Red Letter Revolution Quotes

“I always tell our community that we should attract the people Jesus attracted and frustrate the people Jesus frustrated. It’s certainly never our goal to frustrate, but it is worth noting that the people who were constantly agitated were the self-righteous, religious elite, the rich, and the powerful. But the people who were fascinated by him, by his love and grace, were folks who were already wounded and ostracized — folks who didn’t have much to lose, who already knew full well that they were broken and needed a Savior.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“As Christians, we should be the best collaborators in the world. We should be quick to find unlikely allies and subversive friends, like Jesus did.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“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, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“If we want to know what it means to be human, we look at Jesus. He does things we'd culturally consider feminine - like weep - and others our culture would consider masculine - like flip tables in the temple. But really all these things are just human. And since Jesus is God, these characteristics are also divine.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“Jesus sent his Spirit to empower people to realize their potential, and that should be the model for all of us in doing missionary work (Acts 1:8). When confronting the desperate situations we find in third-world countries and in troubled urban and rural areas here in America, we must realize that our objective must be to empower people and challenge them to use their gifts and actualize their potential. We have to join with them in such a way so that, as you said a moment ago, when they succeed, they can say, "We did it ourselves.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“Jesus lives the challenge to our gender stereotypes and prejudices, but he is also wonderfully subversive in the ways he legitimates and empowers women.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“When our theology gets in the way of loving our neighbors, it's time to rethink our theology.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“Folks didn't have an encounter with Jesus and walk away saying, 'Man, He sure doesn't like gay folks.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“We really do see the pattern Jesus warns us about: “Pick up the sword and you will die by the sword.” Not only do innocent children suffer as collateral damage, but the one who picks up the sword also suffers. We’ve learned that lesson all too well. We are not made to kill. So when we do, it kills a part of us.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“Of all people, we Christians should be building friendships and protecting the dignity of human beings, even those of other faiths. I loved seeing Christians in Iraq stand guard as peacekeepers outside the mosques while Muslims gathered for prayer, and Muslims doing the same for Christians.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“It’s not always a bad thing to struggle. In fact, if you want to find the church alive, you look at places of struggle. Whenever we have triumphed and dominated, we get sick. Christianity is best when it is humble.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“There are far too many Christians who believe that theological conformity is a prerequisite for community.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“So often we think it is our job to push people, and it really is a lack of faith that the Spirit is already at work in them, leading them. We think the Spirit can’t work without us jumping in to help make sure they know what the Bible says, or this or that.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“In our cultural value system, we have divided up human traits between the sexes and consequently have denied each sex a part of its humanity.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“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.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“Interestingly, Jesus did not send us into the world to make believers but to make disciples. You can worship Jesus without doing the things he says. We can believe in him and still not follow him.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“Nevertheless, because of what is “written on their hearts,” we are called to look for God in people and in places where we didn’t expect to see God.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?

“I’m not as concerned with figuring out every minute theological question as much as I am reading the simple words of Jesus and trying to live my life as if he meant them.”
― Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?