Shane Claiborne's Christianity

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.]

More on the New Monastics

Since my post on New Monasticism a couple of weeks ago, several of you have e-mailed me with the link to the recent NPR interview with Shane Claiborne. I'm listening to it as I type this post, and it is very good.

Here's the link in case you'd like to listen. It's almost an hour long, and worth every minute!

I've also had a couple of friends here in Durham gently prodding me to read Irresistible Revolution, so it is now officially on my summer reading list.

New Monasticism and living intentionally

My closest connection to an "intentional Christian community" has been with Subiaco Abbey, a Benedictine monastery nestled in the Arkansas River Valley. I have stayed there twice and find myself very attracted tothe contemplative aspects of the monastic lifestyle.

There are lots of Protestant intentional communities, of course. One here in Durham is called Rutba House, and I have visited there and shared a meal with the folks who live there. My understanding of Rutba House is that it is the leading community in the "New Monasticism" movement that is growing in cities around the country and is largely made up of Gen X and Millennial aged Christians who are seeking to reclaim Christian identity in an increasingly fragmented world.

Whether Catholic or Protestant, I admire intentional communities largely because they seem able to integrate their discipleship into the entirety of their lives in a way that I find extremely difficult to do in my own life. And they seem to have a very clear understanding of what Christian identity means in its totality (that is, it is something who defines who you are and how you live down to your bones, rather than an occasional label you claim). I recognize that such a commitment can only come about in community; it just isn't sustainable on one's own. It remains beyond my reach at this point in my life, and yet it is something that I yearn for very much.

The UM Reporter recently published a story on Shane Claiborne, who is probably the most well-known leader of New Monasticism. I have not read his book, Irresistible Revolution, but friends here who have say it is remarkable. Shane is a part of the Simple Way community in Philadelphia rather than Rutba House. I don't know what, if any, official connection exists between the two. But they are clearly expressions of the same Spirit-led movement. And I think it is going to be an extremely important one of the course of this generation's life, as we continue to see the church redefined in relation to the culture.