Quotes from work
The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution

Shane Claiborne

The Irresistible Revolution is a book by Shane Claiborne published in 2006. This work, subtitled "Living as an Ordinary Radical", describes and advocates what the author argues to be a truly Christian lifestyle. The author draws on his personal experience, including time spent in Calcutta, India with Mother Teresa, a trip with a Christian Peacemaker Team to Iraq during the 2003 US-led bombing campaign, and life in a communal house, The Simple Way, in Philadelphia, to describe the way he feels Christians ought to be living, the ways in which many currently are not, and the ways in which many are beginning to do so, the Revolution referenced in the title. The lifestyle Claiborne proposes rejects materialism and nationalism and emphasizes living in loving and close community with Christians and non-Christian, a voluntary redistribution of wealth along the lines of Early Christianity, and socially and environmentally conscious consumer choices, all based on love for God and love for all humans.

“Dance until they kill you, and then we'll dance some more.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“So if the world hates us, we take courage that it hated Jesus first. If you're wondering whether you'll be safe, just look at what they did to Jesus and those who followed him. There are safer ways to live than by being a Christian.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, 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.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)
Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“There are some things to die for but none to kill for.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)
Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“The more I get to know Jesus, the more trouble he seems to get me into”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)
Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“Biological family is too small of a vision. Patriotism is far too myopic. A love for our own relatives and a love for the people of our own country are not bad things, but our love does not stop at the border.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

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

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“I'm just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“Mother Theresa always said, "Calcuttas are everywhere if only we have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta.””

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)
Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn't fit together. As I read Scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“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.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)

“I remember hearing about an old comic strip back in the days of St. Ed's. Two guys are talking to each other, and one of them says he has a question for God. He wants to ask why God allows all of this poverty and war and suffering to exist in the world. And his friend says, "Well, why don't you ask?" The fellow shakes his head and says he's scared. When his friend asks why, he mutters, "I'm scared God will ask me the same question."”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 65

“I must say that I am still passionately pro-life, I just have a much more holistic sense of what it means to be for life, knowing that life does not just begin at conception and end at birth, and that if I am going to discourage abortion, I had better be ready to adopt some babies and care for some mothers.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 44

“I guess God can use the mafia, but I would like God to use the church.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 63

“We were not interested in a Christianity that offered these families only mansions and streets of golds in heaven when all they wanted was a bed for their kids now. And many Christians had an extra one.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 64

“We shall do even greater things because the love that lived in the radical Christ now lives within millions of ordinary radicals all over the planet.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 85

“Perhaps the devil is just as likely to wear a three-piece suit as to have horns and a pitchfork. And perhaps the angels look more like the bums in the alley than like feathered white babies.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 50

“Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, "You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet."”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 65

““I asked participants who claimed to be "strong followers of Jesus" whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question, I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)

“Only Jesus would be crazy enough to suggest that if you want to become the greatest, you should become the least. Only Jesus would declare God's blessing on the po0r rather than on the rich and would insist that it's not enough to just love your friends. I just began to wonder if anybody still believed Jesus meant those things he said.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)

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