Shane Claiborne at Asbury

Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical and Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals came to both the Asbury College and Seminary campuses today. While at the seminary, he spoke at our chapel service and then joined a panel of others from a simple way and communality for a Q/A session. Laurie drove up to join me in these events.

He was very interesting and his teachings were scripturally based. His points were in favor of Kingdom over against Empire. He was well spoken and, by and large, right, I think.

The content of his presentation was not extremely different from my last post, especially in regards to abortion and gays. Nor was the bulk of his message terribly different from what I studied in IS501 - Kingdom, Church, and World. Thanks Ruthanne. Incidentally, I still highly recommend Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire and Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony texts from that class.

One observation of Shane's comments that I would like to bring to light is that he did not say anything about not being involved in the political system. He did mention that he would not publicly endorse a candidate. His candidate is Jesus. However, he also said that he intends to use the system to promote his agenda, bringing about the Kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven. He says that he will study the word and support whoever brings us closer to that goal. Which does not seem to me contradictory to 1 Peter 2:13-17.

1 Peter 2:13 Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Although Shane did mention building kingdom, he did not mention Empire much at all, except in the litany/prayer (Download Litany Here). The main thing he said about our lives in regard to the Empire was that we should place God first, and ourself, our people, and our nation somewhere on down the line. I wouldn't argue against that. Even the pledge of allegiance says 'one nation under God.'

He said when surveyed the typical person will describe a Christian as: 1. Anti-gay, 2. judgmental, and 3. Hypocritical. To me, this is not too hard to believe. He continued the conversation with the scripture from Matthew when John the Baptist send his disciples to Jesus to ask if Jesus was 'the One' or should we look for another. Jesus does not give a simple yes or no answer. He says look at my life and you tell me what you see. the lame walk, the blind see, etc. What do you think? Shane then continued stating the same should be said of Christians. If someone asks you if you are a Christian, they should be able to look at your life and know the answer. Anti-gay, judgmental, and hypocritical is a an image problem. It means that we are in fact not acting very much like Christ. His point, love your neighbor, build the kingdom.

In the talk back (ATS's term for Q&A session) he mentioned more in regard to Empire, but the time was full of pregnant pauses and answer that were incomplete to the question.

Shane spoke about the use of the term authorities in Romans 13:1-3 as compared to its use in Ephesians 6:12, noting the same authorship, but did not draw any conclusion, explain, or exegete. Shane did offer a resource for further study; Appendix 3 is from Jesus for President and explains what Shane was attempting to convey. I probably need to take a look at that myself for further consideration. Especially in regard to first Peter, which I have studied in depth.

Romans 13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

Ephesians 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.