Our churches should attract the people Jesus attracted and frustrate the people Jesus frustrated. Shane Claiborne More Quotes by Shane Claiborne More Quotes From Shane Claiborne To be nonpartisan doesn't mean we're nonpolitical. Shane Claiborne mean 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. Shane Claiborne executionchristianamerica I think we've misinterpreted some of the scriptures to justify the death penalty. So whereas a lot of folks in America feel like we can do far better justice - it's more expensive to do the death penalty than the alternatives - there's so many reasons that people come to the conclusion to abolish the death penalty. Shane Claiborne americapeoplethinking It's impossible to separate our contemporary practice of the death penalty from our history around race and slavery, and specifically, lynching. Where lynchings were happening 100 years ago is where executions are happening today. And that's a haunting and eerie thing. Shane Claiborne lynchingraceyears When we really began executions rather than lynchings, black folks were 22% of our population in 1950, for instance, but they were 75% of the executions. Now, African-Americans are 13% of the population, but they're still almost half of death row, and over a third of the executions. 34% of the executions are black folks. So, like, I mean, things like the race of the victim is one of the biggest determinants of who gets executed. Shane Claiborne lynchingracemean I think a lot of people view the death penalty as a debate class or something. The cost and what's at stake is really, really a big deal. Shane Claiborne viewsclassthinking The more you look at the death penalty, that's where you see that we're actually not killing the worst of the worst. We're killing the poorest of the poor. Where actually one of the biggest determinants of who gets executed is how many resources they have to defend themselves. Shane Claiborne death-penaltykillinglooks There are some - called 'death fatigue' - people who just grow so tired of death, so they don't want to keep perpetuating death and creating more victims and more anger and more pain. They want to heal from that, and I think that's exactly what God wants to do. And, interestingly enough, that's part of what God's original law was doing with the 'eye for an eye' thing. It was actually to limit the patterns of retaliation and then to begin to heal from that. Shane Claiborne tiredpaineye I think of the Catholic worker movement and Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and others. Shane Claiborne catholicmovementthinking 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 movementchurchrights 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 seeingtreasure The future of the church is also about looking back and looking at where we see these wonderful renewals and what we can learn from the early church. I think it is a really exciting time where Phyllis Tickle said every few hundred years the church needs a rummage sale where we can get rid of some of the clutter. Shane Claiborne churchyearsthinking 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. Shane Claiborne christiandreambelieve The Eucharist is a symbol of that as you have bread, the staple food of the poor, and wine, a luxury of the rich, which are brought together at the table. Shane Claiborne luxurywinetogether I moved to Philadelphia to go to school at Eastern partly because I wanted to study the Bible and I also went to study sociology. I like how Karl Barth said we have to read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other so that our faith doesn't just become a ticket into heaven and a license to ignore the world around us. Shane Claiborne philadelphiahandsschool There is one big misunderstanding of the monastics leaving society. Shane Claiborne misunderstandingleavingbigs 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 churchtablestogether There is extreme poverty in Appalachia, where I was, and increasingly poverty is not just an urban thing. Shane Claiborne appalachiaurbanpoverty I think they [ monastic folks ] were going to the desert to build a new society and in a sense to build a new world, a new culture together where it was easier to be good and holy. Shane Claiborne togetherculturethinking We have been mentored from the very beginning by Catholic folks who are invigorating the best of the monastic spirit. Shane Claiborne folkscatholicspirit
