110+ Shane Claiborne Quotes On Education, Religion And Hell

Shane Claiborne is an American author, activist, and public theologian. He is best known for his work in social justice, peacebuilding, and Christian spirituality. He is the founder of The Simple Way, a faith community in inner-city Philadelphia, and is the author of several books, including The Irresistible Revolution and Executing Grace. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Shane Claiborne on education, leadership, religion.

Top 10 Shane Claiborne Quotes

1. The Christian icon is not the Stars and Stripes but a cross-flag, and its emblem is not a donkey, an elephant, or an eagle, but a slaughtered lamb.
2. Perhaps there is no more dangerous place for a Christian to be than in safety and comfort, detached from the suffering of others.
3. How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?
4. When we ask God to move a mountain, God may give us a shovel.
5. It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream and struggle.
6. Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful.
7. If we believe terrorists are past redemption, we should just rip up like 1/2 the New Testament because it was written by one.
8. Recognizing that something is wrong is the first step toward changing the world.
9. It's hard to hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit amid the noise of Christendom.
10. A pastor friend of mine said, "Our problem is that we no longer have martyrs. We only have celebrities.

Shane Claiborne Short Quotes

• Discontentment is a gift. It's the stuff that changes the world.
• The church is like Noah's ark. It stinks, but if you get out of it, you'll drown.
• Faith is being idealistic, because we have made an idol out of the status quo.
• God doesn't want to change the world without you.
• Believe in miracles. And live in a way that might necessitate one.
• There are people who are dangerous, and evil is real.
• I would love to see the Church on the right side of history.
• There is nothing more sickening than talking about poverty over a fancy dinner.
• I'm excited we can be part of making the death penalty history.
• The dreams get anchored in aged wisdom not some utopian fantasy.

Shane Claiborne Quotes About Love

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

We might hope to change the world through better, bigger programs to stop global warming, but global warming will not end unless people become less greedy and less wasteful, gaining a fresh vision of what it means to love our global neighbor. — Shane Claiborne

...I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for. — Shane Claiborne

As an American, and especially as a Christian, I am convinced that a love for our own people is not a bad thing, but love doesn't stop at borders. Love is infinitely boundless and all about holy trespassing and offensive friendships. — Shane Claiborne

One by one, these disciples would infect the nations with grace. It wasn't a call to take the sword or the throne and force the world to bow. Rather, they were to live the contagious love of God, to woo the nations into a new future. — Shane Claiborne

The work of community, love, reconciliation, restoration is the work we cannot leave up to politicians. This is the work we are all called to do. — Shane Claiborne

My goal is to speak the truth in love. There are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth. — Shane Claiborne

When we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary. — Shane Claiborne

No one has seen God, but as we love one another, God lives in us. — Shane Claiborne

The love that makes community is the willingness to do someone else's dirty work. — Shane Claiborne

Shane Claiborne Famous Quotes And Sayings

I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity. — Shane Claiborne

I just have a 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

For even if the whole world believed in resurrection, little would change until we began to practice it. We can believe in CPR, but people will remain dead until someone breathes new life into them. And we can tell the world that there is life after death, but the world really seems to be wondering if there is life before death. — Shane Claiborne

We don't actually have rich and poor together instead we have a family. What does it mean? If you have resources, you hold them with open hands. The mark of the early church was that they began sharing and it said there were no needy persons among them. They ended poverty as they created this new loving community. — Shane Claiborne

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

In the Bible, God uses brothel owners, pagan kings, murderers and mercenaries as instruments of good; at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. — Shane Claiborne

There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of. — Shane Claiborne

The greatest sin of political imagination: Thinking there is no other way except the filthy rotten system we have today. — Shane Claiborne

We can tell the world that there is life after death, but the world really seems to be wondering if there is life before death. — Shane Claiborne

You can't really learn God's hope like you learn the logic of an argument or the details of a story. It's more like learning to belly laugh. You catch hope from someone who has it down in their gut. — Shane Claiborne

Christians pretty much live like everybody else, they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way. — Shane Claiborne

This is what Jesus had in mind: folks coming together, forming close-knit communities and meeting each other's needs-- no kings, no major welfare systems, no presidents necessary. His is a theology and practice for the people of God, not a set of suggestions for empire. — Shane Claiborne

We're remembering each other's heroes, too. We are learning each other's songs. We are reminding ourselves that we are a global family praying together. We're all trying to live in the light of the history that shines through the biblical narrative. — Shane Claiborne

We have to use our discontentment to engage rather than disengage - our hope has to be more powerful than our cynicism. — Shane Claiborne

Someday war and poverty will be crazy and we will wonder how the world allowed such things to exist. — Shane Claiborne

There is a difference between feeding someone and eating dinner with them. If every Christian at home just made room for the stranger we would end homelessness overnight. — Shane Claiborne

It is the church's job, as Dr. [Martin Luther] King says, to be the conscience of the state, not the chaplain of the state. — Shane Claiborne

There's something beautiful about that Scripture that says, "Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams" (Acts 2:17). We need each other. There is power when the old and young dream together. — Shane Claiborne

What the Black lives matter movement is doing is they are making it personal. They are making it hash tagged, exposing the racial injustice that continues to haunt our country in a way that you can't ignore. There is power in injustice becoming personal. — Shane Claiborne

We need to be politically engaged, but peculiar in how we engage. Jesus and the early Christians had a marvelous political imagination. They turned all the presumptions and ideas of power and blessing upside down. — Shane Claiborne

[People] need to find words that can reconnect them with each other. That is the gift of good liturgy, yeah. We're not talking about fluffy stuff. We're talking about real life for people around the world. Our prayers should be said like the daily breath that gives us life. — Shane Claiborne

Governments can do lots of things, but there are a lot of things they cannot do. A government can provide good housing, but folks can have a house without having a home. We can keep people breathing with good health care, but they still may not really be alive. — Shane Claiborne

There is extreme poverty in Appalachia, where I was, and increasingly poverty is not just an urban thing. — Shane Claiborne

I like how someone once said being a Christian is not about having new ideas but having new eyes. This is the ability to have our hearts broken with the things that break the heart of God. That is part of what it means to be a Christian. — Shane Claiborne

Liturgy and worship were never meant to be confined to the cathedrals and sanctuaries. Liturgy at its best can be performed like a circus or theater - making the Gospel visible as a witness to the world around us. — Shane Claiborne

There is a certain power when old and young come together - we can do more together than we can on our own. — Shane Claiborne

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 best critique of what is wrong is the practice of something better. So let's stop complaining about the church we've experienced and work on becoming the church we dream of. — Shane Claiborne

This is the company we keep when it comes to the death penalty: China, the number one executing country; Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, those are the top 4, and number 5 is the US. And those are not countries that are known as champions for human rights, you know. — Shane Claiborne

Philadelphia caught my attention in 1995 when a group of homeless families were living in an abandoned cathedral. Even from the beginning they connected theology with what they were doing. They put a banner on the front of the cathedral that said, "How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday." — Shane Claiborne

God's people are not to accumulate stuff for tomorrow but to share indiscriminately with the scandalous and holy confidence that God will provide for tomorrow. Then we need not stockpile stuff in barns or a 401(k), especially when there is someone in need. — Shane Claiborne

There are financial bankruptcies in many parts of the church. No question about that. But we see the possibility of reimagining and revitalizing the church. — Shane Claiborne

Let's keep refusing to accept the world as it is and insisting on building the world we dream of. Don't let the haters have the last word. — Shane Claiborne

If every Christian family brought in a child who needed a family we would put the foster care system out of business. — Shane Claiborne

All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don't tiptoe. — Shane Claiborne

I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor...I truly believe that when the rich meet the poor, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end. — Shane Claiborne

One thing that's clear in the Scriptures is that the nations do not lead people to peace; rather, people lead the nations to peace. — Shane Claiborne

I have this certain reluctance when it comes to this idea that we are spiritual but not religious and we want Jesus but not the church. Why can't we have both? — Shane Claiborne

I do believe that the Church is God's primary instrument for ushering in the Kingdom (God's dream) on earth as it is in heaven, but God is not limited to use only the Church, or only Christians for that matter. — Shane Claiborne

The question for me is not are we political, but how are we political? We need to be politically engaged, but peculiar in how we engage. — Shane Claiborne

Karl Barth said it well: "We have to read the Bible in one hand... and the newspaper in the other." Our faith should not cause us to escape this world but to engage it. — Shane Claiborne

We know the Church wasn't born 200 years ago. It's encouraging to see some of the post-denominational churches actually wanting to reconnect with the story and the prayer life of the larger Church. — Shane Claiborne

The death penalty has succeeded in America, not in spite of Christians, but because of us. The Bible Belt is the Death Belt. Wherever Christians are most concentrated is where executions are happening, and that's deeply troubling to me. — Shane Claiborne

When it comes to the big issues like immigration, everyone has a role. The government has a role. The church has a role. Every Christian has a role. — Shane Claiborne

The Catholic understanding has been that the death penalty has been become, like, outdated because in industrialized countries. We have other ways of protecting societies from dangerous people without killing them. And in fact, it's important to remember that much of the world has done away with the death penalty. — Shane Claiborne

I think a lot of people view the death penalty as a debate class or something. The cost and what's at stake is really, really a big deal. — Shane Claiborne

It doesn't matter who you are. Everyone has something to offer the movement of justice — Shane Claiborne

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

We've heard from people all around the world, telling us that this is their reality. People need a way to connect the sometimes really hard reality in which they wake up each morning with the movement of the Spirit. — Shane Claiborne

There are some things to die for but none to kill for. — Shane Claiborne

We need good laws, but no law can change a human heart - only God can do that. — Shane Claiborne

When the church takes affairs of the state more seriously than they do Jesus, Pax Romana becomes its gospel and the president becomes the Son of God. — Shane Claiborne

We have been mentored from the very beginning by Catholic folks who are invigorating the best of the monastic spirit. — Shane Claiborne

The world is looking, not for Christians who are perfect, but for Christians who are honest and who are willing to be honest with some of our contradictions and hypocrisy. — Shane Claiborne

Sometimes our tunnel vision is limited to what we see outside our window. Until racial injustice becomes personal then I don't think it moves us in our gut. — Shane Claiborne

I found that the death penalty  -  and I'm not a hot-button issue person, you know, I'm not a single issue person  -  but what I think drew me to the death penalty is because it raises some very deep, fundamental questions like: Is anybody beyond redemption? — Shane Claiborne

Mother Theresa said it is not how much we give that is important but how much love you put into doing it. So it is not just how many units of housing we create or how good our health care system is, it is that people have someone to eat dinner with and that people have someone to hold their hand when they die. That is what we are called to do and it is the love of Christ. It is relationships. — Shane Claiborne

I believe you know Jesus said "a doctor doesn't come to the healthy, but the sick, and it's not the righteous but the sinners that I've come for," so I think that that's the scandal of God's love and grace that no one is beyond redemption, and we can see that all through scripture, you know. — Shane Claiborne

Jesus is challenging that when addressing "who is your neighbor" and he has a lot of hard things to say about family, "unless you hate your own family you are not going to be a disciple." He is challenging the limits of our compassion and our love as if someone's kid suffers it should be as devastating to us as if it were our own kid. That is what the early church said. — Shane Claiborne

I think we've misinterpreted some of the scriptures to justify the death penalty. So whereas a lot of folks in America feel like we can do far better justice  -  it's more expensive to do the death penalty than the alternatives  -  there's so many reasons that people come to the conclusion to abolish the death penalty. — Shane Claiborne

The problem is that the Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul stuff may feel good, but none of that typical stuff helps when somebody in your neighborhood is murdered. — Shane Claiborne

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

[Jesus] said that they will know we are Christians - not by our bumper stickers and T-shirts - but by our love. — Shane Claiborne

Jesus did not send us into the world to make believers but to make disciples. — Shane Claiborne

The question becomes not just how to accumulate more, but how to covet less. — Shane Claiborne

God comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. — Shane Claiborne

People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live. — Shane Claiborne

Look through the prayer books. You'll see lots of dates. You'll see names of Native Americans remembered. This was an open-sourcing project among so many people. — Shane Claiborne

Every 70-year-old needs a young person in their lives to mentor, and every 20-year-old needs a senior. — Shane Claiborne

Love has no limits. Compassion has no party. It is the responsibility of every human being and every institution to end poverty and to interrupt injustice. — Shane Claiborne

So even as we see the horror of death, may we be reminded that in the end, love wins. Mercy triumphs. Life is more powerful than death. And even those who have committed great violence can have the image of God come to life again within them as they hear the whisper of love. May the whisper of love grow louder than the thunder of violence. May we love loudly. — Shane Claiborne

Today the logic goes something like this: 'Calling a ruler Son of God is out of style. No one really does that nowadays. We can support a president while also worshiping Jesus as the Son of God.' But how is this possible? For one says that we must love our enemies, and the other says we must kill them; one promotes the economics of competition, while the other admonishes the forgiveness of debts. To which do we pledge allegiance? — Shane Claiborne

When we were starting our community a bunch of older Benedictine nuns said to us, "If you have any questions or want to pick our brains, please do - we've been doing community for about 1,500 years together so we've learned a few things." — Shane Claiborne

It's not that hard to say slavery is wrong after we've abolished it. — Shane Claiborne

The end of war begins with people who believe that another world is possible and that another empire has already interrupted time and space and is taking over this earth with the dreams of God. — Shane Claiborne

Because you can poke someone's eye out legally doesn't mean you should and that it's right. The Bible teaches us a more perfect justice. — Shane Claiborne

The monastic folks have the spirit of being in the world but not of the world, sort of peculiar people who have gone to the desert to live on the margins of the empire. — Shane Claiborne

I learned more about God from the tears of homeless mothers than any systematic theology ever taught me. — Shane Claiborne

Whenever folks say radical Christianity is "a phase" of youth, I tell them they need to meet our 80-year-old nun or my friend Tony Campolo. — Shane Claiborne

Jesus taught us a prayer of community and reconciliation, belonging to a new people who have left the land of 'me'. — Shane Claiborne

We're not church planters. We are community planters and, as we work in our communities, we join local churches. — Shane Claiborne

There are some Christians who totally disengage from politics and set their minds on heaven so much that their faith is so heavenly minded that it is no earthly good. — Shane Claiborne

The true atheist is the one who refuses to see God's image in the face of their neighbour. — Shane Claiborne

Life Lessons by Shane Claiborne

1. Shane Claiborne teaches us to be more compassionate and generous with our resources, and to live out our faith through our actions.
2. He encourages us to think critically about the world around us and to stand up for justice, even if it means going against the status quo.
3. He reminds us that we are all connected, and that we can make a difference in the world by loving our neighbor and working together for the common good.