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 ClaiborneRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True Christianity thrives in humility and hardship, not in popularity and power.
This quote by Shane Claiborne highlights the paradox of Christianity's true essence, suggesting that its most authentic and transformative moments occur in contexts where it is marginalized and faces challenges. When Christianity seeks popularity and societal validation, it risks losing its core values and mission, diluting its message of love, service, and sacrifice.
Themes
ChristianityHumilitySufferingMarginalizationPowerIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon about the essence of faith, one might invoke this quote to illustrate the importance of humility in spirituality.
More from Shane Claiborne
All quotes βMaybe we are a little crazy. After all, we believe in things we don't see. The Scriptures say that faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1). We believe poverty can end even though it is all around us. We believe in peace even though we hear only rumours of wars. And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another world is coming that we start living as if it were already here.
Shane ClaiborneRead
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 ClaiborneRead
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 ClaiborneRead
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 ClaiborneRead
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 ClaiborneRead
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To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, (or for that matter anti-Indian, or anti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you're not a Bushie, you're a Taliban. If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not Good, you're Evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.
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Africa's not a color - it's a place.
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If the universe is everything, and scientists say that the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?
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