Choose life

Brought up in the heart of US evangelical culture, Shane Claiborne has become a prophet to Christians, calling us back to the teachings of Jesus. On a recent visit to New Zealand, he talked to Ingrid Barratt about adopting a truly holistic pro-life ethic.

Shane Claiborne’s best-selling manifesto The Irresistible Revolution is one of those books that makes you want to change everything about your life. Sell all your possessions and give to the poor. Live radically. It’s a bit like how I imagine it felt to sit in the crowd when Jesus pronounced his radical teachings. Viva la revolution!

Before Shane wrote his first book 10 years ago, he was living in inner-city Philadelphia with his community ‘The Simple Way’. His life was defined by sharing possessions, living together, welcoming in the stranger, providing for the needy, and choosing the life of authenticity.

So, being catapulted into Christian celebrity status has sat uncomfortably with him. Shane, himself, states that the world doesn’t need another book about living like Jesus—we just need more Christians actually living like Jesus.

He could be rich. But, instead, he asked his community to cap his income so he continues to live in a similar way to his neighbours. The hundreds of thousands of dollars from Shane’s books go back into the community and other ministries. ‘I’m really convinced—and I have seen in myself—that the more we have, the more we have to maintain. Simplicity is not something we have to do, it’s something we get to do, and have freedom through it.’

The values of Jesus

When you read the Beatitudes and juxtapose that with the divisive rhetoric evident in many countries around the world, you couldn’t get a more stark contrast. Reflecting on life in the US, Shane says, ‘We’re seeing what happens when a country makes idols out of power and fame and pride and money.’

He is particularly concerned about the impact of recent debates around immigration in the US. Th is is personal for Shane, since his own neighbours are living in fear. His wife Katie-Jo, a teacher, recently asked her seven-year-old students how they were processing the talk of immigration. Their answers were disturbing. ‘They said things like, “Are they going to make us slaves again?” and “Are my parents going to get sent back to Puerto Rico?” ’ Shane recalls. ‘We’ve enough trauma in our neighbourhood, so this is a blow.’

Shane is speaking as an insider into American evangelicalism. He was born and bred in the South, where he grew up in a typical church, with a typically US form of patriotism. To this day, his family are gun owners and supporters of the military.

But as a teenager, Shane began to see that the values of his Christian culture didn’t line up with the values of Jesus—who aligned himself with the poor, not the powerful. At university, he found himself thrown into the role of advocate for the homeless in downtown Philadelphia, and in an act of solidarity, started sleeping rough with them.

A truly pro-life ethic

Today, Shane has become a prophet among evangelical Christians—he even looks a bit like what I imagine John the Baptist could have looked like, sewing his own clothes and living off the land. From the fringes of our consumerdriven culture, Shane is calling us away from wealth and individualism, and towards a Jesus-centred way of life.

hen I ask him whether it’s okay for a Christian to be wealthy, he answers with a quote from Rick Warren: It’s not always a sin to generate money, but it’s always a sin to die with it. I think Jesus is pointing us to freedom from materialism and a solidarity with the poor and marginalised, re-defining our possessions based on love.’

Jesus was truly ‘pro-life’—far beyond the bumper stickers and slogans, says Shane, adding ‘I like to say that I’m pro-life from the womb to the tomb.’ A truly holistic pro-life ethic means caring for all of life. It means looking after the life of our planet, which has led The Simple Way to develop a sustainable garden in the inner city. It means taking personal responsibility for the girl in the neighbourhood who is pregnant.

Shane’s pro-life ethic has also led him to take an active stance against the scourge of gun ownership and legallysanctified killing, becoming an advocate for death-row prisoners. A surprising side effect of this work has been helping heal traumatised executioners.

‘One executioner killed himself, and another guy was absolutely heart-breaking. He used to do executions by electric chair, but one time it went wrong and the guy’s head caught on fire. So he went on and trained in lethal injection, but it haunted him. He is still a “hard on crime” kinda guy, but he has gone on to say that there is no good way to kill someone,’ recalls Shane.

‘I talk a lot about the execution of Jesus, and how people were passing him around, and Pilate washed his hands of it. No one wanted to take responsibility for it. We try to sanitise killing in the same way, but the early Christians were very vocal against all forms of killing.’

Ordinary radicals

After 15 years living at The Simple Way, Shane got married and moved down the road. He even cut off his signature dreadlocks. ‘My life doesn’t look the same as it did 20 years ago, but nonconformity doesn’t mean uniformity,’ he reflects.

‘There’s a lot of beautiful expressions of what it looks like not to conform to the patterns of this world. It’s less about outward expressions than how you love. I know a lot of people that look very radical, but their lives aren’t that radical—I know a lot of people who look very normal, but they’re subversive people inside the imperial courts.’ The family is a beautiful example of community, adds Shane, and raising kids to think counterculturally will change the world.

Incidentally, Shane says he loves The Salvation Army, but laughs that ‘you have to be in on the joke’ when it comes to our military metaphors.

Although his message of living like Jesus is, tragically, somewhat still on the fringes of mainstream Christianity, Shane says he is strangely encouraged by what is happening in his home country. ‘Things are coming to the surface that have been there for a long time, and there is a holy uprising happening in our country.’

Recently, Shane attended a protest as part of the ‘Moral Mondays’ movement in the States—a civil disobedience effort begun by Christians to peacefully protest legal injustices. The march was attended by a staggering 80,000 people.

We’re all called to be ordinary radicals, sums up Shane. And it’s the best life. ‘I’m a big believer that simple living isn’t ugly living, it’s a lot of fun. People have this idea that we’re suffering for the Lord, but I love our life, I absolutely love it.’

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by Ingrid Barratt (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 22 April 2017, pp6-9
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.