Shane Claiborne Quotes

Jesus did not send us into the world to make believers but to make disciples.

Sometimes our tunnel vision is limited to what we see outside our window. Until racial injustice becomes personal then I don't think it moves us in our gut.

I am convinced that if we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war, it's because we don't dare them, not because we don't entertain them. It's because we make the gospel too easy, not because we make it too difficult. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives, which is why they play video games and join the army. But what do they do with a church that teaches them to tiptoe through life so they can arrive safely at death?

Someday war and poverty will be crazy and we will wonder how the world allowed such things to exist.

Tony Campolo and I both speak a lot, and we began to notice that there were some crowds of old folks that desperately needed some youthful energy, and there were other crowds of young folks that desperately needed some aged wisdom.

I do believe that the Church is God's primary instrument for ushering in the Kingdom (God's dream) on earth as it is in heaven, but God is not limited to use only the Church, or only Christians for that matter.

Jesus taught us a prayer of community and reconciliation, belonging to a new people who have left the land of 'me'.

We know the Church wasn't born 200 years ago. It's encouraging to see some of the post-denominational churches actually wanting to reconnect with the story and the prayer life of the larger Church.

Believe in miracles. And live in a way that might necessitate one.

A pastor friend of mine said, "Our problem is that we no longer have martyrs. We only have celebrities.

This is the company we keep when it comes to the death penalty: China, the number one executing country; Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, those are the top 4, and number 5 is the US. And those are not countries that are known as champions for human rights, you know.

The death penalty has succeeded in America, not in spite of Christians, but because of us. The Bible Belt is the Death Belt. Wherever Christians are most concentrated is where executions are happening, and that's deeply troubling to me.

People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live.

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.

We have a relational problem with those who are suffering or who are different from us. All of us are most comfortable around people who are like us culturally and economically.

The love that makes community is the willingness to do someone else's dirty work.

To be nonpartisan doesn't mean we're nonpolitical.

A lot of the world looks to the United States, whether we like it or not.

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?

There are some things to die for but none to kill for.

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.

It's unilaterally true that it costs more to maintain the death penalty than the alternatives to it, and we can leverage more resources to victims families. We can do all sorts of creative ways of healing the pain that people have done by channeling the energy and resources to other more redemptive forms of justice.

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.

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.

Look through the prayer books. You'll see lots of dates. You'll see names of Native Americans remembered. This was an open-sourcing project among so many people.

There is a difference between feeding someone and eating dinner with them. If every Christian at home just made room for the stranger we would end homelessness overnight.

Recognizing that something is wrong is the first step toward changing the world.

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.

We can also cling to the treasures of our faith and get rid of the things that are cluttering that. It is a time we are seeing some trending away from the things that were cluttering our faith.

We're remembering each other's heroes, too. We are learning each other's songs. We are reminding ourselves that we are a global family praying together. We're all trying to live in the light of the history that shines through the biblical narrative.

How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?

Dance until they kill you, and then we'll dance some more.

The more I get to know Jesus, the more trouble he seems to get me into.

Jesus still has a really great reputation and the Spirit is still moving. I've got a lot of hope for a generation that takes Jesus seriously, once again.

I have this certain reluctance when it comes to this idea that we are spiritual but not religious and we want Jesus but not the church. Why can't we have both?

We need good laws, but no law can change a human heart - only God can do that.

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.

We can ignore suffering no matter where we live. There are people who live a few miles from me who never see much poverty or the injustices that live on our doorstep.

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.

God can use anything, and anyone - even a king or a president, even a tax collector or a businessman, a priest or a prostitute, a Republican or a Democrat.

When we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.

Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived.

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?

Love has no limits. Compassion has no party. It is the responsibility of every human being and every institution to end poverty and to interrupt injustice.

Philadelphia caught my attention in 1995 when a group of homeless families were living in an abandoned cathedral. Even from the beginning they connected theology with what they were doing. They put a banner on the front of the cathedral that said, "How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday."

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.

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.

Certainly the institutional church is ill. It's hemorrhaging young people at an astronomical rate.