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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
I agree with the heart of the author but oddly didn’t really overly enjoy or dislike the actual book. It was.....fine. Never a huge fan of “my way or the highway” types of approaches to politics or Christianity. Shane’s life is amazing but he seemed too willing to write off the rest of Christians that are also trying their best to live out their faith but have interpreted parts of the Bible differently than him.
This was a "It's not you; it's me" book.
Pre May 28th? I was digging this. I enjoyed reading about how Claiborne went looking for a new type of Christianity, found it aboard, and brought it back in a radical intentional community. Being a huge proponent of living in deep community (sharing food, inviting people over), it was awesome to read about that kicked up a notch.
And then the George Floyd murder happened, and I just couldn't see Claiborne having a Jubliee celebration on Wall Street or asking to defuse situations with the unexpected anymore. Not to be a downer, but I wasn't digging a white guy laughing off how many times he has been jailed for protesting and crowing about how much he's learned from the inner city people he lives among.
I'm sure there's advice for me in here, but right now I'm too full of sadness and anger to hear it from Claiborne.
Pre May 28th? I was digging this. I enjoyed reading about how Claiborne went looking for a new type of Christianity, found it aboard, and brought it back in a radical intentional community. Being a huge proponent of living in deep community (sharing food, inviting people over), it was awesome to read about that kicked up a notch.
And then the George Floyd murder happened, and I just couldn't see Claiborne having a Jubliee celebration on Wall Street or asking to defuse situations with the unexpected anymore. Not to be a downer, but I wasn't digging a white guy laughing off how many times he has been jailed for protesting and crowing about how much he's learned from the inner city people he lives among.
I'm sure there's advice for me in here, but right now I'm too full of sadness and anger to hear it from Claiborne.
I have been reading this book for at least a month now. there was just so much in it that I needed to allow to digest, to soak in, and so I'd read a bit, usually before bed, and then stop, and thinking about it, sometimes for days, before picking it up again.
I'd resisted reading this book for a long time. Shane and I graduated from the same college, and at the time, I made a snap judgement that he and his friends were weird, and that having wacky hair and other adornments while trying to help the poor was hypocritical. I never gave their ideas a chance. So when a friend lent me this book a year or two ago, I said "thanks." and "I hope you don't need this back any time soon." And it sat on my bookshelves for a long time.
I guess God just wanted me to read this at the right time. I don't remember what prompted me to finally pick up the book. Maybe it was the cool format, or the sense that I should read the book, so I could clear it off my bookshelf if I didn't like it. Whatever the reason, I started to read...and became entranced. My politics and theology have changed a lot since college, moving in similar directions to Shane's, but separately. So reading this book was almost coming full circle, getting to know someone I could have known more than a decade ago but was too judgemental to bother. And the book blew me away. it confirmed so many things I've come to believe, based on my own rudimentary Bible study since college. And Shane not only backs up what he says with the Bible, but with quotations from and citations of the early church fathers and mothers, and other famous and influential Christian thinkers, both past and present.
I won't pretend I agreed with every single nuance of everything this book said. some things were just too new for me to be comfortable with yet. Too much of a dramatic change and about face. others may simply be issues I won't agree with, based on my interpretation of the Scripture in question.
But what it all comes down to, for both of us, apparently, is that we love Jesus, and we want to know and serve Him better. And that, if you read it without preconceptions, the Bible is pretty clear that the best ways to do so are to serve the poor and the oppressed, to fight for peace and justice and to put others before self, to strive to live in community. This isn't a popular theology in our corporate Christian culture, but it's one that makes sense to me. If I say I believe in Jesus/ the god of the Old Testament, I'm a hypocrite to ignore the vast majority of the Scriptures, that deal repeatedly with the poor, with defending them and meeting their needs.
I have a feeling that I still don't realize how big of a deal this book has been for me, and what a difference it will make in my life. Not necessarily because of this one book, but because it serves as a catalyst, something that magnifies the still small voice inside me beckoning me to a closer relationship with God and humankind, and prompts me to live my life more in line with that goal. I am going to go back through the book for his various sources and try to read them directly, too--Martin Luther King, Jr, St Augustine, Dorothy Day, Tony Campolo, St John of the Cross, Jonathan Hartgrove-Wilson, and many others.
My life may not take the same path as Shane's--I sincerely doubt that it will--but it will be changed because someone like him dared to question and seek and celebrate and love and share all of that with others, like me.
I'd resisted reading this book for a long time. Shane and I graduated from the same college, and at the time, I made a snap judgement that he and his friends were weird, and that having wacky hair and other adornments while trying to help the poor was hypocritical. I never gave their ideas a chance. So when a friend lent me this book a year or two ago, I said "thanks." and "I hope you don't need this back any time soon." And it sat on my bookshelves for a long time.
I guess God just wanted me to read this at the right time. I don't remember what prompted me to finally pick up the book. Maybe it was the cool format, or the sense that I should read the book, so I could clear it off my bookshelf if I didn't like it. Whatever the reason, I started to read...and became entranced. My politics and theology have changed a lot since college, moving in similar directions to Shane's, but separately. So reading this book was almost coming full circle, getting to know someone I could have known more than a decade ago but was too judgemental to bother. And the book blew me away. it confirmed so many things I've come to believe, based on my own rudimentary Bible study since college. And Shane not only backs up what he says with the Bible, but with quotations from and citations of the early church fathers and mothers, and other famous and influential Christian thinkers, both past and present.
I won't pretend I agreed with every single nuance of everything this book said. some things were just too new for me to be comfortable with yet. Too much of a dramatic change and about face. others may simply be issues I won't agree with, based on my interpretation of the Scripture in question.
But what it all comes down to, for both of us, apparently, is that we love Jesus, and we want to know and serve Him better. And that, if you read it without preconceptions, the Bible is pretty clear that the best ways to do so are to serve the poor and the oppressed, to fight for peace and justice and to put others before self, to strive to live in community. This isn't a popular theology in our corporate Christian culture, but it's one that makes sense to me. If I say I believe in Jesus/ the god of the Old Testament, I'm a hypocrite to ignore the vast majority of the Scriptures, that deal repeatedly with the poor, with defending them and meeting their needs.
I have a feeling that I still don't realize how big of a deal this book has been for me, and what a difference it will make in my life. Not necessarily because of this one book, but because it serves as a catalyst, something that magnifies the still small voice inside me beckoning me to a closer relationship with God and humankind, and prompts me to live my life more in line with that goal. I am going to go back through the book for his various sources and try to read them directly, too--Martin Luther King, Jr, St Augustine, Dorothy Day, Tony Campolo, St John of the Cross, Jonathan Hartgrove-Wilson, and many others.
My life may not take the same path as Shane's--I sincerely doubt that it will--but it will be changed because someone like him dared to question and seek and celebrate and love and share all of that with others, like me.
A lot of people have said that they felt the author was condescending in his tone. I didn't feel that way at all, and I disagree with many aspects of this book. I do think Mr. Claibourne suffers from tunnel vision. He is so focused on the poor and needy, that he neglects to see that middle class people need grace and mercy too.
All in all, it was interesting, and I would recommend to to people.
All in all, it was interesting, and I would recommend to to people.
I appreciated the book and I liked Shane Claiborne's perspective and commitment to the Gospel and calling out both conservatives and liberals. He focused on community, love, redistribution and other Gospel issues. The book started out strong big the further I got into it, it became a little repetative. So many footnotes and links to websites made it seem like a secondary purpose of the book was to plug similar organizations to his Simple Way. The examples he gave also all had a similar feel (our friends from an hippie organization did this counterintuitive protest to highlight XYZ injustice or our friend who is poor/oppressed/overlooked is also an amazing XYZ and isn't that neat because most people wouldnt even notice them) The book had some moments that made me think and I admire the heck out of Claiborne cause he's one of those people who genuinely try to love and live out their faith but this book just didnt capture me. I had to force myself to finish it, it just started to drag and the repetition made it last forever.
I had heard some epic things about this book, that it's the kind of book that changes people's lives and the like. And while I'm sure that this book has changed some people's lives, it probably wasn't good for me to have such high expectations. Once I ignored my preconceptions about this book and read it in the moment, I was able to appreciate it immensely. Claiborne is a great writer and is able to word things so that they're accessible but still beautiful. I always carried a highlighter with me while reading this book because there are so many quotes I want to remember. He's got a lot to say and says it well, and I think it's an important message.
I need a 6th star for how incredible this book is. Absolutely wrecked me, in the best way possible. I wish I'd read it sooner.
