“Because white congregations in America have so often intellectualized faith and individualized our relationship with God, people who are hungry for community and drawn to justice movements are usually white. So we find ourselves trying to learn how to be the people of God with other white folks a lot of the time. The trouble with this isn’t just that we end up reproducing communities marked by racial division (though this is something that troubles us deeply). We also continue to suffer the deficiencies of white theology.”

– Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers

by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

“The moment we are no longer tempted by the “pots of meat” the empire offers, we should be concerned—for if we can’t feel the temptation, we have probably given in to it.”

“Living in community allows us to know people well enough to see the work they have to do to meet their basic needs. Loving in community often looks like choosing to do someone’s dirty work for them.”

“Many people look at the empty cathedrals in Europe and wonder if our megachurches will become museums in the next generation.”

“(W)e should pray that we would become the sort of people who are safe for God to trust with miracles. We must become people who will not exploit or market or pervert the power of the Spirit. We must become people who get out of the way of God.”

“(W)e need to pray like everything depends on God and live like God has no other plan but the church.”

“Throughout the history of the church, Christians have recognized that we cannot pray “Our father” together on Sunday and deny bread to our brothers and sisters on Monday. But we live in difficult days. The hungry are not just hungry. Often they are also our enemies. Drug addiction and mental illness make many who are hungry hard to deal with. They threaten us. Others have been hungry for so long that they are angry, even at those of us who want to help. We worry about how to protect ourselves from them while at the same time feeling guilty for our complicity in their poverty. So we give to charities. And charities become the brokers for our compassion toward the poor. The problem with this is that we never get to know the poor. Though we have been made children of God together with them in Jesus Christ, we never sit down to eat with our hungry brothers and sisters. We never hear their stories. We never learn to see the world through their eyes”

– Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers

by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

“(Amos 5:21-24). Without justice for the poor, religious activities are little more than annoying noise in the ears of God, and the prayers that used to smell like incense to God become a nauseating stench when there is no flesh bringing those prayers to life”

“Prayer is not so much about convincing God to do what we want God to do as it is about convincing ourselves to do what God wants us to do.”

“Those who have been trained to trust God for provision are the only people who will ever believe that Jubilee is a good idea. Otherwise, it looks like losing everything you have worked so hard to earn”