Shane Claiborne's Christianity
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Shane Claiborne is changing our understanding of Christian discipleship.In a gentle yet relentless sort of way, his writing and speaking are calling Christians to account for the way we go about following Jesus. If you don't know what I'm talking about, pick up a copy of Shane's Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. Part memoir and part call to action, this book gives an overview of Shane and his vision for discipleship.
Shane came to Duke to speak a couple of weeks ago, and his visit prompted me to pen a column about him in the current issue of the United Methodist Reporter. As I point out in the article, when you try to tell someone about Shane's message, it all sounds like Sunday School 101: love the poor, don't give in to violence, share your possessions, go out and make disciples, faith in Jesus means acting in addition to believing.
But of course, with Shane it goes much deeper than Sunday school. As he points out in his warm and funny way, most of us fall way short of what Jesus would have us do. We get so caught up in our lives and so shaped by the culture that our Christianity ends up pretty superficial. Shane's message is that it doesn't have to be that way; we really can live gospel-formed lives if we are willing to take the Jesus we find in the Bible seriously.
I think Shane's message has a special relevance for folks like me who are part of large denominational church bodies. We tend to look for 'macro' fixes to our problems - the kind you get by passing legislation at General Conference. Shane's tack is very much a 'micro' approach to discipleship. You change the church by changing individual lives. You engage in your own neighborhood, and you love your neighbors. In Irresistible Revolution, Shane describes describes faithful Christians as "people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about." That sounds simple, but it is not the pattern of discipleship we practice most of the time.
If you haven't read Shane, pick up a copy of one of his books. But be prepared for him to shake you down to the foundations.
[For those who are interested, here's a link to The Simple Way in Philadelphia, the intentional community that Shane helped to found and where he currently lives.]
Labels: Generation X, New Monasticism, Shane Claiborne
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 3:55 PM
11 Comments:
of course - i have to ask: is he gen X? he must be...
i'm glad to learn of this. just one of the reasons i continue to read your blog. i linked to you in my last gen x roundup by the way - the superhero post.
Yep. I should have mentioned that in the post. Shane was born in 1975.
I remember when Shane came and joined Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrowe and some other intentional communities to speak about the "New Monastic" movement.
It was an inspiring day in Dr. Hall's class. Then when I picked up his book about a year ago it shook my foundation and spoke to that passion that laid inside me.
It is a wonderful read and so is his book "Jesus For President" (although there is some overlap between it and "Irresistible Revolution"). He is very inspirational and thank you for writing about him and help pass along his message to our denomination which doesn't always read those "theologians" (which I consider Shane) outside our normal circles.
For a prophet and activist--the traditional words we use for folks who do what Shane does, I have found him remarkably personal, gracious and thoughtful. I think Irresistible Revolution is the first book I would want college students to read about Christianity.
Andy Rowell
Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) Student
Duke Divinity School
Durham, North Carolina
Blog: Church Leadership Conversations
Shane's message may be an important one, but the fact that he is involved in 'community' churches is a bit of a problem for me. Unlike mainline denominations, these community churches lack the resources to support large-scale mission activity abroad. They also lack the historical foundation of tradition (liturgical), doctrines, and so forth. They lack a 39 Articles that you find in Anglicanism or Book of Concord, which you find in Lutheranism. You can never be sure where they stand on things.
For generations X and Y, religion is a very personal thing. Nobody ever makes a wrong decision when it comes to their faith journey. These people distrust the traditional churches and traditional worship. They prefer modern, poorly written hymns that lack a scriptural base. They prefer happy clappy forms of worship and sermons that have no meat to them. That's why 'community' churches appeal to these people. That's why you hear of their skepticism of "organized religion".
I'm not sure Dave is responding much to Shane. I was sure his first paragraph was tongue-in-cheek but paragraph two makes me wonder.
On large denominations: maybe our denominational policies should create more open space ("open hearts, etc.") for communities and ministries like Shane's to influence our own. I don't know.
While I, too, am impressed by the level of commitment that Shane and the so-called New Monastics model, I have begun to question their vision of life as it relates to our mission. I know it's all the rage to question missional effectiveness (though cf. your post on numbers), but there is something to the numbers.
As you suggested in your previous post ("Crunching the Numbers"), I suggest we look to the one Scriptural story we have of the Church's expansion: the Acts of the Apostles. Acts would pose two challenges to Shane's New Monasticism. First, numbers are important in Acts. Not so with the NM's. In fact, they seem obsessed with being anti-numbers, or at least very small. Again, there are those (some there in Durham) who glorify unfruitful ministry.
Second, the NM's are into the "abandoned places of empire." Again, not the missional method of Acts. The earliest messengers of Christ went into the populated areas. Why? Could it be that they actually dared to make a big impression? Entire cities responded to the preaching of the gospel.
Shane is challenging indeed but the New Monastic movement have yet to persuade me to sell all and give to the poor.
Thank you for this post, Andrew. The more word gets out in UM circles about Shane and his books and ministry the more likely what he and others in the New Monasticism are doing can seep into the mainline denomination we "know and love."
I work with college students at a UM college and read Irresistible Revolution with a group of them last semester. They had a much stronger reaction (positively) than I thought that they would! I knew that it connected with me, but I wasn't as sure that they would be so willing to connect with the "simplicity" part of his message as much as the justice and mission part. I think that Shane's message reminds them of the cost of discipleship in today's context.
What, making disciples for the transformation of the world happens out in the world, not in a committee meeting? Heresy!
In the book 12 Marks of a New Monasticism, there are many examples of people trying to live closer to one another as a way of embodying the Body of Christ in their daily lives together. My questions is where do itinerant United Methodist clergy fit into the idea of intentional Christian community life?
What I find remarkable is that the UMC has produced two former UM's who are radically different, yet exceptionally influential younger Christian leaders: Craig Groeschel of lifechurch.tv and Shane Claiborne of the new monasticism movement. They are about 8 years apart in age, though both are Gen-Xer's by birth year measures. And they seem to be paradigmatic of the variety of Gen-X religious experience and expression. Might there be some Groeschel and some Claiborne co-existing in many of us Gen-Xers, walking angsty paradoxes that many of us are?
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