed in resurrection, little would change until we began to practice it. We can believe in CPR, but people will remain dead until someone breathes new life into them. And 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.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2006). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical”, p.150, Harper Collins
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“Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2006). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical”, p.65, Harper Collins
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“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Maybe we are a little crazy. After all, we believe in things we don't see. The Scriptures say that faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1). We believe poverty can end even though it is all around us. We believe in peace even though we hear only rumours of wars. And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another world is coming that we start living as if it were already here.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“So even as we see the horror of death, may we be reminded that in the end, love wins. Mercy triumphs. Life is more powerful than death. And even those who have committed great violence can have the image of God come to life again within them as they hear the whisper of love. May the whisper of love grow louder than the thunder of violence. May we love loudly.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw (2009). “Jesus for President”, p.205, Harper Collins
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“Too often we just do what makes sense to us and ask God to bless it.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy, too. But I guess that's why God invented highlighers, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Only Jesus would be crazy enough to suggest that if you want to become the greatest, you should become the least. Only Jesus would declare God's blessing on the po0r rather than on the rich and would insist that it's not enough to just love your friends. I just began to wonder if anybody still believed Jesus meant those things he said.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2016). “The Irresistible Revolution, Updated and Expanded: Living as an Ordinary Radical”, p.19, Zondervan
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“Believe in miracles. And live in a way that might necessitate one.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : "The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical". Book by Shane Claiborne, February 1, 2006.
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“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Mother Theresa always said, "Calcuttas are everywhere if only we have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“To refer to the Church as a building is to call people 2 x 4's.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“God comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.63, ReadHowYouWant.com
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“If the people of God were to transform the world through fascination, these amazing teachings had to work at the center of these peculiar people. Then we can look into the eyes of a centurion and see not a beast but a child of God, and then walk with that child a couple of miles. Look into the eys of tax collectors as they sue you in court; see their poverty and give them your coat. Look in to the eys of the ones who are hardest for you to like, and see the One you love. For God loves good and bad people.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“A pastor friend of mine said, "Our problem is that we no longer have martyrs. We only have celebrities.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“But what had lasting significance were not the miracles themselves but Jesus' love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but eventually caught some other disease. He fed the ten thousands, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember his love. It wasn't that Jesus healed a leper but that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Jesus taught us a prayer of community and reconciliation, belonging to a new people who have left the land of 'me'.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“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”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“One by one, these disciples would infect the nations with grace. It wasn't a call to take the sword or the throne and force the world to bow. Rather, they were to live the contagious love of God, to woo the nations into a new future.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2006). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical”, p.123, Harper Collins
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“I'm just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“Our churches should attract the people Jesus attracted and frustrate the people Jesus frustrated.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“There are congregations on nearly every corner. I'm not sure we need more churches. What we need is a church. I say one church is better than fifty. I have tried to remove the plural form churches from my vocabulary, training myself to think of the church as Christ did, and as the early Christians did. The metaphors for her are always singular - a body, a bride. I heard one gospel preacher say it like this, as he really wound up and broke a sweat: "We've got to unite ourselves as one body. Because Jesus is coming back, and he's coming back for a bride not a harem.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Someday war and poverty will be crazy and we will wonder how the world allowed such things to exist.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“There is nothing more sickening than talking about poverty over a fancy dinner.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.115, ReadHowYouWant.com
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“It's hard to hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit amid the noise of Christendom.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“The church is like Noah's ark. It stinks, but if you get out of it, you'll drown.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“The true atheist is the one who refuses to see God's image in the face of their neighbour.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Charity is merely returning what we have stolen.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“Violence is for those who have lost their imagination.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Little movements of communities of ordinary radicals are committed to doing small things with great love.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“I wondered if there were other restless people asking the question with me: What if Jesus meant the stuff he said?.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“Christians pretty much live like everybody else, they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“I learned more about God from the tears of homeless mothers than any systematic theology ever taught me.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“The question becomes not just how to accumulate more, but how to covet less.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“Charity wins awards and applause, but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.86, ReadHowYouWant.com
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“God's people are not to accumulate stuff for tomorrow but to share indiscriminately with the scandalous and holy confidence that God will provide for tomorrow. Then we need not stockpile stuff in barns or a 401(k), especially when there is someone in need.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“The love that makes community is the willingness to do someone else's dirty work.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream and struggle.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.85, ReadHowYouWant.com
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“How ironic is it to see a bumper sticker that says 'Jesus is the answer' next to a bumper sticker supporting the war in Iraq, as if to says 'Jesus is the answer - but not in the real world.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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?”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“My goal is to speak the truth in love. There are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“One thing that's clear in the Scriptures is that the nations do not lead people to peace; rather, people lead the nations to peace.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion - I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, 'I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you.' If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“I just have a more holistic sense of what it means to be for life, knowing that life does not just begin at conception and end at birth, and that if I am going to discourage abortion, I had better be ready to adopt some babies and care for some mothers.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Jesus did not send us into the world to make believers but to make disciples.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another world is coming that we start living as if it were already here.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“No one has seen God, but as we love one another, God lives in us.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“It doesn't matter who you are. Everyone has something to offer the movement of justice”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“...I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“We are faithful not to the triumphant golden eagle (ironically, also an imperial symbol of power in Rome) but to the slaughtered Lamb.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“When we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“When we realize that we are both wretched and beautiful, we are freed up to see others the same way.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Prayer is not so much about convincing God to do what we want God to do as it is about convincing ourselves to do what God wants us to do.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (2009). “Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals”, p.11, InterVarsity Press
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“So if the world hates us, we take courage that it hated Jesus first. If you're wondering whether you'll be safe, just look at what they did to Jesus and those who followed him. There are safer ways to live than by being a Christian.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“God doesn't want to change the world without you.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“The greatest sin of political imagination: Thinking there is no other way except the filthy rotten system we have today.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live,”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“We might hope to change the world through better, bigger programs to stop global warming, but global warming will not end unless people become less greedy and less wasteful, gaining a fresh vision of what it means to love our global neighbor.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“We need to be politically engaged, but peculiar in how we engage. Jesus and the early Christians had a marvelous political imagination. They turned all the presumptions and ideas of power and blessing upside down.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Dance until they kill you, and then we'll dance some more.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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?”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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“Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“I engage with local politics because it affects people I love. And I engage in national politics because it affects people I love.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“As Christians, we should be the best collaborators in the world. We should be quick to find unlikely allies and subversive friends, like Jesus did.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“We are setting ourselves up for disappointment if our hope is built on anything less than Jesus.”
-- Shane ClaiborneSource : Shane Claiborne, Tony Campolo (2012). “Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?”, p.185, Thomas Nelson Inc
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“I always tell our community that we should attract the people Jesus attracted and frustrate the people Jesus frustrated. It's certainly never our goal to frustrate, but it is worth noting that the people who were constantly agitated were the self-righteous, religious elite, the rich, and the powerful. But the people who were fascinated by him, by his love and grace, were folks who were already wounded and ostracized — folks who didn't have much to lose, who already knew full well that they were broken and needed a Savior.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“Money has power. And so withholding money has power too, especially when a bunch of people do it together.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“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.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
“It is a dangerous day when we can take the cross out of the church more easily than the flag. No wonder it is hard for seekers to find God nowadays.”
-- Shane Claiborne -
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