Maybe the most impressive thing Shane does is go to Iraq and live with the families as the country is about to be bombed. As you might guess he is a pacifist. It's not that Shane hates the military in fact he shares several stories about how convicted soldiers found a way to live the kingdom within the military. But he indisputably hates war or perhaps I would do him more justice if I said he loves peace.
Shane operates with a hermeneutic that says "love your enemies" is a literal love your enemies, and "blessed are the peacemakers" is a literal blessed are the peacemakers. And "take up your cross and follow me" is not about suffering through your white collar job for the chance to share Jesus, it is stand with the oppressed and in the process be ready to die for it.
Here are my struggles. I like a lot of people feel like I would like to whole heartedly embrace pacifism, but I bet like a lot of people draw the line somewhere along these lines. If I were a single guy, like Shane, Jesus, and Paul, I might be more o.k. with going and dying with the oppressed, but the truth is that I'm not and when I think about dying for Jesus I think about the agony that would put my wife and perhaps someday, child through. Maybe this is another chance for me to offer an excuse, if so you can pray for me. And unlike Shane if someone broke into my house I would hit them in the legs with a baseball bat to protect my wife and child.
Here is another thing that puzzles me about the faith. I struggle with a pair of motifs that seem to run through this faith we call Christianity. On the one hand there is the above motif that recognizes all the ugliness in the world and says go stand with the poor and oppressed and know that if it cost you everything, the God of the resurrection will vindicate you. On the other hand we have what I like to refer to as the Kyle Lake motif. It is the motif that says love God, embrace beauty and live life to the fullest. It recognizes that there is so much that is beautiful about life and challenges you to live every minute of it to the fullest.
Now let me anticipate a response from Shane. He has never seen so much beauty, lived so fully, and loved God so deeply as he has in Calcutta, Iraq, and on the streets of Philadelphia. I'm not denying that he is right. But I love my son, I love mountain biking, I find God in the beauty of scenic things like the Rockies, and I most certainly find God in the serene lakes in Northern Wisconsin on a beautiful evening.
All these things are far removed both fiscally and geographically from the world of Shane. So if I want to take my following Jesus as seriously as Shane, what do i do with this motif?
Grace for now.
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8 comments:
One of the problems I have with Shane Claiborne -- or more precisely, those who have read him and champion his way life -- is that the gospel is reduced to living in intentional communities and doing all the stuff he does. One can only most faithfully live in the way of Christ if they embrace all the same things that Shane does. I doubt, of course, that Shane says this (I should probably read the book). However, even within Scripture we see a diversity of life-styles (for lack of a better term), and all of them are attempting to live in God's mission in the world. James seems to take up his residence in Jerusalem, leading that early Jewish church and being more traditional (if we may). Paul of course is the rogue missionary, launching from port to port, living radically. Peter goes out and comes back. Others seem somewhat secure financially (church in Acts, though sharing with each other, someone had to be doing something to make the dough). This is not to denigrate what Shane does, but it is to encourage you, Josh (and others), that faithful discipleship, the kind that embraces and embodies Christ's way of life, is needed not only in Iraq and Calcutta, were human suffering is most apparent, but in Waco, in Wisconsin, on the Mountain Bike Trail, in the bars, everywhere. The question is how do we most faithfully do that where we are. That is not an easy question to answer, and one reason why the witness of Shane Claiborne is so necessary, and yet so alluring.
It strikes me that its easier to say, "I'm living radically as a revolutionary" when in the midst of an intentional community. Again, I'm proud of those people that embrace that way of life. But I think we need to be very clear that while it might be difficult to enter that way of life, once there its much easier to see how it is faithfully following Jesus' way of life. The more difficult task, and the one I applaud you for trying to figure out, is how to live faithfully elsewhere. Conversations like that are also necessary, and I hope that people who read Claiborne's stuff don't think that the only way for them to faithfully follow Jesus Christ is exactly copy Shane's example.
Erik,
thanks for the encouragement. I have tried to keep something like what you articulate in the back of my mind when I read texts like Claiborne's, but I guess I just think I've heard this reply in rebuttal to those like Claiborne all too often. Not that what you say isn't right, but I do think we quickly look for this as an excuse. Let's be honest, what percentage of the church has found their call outside of a ministry setting like Shane's? Most I would say.
Like I said, I agree with you, but I think too many of us hope that we aren't called to live the type of life Shane does.
I think you would really appreciate his voice. Not once in the entire book did I hear him suggest that anyone or any organization was doing it wrong. In fact he is emphatic in suggesting that they are not trying to start a new church or even sell a type of community.
You should read the book, I think you would enjoy it. And it is in some sense sociological.
thanks for the thoughts.
Josh,
I think you are probably right that I would enjoy the book. I'm probably reacting to the many people I have met who are enthralled by the idea of intentional community, but have little substantive theology as the basis for their interest in it. They sound more like idealogical communists, than they do followers of Jesus Christ, making Jesus into some type of communist guru.
Secondly, and I know you weren't saying this, I think using what I said as an excuse is actually missing the point. The call to follow Jesus Christ in any situation is a terribly hard one. To use it as an excuse to live comfortably within the confines of some societal setting misses the counter-cultural calling of Jesus Christ. Shane makes this very apparent, but I suggest that so do many others who do not live in intentional communities and walk the way of simplicity that Shane describes. Many of the high school students I'll be leading, for example, are amazing at building relationships across high school dividing lines, and I suggest that this is just as counter-cultural, and sometimes as hard, as certain things that Shane does.
I guess my main point is this: I don't see in the gospel any sense where the calling is dependent upon the circumstance. Rather, the calling is dependent only upon the One who calls, and Jesus consistently calls those from every walk of life to come and follow. And, I also don't see some homogenous setting into which he sends them as his witnesses. The only thing that is consistent is the difficulty of the way to which he calls them. Shane makes this very explicit, and that is probably his greatest contribution to the church that is very often too comfortable in its life.
Erik,
you posted
"I'm probably reacting to the many people I have met who are enthralled by the idea of intentional community, but have little substantive theology as the basis for their interest in it. They sound more like idealogical communists, than they do followers of Jesus Christ, making Jesus into some type of communist guru."
my response is that I'm reacting to the many people I have met who are enthralled by substantive theology, but have little intentional community as the basis for their interest in it.
Shane anticipates the communist type you talk about. He writes,
"Just as 'believers' are a deima dozen in the church, so are 'activists' in social justice circles nowadays. But lovers are hard to come by...We are trying to raise up an army not simply of street activists but of lovers--a community of people who have fallen desperately in love with God and with suffering people, and who allow those relationships to disturb and transform them." (295-96).
From what I read though, as usual I don't think we are very far from being on the same page on this one.
thanks for caring
Exactly Josh. We are saying the same thing, from different sides of the coin. I come at it from the theological side, hoping to encourage people to join in with their lives because of what is true in Jesus Christ, so my emphasis is probably on the theology. You are probably coming at it from the side that is encouraging people to join in with their lives, and then work out the theology. Its why if we ever did a church plant together (or any ministry) we'd dominate together. :-)
Erik, I just had a chance to read what you wrote in response to me a few days ago. I do hope you didn’t feel as though I was attacking or accusing you of anything. I think I was more defining the other side of the coin. There is a reality that exists in experience and though the reality of God surpasses that in everyway it seems to me that for the person who first sees the light of the gospel through the selfless act of another they will not separate the person who provides the action from the one who gives them true freedom. Is it important for the one who was hit by the light of the good news to see that the person who came beside them is not Christ, certainly. That is secondary to them having someone who is willing to suffer beside them or come to them in their hour of need.
Josh, I applaud you in the fact that you point out that Christ followers are all to often enticed by those who say, “you have other responsibilities” and then essentially hide behind those responsibilities when in fact the question is perhaps not should I go to my neighbor in Iraq but rather how should I go to my neighbor given my God appointed responsibilities.
One other thing. Erik, Can I nit-pick? I am perhaps being overly critical here but I do hope you see that this comment is truly offered in love. You say that you and Josh, “would dominate together”. (in ministry) I do think that you would both bring considerable gifts to ministry but my prayer for the two of you if you did ministry together would be that you would submit together in ministry to the call of God. I would pray this so that the paradoxical power of the cross would be revealed in you as ministers of the Gospel Jesus Christ as it is in Paul in 2 Cor. 12:1-10 when he boasts in weakness.
-Tom
O I forgot. Josh, Sarah said to tell your wife thanks for the milk shade. She uses it all the time. Just so you know we spell my daughters name Kirsten, so I felt like totally disconnected from the bloody little boy and will therefore keep buying my garments from foreign sweat shops. Besides that kid bleeding all over my 5 dollar wal-mart t-shirt puts food on his table that he would not otherwise have, so I am totally of the hook with God. Hanity told me that personally, or was it Limbaugh?
-Tom
Tom --
Thanks for the thoughts. I agree with what you say. People are very powerful, and Paul often recognizes people in his letters, then gives thanks to God for them in the way that they show the love of Christ in their lives for him (read Philippians for instance). So, I don't mean to say that people don't matter. The church (and people) need to fulfill their vocation as witnesses, and it is through these people that the gospel is proclaimed. I'm just wanting to make sure that the self-witness of Christ in the Holy Spirit is maintained as the efficacious witness for faith. The biggest reason is because of the liberating freedom that comes with such awareness. I am called to live in the way of Christ, but I am not responsible for the other person "getting saved" or "believing like I do." That is the role of the Holy Spirit. So, I think we're probably very close on this one.
On the dominate issue: probably would have been more clear had we been talking over a pint. I was saying it very tongue in cheek, which I think Josh probably picked up on. We used to joke when we were RA's together about how dominant we were, and that was what I was alluding to. Maybe way too subtle so as to be completely missed, and thus sounded really arrogant. Trust me, if there's one thing I've learned this last year is that God's calling is so life-altering. You never would have convinced me in a million years I'd be a high school youth pastor in two weeks.
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