Revolutionary Thinking

Does anybody still believe Jesus meant the things he said? says Shane Claiborne in Irresistible Revolution. "I thought if we just stopped and asked... What if he really meant it? It could turn the world upside-down" (p. 41). This book is your classic back to the Bible movement on steroids. Claiborne combines personal experience with intense interaction with the Word of God. He insists that perhaps we have been too quick to dismiss the hard teachings of Jesus.

Here are a few shocking statements from Shane Claiborne:

"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" (p. 117).

"Jesus doesn't exclude rich people; he just lets them know their rebirth will cost them everything they have. The story is not so much about whether rich folks are welcome as it is about the nature of the kingdom of god, which has an ethic and economy diametrically opposed to those of the world" (p. 104).

"What do we do when the foolishness of the cross actually makes more sense than the wisdom of the sword?" (p. 21).

"[P]reachers were telling me to lay my life at the foot of the cross and weren't giving me anything to pick up..." (p. 38).

Ultimately, Claiborne's point is that "we do indeed have a God of resurrection, a God who can create beauty from the messes we make of our world" (p. 47). Though we often think that God is alive and well among the rich and middle-class, we must take time to truly evaluate who Christ walked with and who he identified with. He walked with the homeless, touched the leper, and healed the blind man. If we are the body, then why are we not doing as Christ did?

I identify allot with the honest questioning of Claiborne. He is not a man who believes what he believes and does what he says. His writings are leading me to do some things that I might not have considered beforehand.