Quotes from Shane Claiborne

In our cultural value system, we have divided up human traits between the sexes and consequently have denied each sex a part of its humanity.

In court, as the judge considered the sentence of the police officer, the woman spoke boldly: "He took my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give, and he needs to know what love and grace feel like—so I think he should have to come to visit my home in the slums, twice a month, and spend time with me, so that I can be a mother to him, so that I can embrace him, and he can know that my forgiveness is real." We

The tears we shed are not just for ourselves but for our world.

God of the living and the dead, let our lives sing your praise. Make us the fragrance of your love. Rise in us, and awaken us from our slumber that we might live in your light. Amen.

There are so many people who are longing to be brought to life, who know all too well that they have done evil and long to hear not only of a God who embraces evildoers but also of a church that does the same.

The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community [even if their intentions are ever so earnest], but the person who loves those around them will create community.

It is an altar call to the world, an invitation to see a new kind of Christianity and to hear the confession of a church on its knees asking your forgiveness for the mess we have helped create. And it is an "alter" call to the church, to alter our vision from the patterns of this world and create new ways of living.

The world is thirsty. All creation is groaning. Christianity as it is has not satisfied the souls of those who hunger for another way of life.

It is here that we see a Jesus who abhors both passivity and violence, who carves out a third way that is neither submission nor assault, neither fight nor flight. It is this third way, Wink writes, that teaches that "evil can be opposed without being mirrored . . . oppressors can be resisted without being emulated . . . enemies can be neutralized without being destroyed."7

I had become a "believer," but I had no idea what it means to be a follower. People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live.

What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the LORD : in the land of the living! O tarry and await the LORD's pleasure; be strong, and he shall comfort your heart : wait patiently for the LORD.

A friend just told us that perhaps we should relate to the church as a dysfunctional parent. We honor, submit to, and love her. But we do not allow her to destroy those we love with her dysfunction. We recognize that our beauty and our brokenness are inseparable from hers. The Creator and the church are our parents, and having one without the other leaves us very empty. Though our mother has many illegitimate children, we still love her.