I think of the Catholic worker movement and Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and others. Shane Claiborne More Quotes by Shane Claiborne More Quotes From Shane Claiborne The monastic folks have the spirit of being in the world but not of the world, sort of peculiar people who have gone to the desert to live on the margins of the empire. Shane Claiborne desertpeculiarpeople 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 christianmotherfather It is the church's responsibility, the government's responsibility, and the personal responsibility of every one of us to love. Shane Claiborne governmentchurchresponsibility In fact, the Gospel shows us change comes from the bottom rather than the top, from an old rugged cross rather than a gold royal throne. Shane Claiborne royalthronesgold 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 presidentusekings In the Bible, God uses brothel owners, pagan kings, murderers and mercenaries as instruments of good; at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. Shane Claiborne guyusekings The dreams get anchored in aged wisdom not some utopian fantasy. Shane Claiborne utopianfantasydream 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 phasesyearsneeds [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 realprayertalking We've heard from people all around the world, telling us that this is their reality. People need a way to connect the sometimes really hard reality in which they wake up each morning with the movement of the Spirit. Shane Claiborne morningrealitypeople The more recent effort to encourage everyone to pray in common involves so many people. Shane Claiborne effortcommonpeople The problem is that the Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul stuff may feel good, but none of that typical stuff helps when somebody in your neighborhood is murdered. Shane Claiborne typicalfeel-goodsoul 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. Shane Claiborne prayernative-americanbook The more I travel, the more I see how important it is to each population to see that their history of the good and the bad is remembered by others. Shane Claiborne rememberedpopulationimportant There's an understanding of common prayer that I think we're seeing grow, more and more. When I travel, I hear from people who are deeply touched that our common prayer takes time to remember some of the terrible tragedies that have happened around the world. Shane Claiborne prayerpeoplethinking I'm a Tennessee boy. I grew up in East Tennessee most of my life, then came up to Philly to go to college and fell in love with this city, and particularly, my neighborhood on the north side of Philadelphia. Shane Claiborne citiescollegeboys When you look at the Bible, and I read the Bible very seriously, for a lot of my life, I believed the Bible ordained the death penalty, and the Bible seemed to be very clear about that. But the more I look, the more troubled I became because it's not that simple. In the Bible, there's some 30 death-worth crimes, like working on the Sabbath, or disrespecting your parents. Are we that fundamental that we should bring back that death penalty? Shane Claiborne parentsimplelooks I would love to see the Church on the right side of history. Shane Claiborne churchsides I'm excited we can be part of making the death penalty history. Shane Claiborne death-penaltypenaltiesexcited I found that the death penalty - and I'm not a hot-button issue person, you know, I'm not a single issue person - but what I think drew me to the death penalty is because it raises some very deep, fundamental questions like: Is anybody beyond redemption? Shane Claiborne buttonsissuesthinking
