Shane Claiborne Quotes - Page 3

When we realize that we are both wretched and beautiful, we are freed up to see others the same way.

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.

Faith is not accepting the world as it is but insisting on building the world God wants.

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

Rather than finding the devil "out there," we battle the devil within us. The revolution starts inside each of us.

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."

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

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.

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?

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.

Charity is merely returning what we have stolen.

If the people of God were to transform the world through fascination, these amazing teachings had to work at the center of these peculiar people. Then we can look into the eyes of a centurion and see not a beast but a child of God, and then walk with that child a couple of miles. Look into the eys of tax collectors as they sue you in court; see their poverty and give them your coat. Look in to the eys of the ones who are hardest for you to like, and see the One you love. For God loves good and bad people.

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.

There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of.

We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy, too. But I guess that's why God invented highlighers, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.

My goal is to speak the truth in love. There are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth.

...I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.

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.

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

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.

One by one, these disciples would infect the nations with grace. It wasn't a call to take the sword or the throne and force the world to bow. Rather, they were to live the contagious love of God, to woo the nations into a new future.

We can tell the world that there is life after death, but the world really seems to be wondering if there is life before death.

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.

To refer to the Church as a building is to call people 2 x 4's.

The true atheist is the one who refuses to see God's image in the face of their neighbour.