“It’ll be a long time before we fight a war over vegetable oil!” So says Shane Claiborne, extolling the virtues of alternative energy sources. This dig at American foreign policy came during a recent lecture at Gaithersburg Presbyterian Church, located outside of Washington, DC. The title of Claiborne’s talk was “My Conversion to the Simple Way,” playing on the austerity of his lifestyle and the erstwhile name of the monastic community he founded.
Claiborne is a 35 year-old Christian author and activist who lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Eastern University, where he studied under Tony Campolo, he started a monastic community called the Simple Way. Claiborne rose to prominence several years ago with the publication of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. Since then, he has been a fixture of the Christian lecture circuit and has cultivated a substantial following among young evangelicals.
In his remarks, Claiborne focused on the application of Christian beliefs to everyday life. Contrasting belief and action, he explained, “I grew up with a Christianity that was obsessed with what you believe…I think that what we believe is incredibly important, but the true test of what believe is how we live it out.”
The bulk of Claiborne’s lecture was spent addressing six issues which he believes Christians must think critically about. Each has profound implications for how the church interacts with society and, as such, requires thoughtful reflection. Once Christians address these issues and begin to live out their faith commitments, Claiborne believes they will become the “holy counterculture” that God intends for it to be.
The first, and in many respects most important, issue concerns Christians’ response to suffering. Whereas it is a natural human reaction to be repelled by suffering, Christians are to be drawn to it; Christians have the responsibility to recognize and respond to the needs of others. It is this impulse, according to Claiborne, that draws us into engagement in our community. This approach to suffering, a hallmark of the Christian life, sets the context for the other issues Claiborne discussed in his talk.
Claiborne’s second issue is what he termed the “shared economics” of Christianity. Invoking the early church, he said that, “To love our neighbor as ourself [sic] is to give of what we have.” As an example of what this looks like in application, Claiborne pointed to the health care pool he is a part of. Along with 20,000 others, Claiborne contributes to a fund that covers the health care needs of the other members. Over the past several years the pool has grown in number and capacity, to the point that it now covers nearly $15 million in expenses annually. As effective as this arrangement is, Claiborne was quick to add that health care reform is still necessary because “45 million” people are still without health insurance. Interestingly, the 20,000 individuals in Claiborne’s pool whose health expenses are so effectively met are included in the “45 million uninsured” statistic thrown around by many health care reform advocates.
The third issue, “radical hospitality and reconciliation,” is something Claiborne sees as a recurring theme in church history. By this perspective, the story of the church is one of constantly challenging the walls and borders that stand in the way of unity. To illustrate this point, he told the story of the group of Christians that lives along the U.S.-Mexico border and meets at the border wall to worship and have fellowship with the Mexicans that gather there.
Related to the church’s need to be hospitable is Claiborne’s fourth issue, the need to reconsider questions of marriage and family. The church, Claiborne argued, has in recent times treated marriage as a norm and, in so doing, has contributed to an environment that excludes the unmarried. To remedy this, singleness must be affirmed as a potential gift to the church. “The church has to be about creating communities where people can love and be loved,” he said. Only when this is accomplished will the church be truly inclusive. Further, until this is done, the church will be unable to confront issues that affect “sexual minorities” and other marginalized groups.
Shifting to the environment, Claiborne argued that Christians must take seriously their responsibility to care for the environment. He cited the “environmental racism” in Camden, New Jersey (where harmful materials have been deposited in and around poor, mostly African-American, communities) as the type of injustice that the church must respond to. Claiborne also believes that fulfilling the responsibility to care for the environment is in the best interest of the nation because it involves shifting from dependence on oil to the use of alternative, renewal, and often domestic energy sources. Hence his comment that, “It’ll be a long time before we fight a war over vegetable oil!”
The final point Claiborne raised dealt with the scriptural imperative to be “peace makers.” Himself a pacifist, he declared: “Nonviolence is at the core of the cross and who Jesus is.” Claiborne further emphasized: “As Christians we should be some of the hardest people to convince that violence is necessary.” Drawing a connection between government policies and domestic ills, Claiborne contended that violence in American cities is the result of our government’s use of violence abroad. Inner city youth, he maintained, “learn” violence from what they see American armed forces doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Claiborne also made a point of expressing his opposition to nuclear weapons. Reacting to the number of nuclear warheads possessed by the US, he said, “My God, that’s gotta break Jesus’ heart.” In this connection, he plugged the Two Futures Project, a Christian groups that seeks “to abolish all nuclear weapons.” (For more IRD commentary on the Two Futures Project, see here and here.)
Over the past several years, Claiborne has become a prominent spokesman in the evangelical and wider Christian world. His simple lifestyle, along with and engaging and quirky personality, has made him a sought after speaker for churches and Christian groups on college campuses. However, his critiques of capitalism and US foreign policy have garnered criticism from other Christian leaders. Despite controversy over his views, one thing is truth. Shane Claiborne is riding the wave of popularity that other progressive evangelicals have enjoyed since the election of President Obama.
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