Claiborne Quotes & Sayings

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. — Shane Claiborne

Shortly afterward, I sat puzzled, grieving over the state of our church. "I think I've lost hope in the church," I confessed, brokenhearted, to a friend. I will never forget her response. "No, you haven't lost hope in the church. You may have lost hope in Christianity or Christendom or all the institutions, but you have not lost hope in the church. This is the church." At that moment, we decided to stop complaining about the church we saw, and we set our hearts on becoming the church we dreamed of. — Shane Claiborne

Christians can no longer refer to 'our troops' or 'our history' because of their new identity. Fabricated boundaries and walls are removed for the Christian. One's neighbor is not only from Chicago but also from Baghdad. One's brother or sister in the church could be from Iran or California
no difference! Our family is transnational and borderless; we are in Iraq, and we are in Palestine. And if we are indeed to become born again, we will have to begin talking like it, changing the meaning of we, us, my, and our. — Shane Claiborne

Mother Theresa always said, Calcuttas are everywhere if only we have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta. — Shane Claiborne

A friend and I prepared a video clip once for a worship service. Our goal was to capture people's responses to the word Christian, so we took a video camera and hit the streets, from the trendy arts district to the suburbs. We asked people to say the first word that came to mind in response to each word we said: "snow," "eagles" (it's Philly), "teenagers," and finally "Christian." When people heard the word Christian, they stopped in their tracks. I will never forget their responses: "fake," "hypocrites," "church," "boring." One guy even said, "used-to-be-one" (sort of one word). I will also never forget what they didn't say. Not one of the people we asked that day said "love." No one said "grace." No one said "community. — Shane Claiborne

Man is born to eat. — Craig Claiborne

There is real value in these local congregations. For me, a lot of it is the value of the sacraments we share. In neighborhoods like ours, the churches provide stability. — Shane Claiborne

Now I think ultimately our hope is certainly that people can feel and taste the goodness of God and to find the salvation in Jesus's love and sacrifice. Sometimes the biggest barrier to that has been Christians and has been a Church that is numb to the poverty of the world or just sees our Christianity as a ticket into heaven while ignoring the hells of the world around us. And we're not willing to settle for that kind of Christianity. We believe in a kingdom that begins now and that the kingdom of God Jesus preached is not just something we're to go to when we die but that we're to bring down on earth as it is in heaven. — Shane Claiborne

Cooking is at once one of the simplest and most gratifying of the arts, but to cook well one must love and respect food. — Craig Claiborne

The end of war begins with people who believe that another world is possible and that another empire has already interrupted time and space and is taking over this earth with the dreams of God. — Shane Claiborne

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

There is nothing better on a cold wintry day than a properly made pot pie. — Craig Claiborne

Dutch liberator William the Silent: "It is not necessary to hope in order to undertake; it is not necessary to succeed in order to persevere. — Clara Claiborne Park

Prayer is less about trying to get God to do something we want God to do and more about getting ourselves to do what God wants us to do and to become who God wants us to become. — Shane Claiborne

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

God, you alone are the judge of humankind, yet you call us to work toward justice. Help us make the judgments necessary for faithful living without becoming judgmental, that we may celebrate the mystery by which your justice is your mercy, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. — Shane Claiborne

Dr. Martin Luther King put it like this: "We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside . . . but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved."23 — Shane Claiborne

If we want to know what it means to be human, we look at Jesus. He does things we'd culturally consider feminine - like weep - and others our culture would consider masculine - like flip tables in the temple. But really all these things are just human. And since Jesus is God, these characteristics are also divine. — Shane Claiborne

The church is like Noah's ark. It stinks, but if you get out of it, you'll drown. — Shane Claiborne

Much of the Bible was written by murderers who were given a second chance. Moses. David. Paul. The Bible would be much shorter without grace. — 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

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 Claiborne

Violence is for those who have lost their imagination. — Shane Claiborne

There are some things to die for but none to kill for. — Shane Claiborne

Irish rock star Bono has said, Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff. — Shane Claiborne

While most activists could use a good dose of gentleness, I think most believers could use a good dose of holy anger. — Shane Claiborne

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

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

If God's kingdom looks radical, it is only an indictment on the sort of Christianity we have settled for. Sharing our food with the hungry, opening our homes to the homeless, reconciling with our enemies
these are what Christianity has always been. — Shane Claiborne

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

That is the power of the Eucharist. At the communion table you have rich and poor together in the early church and they were being challenged. — Shane Claiborne

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

If you think you'll always let people down, that's all you'll ever do, I said. — Julia Claiborne Johnson

Youth isn't wasted on the young, literature is. — Julia Claiborne Johnson

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. — Shane Claiborne

Jesus sent his Spirit to empower people to realize their potential, and that should be the model for all of us in doing missionary work (Acts 1:8). When confronting the desperate situations we find in third-world countries and in troubled urban and rural areas here in America, we must realize that our objective must be to empower people and challenge them to use their gifts and actualize their potential. We have to join with them in such a way so that, as you said a moment ago, when they succeed, they can say, We did it ourselves. — Shane Claiborne

Jesus was Jewish. He went to synagogue "as was his tradition" and celebrated holy days such as Passover. But Jesus also healed on the Sabbath. Jesus points us to a God who is able to work within institutions and order, a God who is too big to be confined. God is constantly coloring outside the lines. Jesus challenges the structures that oppress and exclude, and busts through any traditions that put limitations on love. Love cannot be harnessed. — Shane Claiborne

We say it is idealistic to think we can continue to live the way we live - with 5% of the world using half the world's resources, with $20,000 a second being spent on war. — Shane Claiborne

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

In an age of million-dollar mansions for God, it's hard to imagine that our God prefers tents. — 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

I began to wonder if anyone still believed Jesus meant thos things He said. I thought if we just stopped and asked 'what if He really meant it?' it could turn the world upside down. It is a shame christians have become so normal. — Shane Claiborne

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. — Shane Claiborne

The dreams get anchored in aged wisdom not some utopian fantasy. — Shane Claiborne

Let's keep refusing to accept the world as it is and insisting on building the world we dream of. Don't let the haters have the last word. — Shane Claiborne

From that high up, language or the lack of it didn't matter much. The swirling currents of people were way better than anything on TV. Even on cable. Except, possibly, the Armenian Channel. — Julia Claiborne Johnson

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

With the early Christians you couldn't have God as your father unless you have the church as your mother. This isn't accepting the church as a perfect thing. — Shane Claiborne

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

Repentance, rebirth, and conversion were exchanged for cheap grace, and the integrity of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus faded. People join the church in droves, but Christian disciples were hard to come by. Christianity had an identity crisis.
It's the same old story of the forbidden fruit
it's the beautiful things that get us. It's the things that seem good, but are not quite of God, that steer us off the course of holiness into destructiveness. — Shane Claiborne

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 Claiborne

With children in the house, you're on call around the clock whether you like it or not. You don't get the luxury of enough sleep when that was what you needed most to keep yourself from going over the edge. — Julia Claiborne Johnson

Give me a platter of choice finnan haddie, freshly cooked in its bath of water and milk, add melted butter, a slice or two of hot toast, a pot of steaming Darjeeling tea, and you may tell the butler to dispense with the caviar, truffles and nightingales' tongues. — Craig Claiborne

We shall do even greater things because the love that lived in the radical Christ now lives within millions of ordinary radicals all over the planet. — Shane Claiborne

By the way, I like letters. Letter writing has been an important pasttime for the church. I can't promise I'll write you back, but I will read your letter, and I'll do my best to reply. Right now, I'm running about six months behind on writing. And I prefer old-school snail mail: Shane Claiborne, PO Box 12798, Philadelphia, PA 19134. — Shane Claiborne

Oliver's expression darkened. "I know what you are," he said, pointing at Ewan accusingly. "Since when are you a homophobe," said Ewan. "What?" Oliver asked. "What?" Ewan replied. Oliver shook his head as if bewildered. — Erin Claiborne

Charity is merely returning what we have stolen. — Shane Claiborne

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? — Shane Claiborne

He was an innovator, an experimenter, a missionary in bringing the gospel of good cooking to the home table. — Craig Claiborne

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

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

Frank will be okay, Alice," Mr. Vargas said. "He's an odd duck, but brilliant children often are. I make myself out to be," he said. "I'm worried, yes. But I'd worry more if she didn't have Frank. She's all he got, and she knows it. — Julia Claiborne Johnson

Lord, you call us out of captivity into the freedom of your beloved community. As we pass through the wilderness spaces of our lives, grant us ears to hear you, eyes to see you, and hearts that ache for you, that we might not turn away from the brothers and sisters who help us remember who we are. Amen. — Shane Claiborne

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

Lord, you have appointed some to be prophets; give us ears to hear and mouths to speak. You have appointed some to sing of your goodness in the streets; make us bold to celebrate you. You have called some to be still, listen, and act; give us steadiness of mind and singularity of purpose. Amen. — Shane Claiborne

Victimization is about powerlessness, and justice is about amplifying the voices of those who have been silenced. Healing — 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

When it comes to the big issues like immigration, everyone has a role. The government has a role. The church has a role. Every Christian has a role. — Shane Claiborne

We vote every day for companies, for people, and we put money toward 'campaigns.' We need to think of the faces behind the scenes. Who are the masters and Caesars that we pledge allegiance to by the way we live and through the things we put our trust in? We vote every day with our feet, our hands, our lips, and our wallets. We are the vote for the poor. We are to vote for the peacemakers. We are to vote for the marginalized, the oppressed, the most vulnerable of our society. These are the ones Jesus voted for, those whom every empire had left behind, those whom no millionaire politician will represent. — Shane Claiborne

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

Lord, we know that you will come again in glory to raise the living and the dead. Resurrect us now from the death of comfort, complacency, sloth, and shallowness that we might witness to your love in life and death. Amen. — Shane Claiborne

There is an innocence or purity that we see in renewals and in the Mennonite church and a new an invigorated civil rights movement. — 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

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

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

When we put too much hope in a candidate or a party we set ourselves up for disappointment. When I see a poster with [Barak] Obama's image with the word "hope" under it, something in me cringes - our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, the old hymn goes, all other ground is sinking sand. — 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. — Shane Claiborne

[People] need to find words that can reconnect them with each other. That is the gift of good liturgy, yeah. We're not talking about fluffy stuff. We're talking about real life for people around the world. Our prayers should be said like the daily breath that gives us life. — Shane Claiborne

People are poor not just because of their sins; they are poor because of our sins (and people are rich because of our sins). On the wall of New Jerusalem is a sign that reads, We cannot fully recover until we help the society that made us sick recover. — Shane Claiborne

We don't actually have rich and poor together instead we have a family. What does it mean? If you have resources, you hold them with open hands. The mark of the early church was that they began sharing and it said there were no needy persons among them. They ended poverty as they created this new loving community. — Shane Claiborne

Whenever folks say radical Christianity is "a phase" of youth, I tell them they need to meet our 80-year-old nun or my friend Tony Campolo. — Shane Claiborne

There's something beautiful about that Scripture that says, "Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams" (Acts 2:17). We need each other. There is power when the old and young dream together. — 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

Forget horror icon, Kety Bates is an icon. She's an acting icon. I was raised on so many of her films, everything from Misery to Fried Green Tomatoes to Delores Claiborne, all films that I've watched multiple times and been inspired by. — Matt Bomer

It may very well be that there's a villain and a hero inside each of us, and each day we have a choice of who we want to be. — Shane Claiborne

One of the great dangers in political engagement is misplaced hope. — Shane Claiborne

People who leave Washington do so by way of the box ... ballet or coffin. — Claiborne Pell

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. — 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 Claiborne

For the church as we know it is a tragically dysfunctional family, in which some children are starving while others have food stashed in their closets. Some of us are living on the street while others have empty rooms in our homes. And, of course, there are all sorts of things being done that bring great dishonor and embarrassment to the family name. — Shane Claiborne

Some folks may be really bummed to find that "God bless America" does not appear in the Bible. So often we do things that make sense to us and ask God to bless our actions and come alongside our plans, rather than looking at the things God promises to bless and acting alongside of them. For we know that God's blessing will inevitably follow if we are with the poor, the merciful, the hungry, the persecuted, the peacemakers. But sometimes we'd rather have a God who conforms to our logic than conform our logic to the God whose wisdom is a stumbling block to the world of smart bombs and military intelligence. — Shane Claiborne

Somehow Jesus's reputation has survived all the embarrassing things that Christians have done in his name. — Shane Claiborne

I didn't always have friends so I am careful to take care of them. — Loretta Claiborne

I asked participants who claimed to be "strong followers of Jesus" whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question, I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time wit the poor, and less than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor. — Shane Claiborne

My mother always said that the best way to connect with anybody who was a mother was to find a way to compliment her child. — Julia Claiborne Johnson

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. — Shane Claiborne

May the Lord bless us and keep us from all harm, and may God lead us to eternal life. Amen. — Shane Claiborne

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