The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical - Softcover

Shane Claiborne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0310266300 ISBN 13: 9780310266303

Publisher: Zondervan, 2006

Synopsis

Many of us find ourselves caught somewhere between unbelieving activists and inactive believers. We can write a check to feed starving children or hold signs in the streets and feel like we've made a difference without ever encountering the faces of the suffering masses. In this book, Shane Claiborne describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love, inviting us into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside each of us and extends into a broken world.

Shane's faith led him to dress the wounds of lepers with Mother Teresa, visit families in Iraq amidst bombings, and dump $10,000 in coins and bills on Wall Street to redistribute wealth. Shane lives out this revolution each day in his local neighborhood, an impoverished community in North Philadelphia, by living among the homeless, helping local kids with homework, and "practicing resurrection" in the forgotten places of our world. Shane's message will comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable . . . but will also invite us into an irresistible revolution. His is a vision for ordinary radicals ready to change the world with little acts of love.

About this title

About the Author

Shane Claiborne is an activist, author of Jesus for President, coauthor of Common Prayer, and is a founder of The Simple Way, a community in inner-city Philadelphia that has helped birth and connect radical faith communities around the world. 

 www.thesimpleway.org

From the Back Cover

Living as an Ordinary Radical

Many of us find ourselves caught somewhere between unbelieving activists and inactive believers. We can write a check to feed starving children or hold signs in the streets and feel like we've made a difference without ever encountering the faces of the suffering masses. In this book, Shane Claiborne describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love, inviting us into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside each of us and extends into a broken world. Shane's faith led him to dress the wounds of lepers with Mother Teresa, visit families in Iraq amidst bombings, and dump $10,000 in coins and bills on Wall Street to redistribute wealth. Shane lives out this revolution each day in his local neighborhood, an impoverished community in North Philadelphia, by living among the homeless, helping local kids with homework, and “practicing resurrection” in the forgotten places of our world.

Shane's message will comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable . . . but will also invite us into an irresistible revolution. His is a vision for ordinary radicals ready to change the world with little acts of love.

Reviews

Starred Review. If there is such a thing as a disarming radical, 30-year-old Claiborne is it. A former Tennessee Methodist and born-again, high school prom king, Claiborne is now a founding member of one of a growing number of radical faith communities. His is called the Simple Way, located in a destitute neighborhood of Philadelphia. It is a house of young believers, some single, some married, who live among the poor and homeless. They call themselves "ordinary radicals" because they attempt to live like Christ and the earliest converts to Christianity, ignoring social status and unencumbered by material comforts. Claiborne's chatty and compelling narrative is magnetic—his stories (from galvanizing a student movement that saved a group of homeless families from eviction to reaching Mother Teresa herself from a dorm phone at 2 a.m.) draw the reader in with humor and intimacy, only to turn the most common ways of practicing religion upside down. He somehow skewers the insulation of suburban living and the hypocrisy of wealthy churches without any self-righteous finger pointing. "The world," he says, "cannot afford the American dream." Claiborne's conviction, personal experience and description of others like him are a clarion call to rethink the meaning of church, conversion and Christianity; no reader will go away unshaken. (Feb.)
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*Starred Review* From dressing the wounds of lepers in Calcutta to living among the homeless in Philadelphia to visiting families in Iraq, social activist Claiborne strives to live an authentic Christian life. In his view, he is a radical in the truest sense of the word, returning to the roots of Christianity by living as Jesus did and doing "small things with great love." A partner-founder of the Philadelphia-based faith community Simple Way, he presents an evangelical Christianity gentler and more inclusive than is usually seen, especially in the mass media. He describes Simple Way as a new culture that relies on radical interdependence and consists of grassroots organizations, intentional communities, and hospitality houses. Although the book isn't an autobiography, in it Claiborne reports much about his life: growing up in the Bible Belt, becoming a Jesus freak, moving to Philadelphia despite his family's misgivings, and helping the homeless there. Then he boldly requested an internship with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. She simply responded, "Come." Besides illuminating his own faith journey, Claiborne is insightful on the huge U.S. cultural and economic divide: the problem isn't that wealthy Christians don't care about the poor, he says, it's that they simply don't know the poor. A moving, often humorous account of a life of faith lived to the fullest. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Irresistible RevolutionCopyright 2006 by The Simple WayRequests for information should be addressed to:Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataClaiborne, Shane, 1975 --The irresistible revolution: living as an ordinary radical / ShaneClaiborne. --- 1st ed.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references.ISBN-10: 0-310-26630-0ISBN-13: 978-0-310-26630-31. Claiborne, Shane, 1975 -- 2. Simple Way (Religious community:Philadelphia, Pa.) --- Biography. 3. Christian biography --- United States.4. Christian life --- United States. 5. Church and the world. I. Title.BR1725.C472A3 2006277'.3'083092 dc222005029961All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HolyBible, Today's New International VersionTM. Copyright 2001 by InternationalBible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as aresource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply anendorsement on the part of Zondervan, nor do we vouch for their content forthe life of this book.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means --- electronic,mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other --- except for brief quotationsin printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.Interior design by Michelle EspinozaPrinted in the United States of AmericaIt's what always happens to the saints and prophets who are dangerous: we bronze them, we drain themof their passion and life and trap them in stained-glass windows and icons, confining them safely in memories of the past. St. Francis becomes a birdbath, Malcolm Xis put on a stamp, and Martin Luther King gets a holiday.And Jesus gets commercialized, whether it's theplastic night-lights or the golden crucifixes. (And nowthere is a bobbing-head 'Buddy Jesus' for your car andthe 'Jesus is my homeboy' T-shirt.) It becomes hardto know who Jesus really is, much less to imagine thatJesus ever laughed, cried, or had poop that smelled.I can remember when Christianitywas still safe, comfortable, trendy. I grew up in the Bible Belt, in EastTennessee, where there's a church building on nearlyevery corner. I can't remember meeting anyone Jewishor Muslim, and I distinctly remember being dissuadedfrom dating a Catholic girl because she 'prayed toMary.' I attended two or three different youth groups,whichever had the best entertainment and drew thelargest crowd. Church was a place where there werecute girls, free junk food, and cheap snowboardingtrips. I discovered a Christianitythat entertained me with quirky songs and velcro walls.1In middle school, I had a sincere 'conversion'experience. We took a trip to a large Christian festivalwith bands, speakers, and late-night pranks. One nighta short, bald preacherman named Duffy Robbins gavean invitation to 'accept Jesus,' and nearly our wholeyouth group went forward (a new concept for mostof us), crying and snotting, hugging peoplewe didn't know. I was born again. The next year, we went to thatsame festival, and most of us went forward again (itwas so good the first time) and got born again, again.In fact, we looked forward to it every year. I must havegotten born again six or eight times, and it was greatevery time. (I highly recommend it.)But then you start to think there must be more toChristianity, more than just laying your life and sins atthe foot of the cross. I came to realize that preachers were telling me to lay my life at the foot of the cross and weren't giving me anything to pick up. A lot of us were hearing 'don't smoke, don't drink, don't sleeparound' and naturally started asking, 'Okay, well, thatwas pretty much my life, so what do I do now?' Wherewere the do's? And nobody seemed to have much tooffer us. Handing out tracts at the mall just didn't seemlike the fullness of Christian discipleship, not to mentionit just wasn't as fun as making out at the movies.I was just another believer. I believed all the rightstuff --- that Jesus is the Son of God, died and rose again. Ihad become a 'believer,' but I had no idea what it means to be a follower. Peoplehad taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live.So as we do in our culture, I thought perhaps Ineeded to buy more stuff, Christian stuff. Luckily, Ifound an entire Christian industrial complex ready tohelp with Christian music, bumper stickers, T-shirts,books, and even candy ('Testamints' . . . dead serious .. . mints with a Bible verse attached, candy with aChristian aftertaste). They had lists of bands and theChristian alternatives to them, so I got rid of all my oldCDs. (And I must confess, I was a bit disappointed bythe Christian counterfeit. Who could compare to Guns N' Roses and Vanilla Ice?)

Edition details

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0310266300
• ISBN 13: 9780310266303
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368