It has been a while since I blogged about the book Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. Hindsight has helped me realize how formative that book was for me. It changed my thinking in a lot of ways. On Sunday night CNN ran a feature on Claiborne’s book tour for his latest book, Jesus for President. Normally a guy with a “radical” message, and someone who CNN calls a “misfit,” would not be recognized a leader of any type of change within Christianity. That is not the case with Shane. His message has been welcomed with open arms by young Christians.
I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog talking about independent politics, the issues of Christianity being polarized to one party, and many topics that within that arena. I’m sure many of you just think I’m being liberal or that I’m one of very few who thinks this way. I invite you read the article on CNN and watch this video by CNN too.
Then I invite you to seek out someone younger than you that cares about their faith in Christ and cares about the United States political process. I might not be the only one…
He definitely doesn’t come across “radical” or as a “misfit” in person. He is possibly one of the most chill, cool guys I’ve met in a long time — Still not 100% sure what I think about his tour stop he had the other night in my town though…
Thanks for the links.
can you expand on that evan?
alright-
well, i have yet to read his book and i will def. have to check it out. but reading the article and watching the package that on it…i get the idea and i think it’s great- a good approach that defies tradtion, if you will.
but i just have to put this out there…i don’t like the title of the book. while i know the book doesn’t promote this- the first impression i get is ….jesus, the zealot’s answer to defeating the romans!
i hope our generation remembers that His kingdom is not of this world, but in the hearts of those who believe….
i know, random commentary off the wall, but that was my first impression and i’m glad that he’s raising the point that as young people and a christian we don’t have to follow in the political footsteps of our families…awesome
i think what i loved about what he said in the video was his emphasis on something deeper. he mentioned not being left or right, but being for Jesus. Naive or whatever, I think his rap for being liberal is unjust.
His philosophy on life is “radical” to society because it is so foreign to most. The second half of his presentation was geared towards pledging allegiance to God and living for love not war. The way that he did this made me uncomfortable because it felt cultish but the idea made sense. We are disciples of Christ - why wouldn’t we try and love everyone instead of creating problems in the world, arguing, hurting others.
Ash you are right in how he comes across — they didn’t explicitly call for who we should vote for but they described that we should in theory vote for Jesus as president and pick who was closest to Him between the two candidates. That was how he came across to me during his tour stop, another reason why I was uncomfortable during it.
The funny thing is that if you didn’t know who he was you’d think he was a pot-smoking, dread-wearing, hippy. He is definitely a pacifist but looking at him you wouldn’t expect a “radical misfit” like everyone calls him.