Quotes from Shane Claiborne

It's hard to hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit amid the noise of Christendom.

So there goes Jesus spinning power on its head again. His power was not in crushing but in being crushed, triumphing over the empire's sword with his cross. Mustard must be crushed, ground, broken for its power to be released.

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.

The danger is that we can begin to read the Bible through the eyes of America rather than read America through the eyes of the Bible. We just want Jesus to be a good American.

But we are not just called to be candles. We are called to be fire. Candles can be snuffed out by the slightest wind or by the smallest child on their birthday. But it's harder to put out a fire. We are to be fire, to weave our lives together so that the Spirit's inferno of love spreads across the earth.

In their pursuit of "making disciples of every nation" and baptizing all those within the empire, they stumbled into baptizing the empire itself, thus turning sacrament into sacrilege[...]

Dom Helder Camara, a twentieth-century bishop in Brazil, said, "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a Communist.

Something mystical can happen in the course of acting together that transcends words and ideologies—people who do not agree on ideas can create common ground in the act of loving.

But Jesus answered me with these words and said: Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.

Erasmus of Rotterdam, a sixteenth-century priest who was committed to reforming the church from within, said, "When faith came to be in writings rather than in hearts, contention grew hot and love grew cold. That which is forced cannot be sincere, and that which is not voluntary cannot please Christ.

Perhaps one of the most powerful things the contemporary church could do is to confess our sins to the world, the humbly get on our knees and repent for the terrible things we have done in the name of God.

Jesus lives the challenge to our gender stereotypes and prejudices, but he is also wonderfully subversive in the ways he legitimates and empowers women.