Shane Claiborne

Creatively and beautifully written and illustrated, this book calls you to redefine your idea of Jesus and his message, showing just how politically charged, and radical, it really is. This book, while written in a very enjoyable and easy to read way, challenges the reader to reconsider everything they’ve ever thought about Jesus and what it means to follow in his example in being set apart from the empires and establishments that perpetuate anything less than what the kingdom of God show more stands for.

Focusing on how Jesus’ message and example is something we’re supposed to be following and emulating in a way that is meaningful and relevant to this life, as opposed as a way to merely ensure us a seat in some hereafter (a concept I’m already familiar with, through authors like Brian McLaren, a concept I love and agree with, one that I find so much more meaningful than the idea of using Jesus as a mere ticket to some sort of exclusive VIP after-party), the authors show us just what that looks like, through numerous examples and explanations. They give insight into the mentality of Jesus and the Jews, as well as of the Romans, of his time, showing us just how dynamic and radical the actions, expressions, and phrases we’ve heard attributed to him our whole lives really are. The Jesus they reveal, the one with the political message and the call to the potential to live a better, more meaningful, life here and now is the Jesus I’ve always preferred and believed over every other version I’ve encountered, yet something in the way they present him resonated with me in such a way that made it almost seem like I was encountering the idea for the first time, like I was seeing it with new eyes…
I personally loved how they inserted quotes that complimented points they were making, as well as quotes from those who reflect another side of “Christianity”, or even the “empire”, ones that were so opposite of the points of the authors that it made those points that much more poignant.

I would recommend this to everyone – Christian and non-Christian, it doesn’t matter. This is a Jesus I think the world should see, and this is a book I think everyone should read – and make sure you take the time to read the appendixes online as well! All of it definitely makes you rethink things.

This isn’t just a book, it’s a manifesto. … show less

I’m wondering if this book will somehow define a watershed in my faith. I hope so. Claiborne and Haw have come up with something that is potentially explosive where I live, a model of USAnian Republican Christianity. It’s not that they’re saying anything new, it’s the context in which it is said that makes this book dynamite.

No one who truly understands the character and teachings of Jesus Christ can fail to be disturbed by the political policies of the United States. Let me start show more out by staying that the US is no more or less corrupt than any other nation you might happen to brush with. But what makes the message broadcast by the superpower of the moment so insidious is the fact that it is presented with a sugar-coating of spiritualism that claims that it is a Christian nation with a president (at least of the time Jesus for President was written) who follows Jesus.

Claiborne and Haw describe what following Jesus looks like for the first third of the book. The second third is dedicated to showing that whatever the US follows, it isn’t Jesus. The final third of the book is a description of what society could look like if it did follow Jesus. I found the first third a bit boring, the second had me cheering from the stands and the third had me on my knees with a notepad. I found it exceedingly challenging.

Described here is a very compelling argument as to why the US versions of nationalism, democracy, capitalism and foreign policy are anything but comparable to the teachings of Jesus. It’s a message that I dearly wish my Republican-minded US colleagues and friends would engage with. Note, I didn’t say follow. We’re no more to follow Claiborne and Haw than Bush is to follow Wolfowitz. But in 90% of the conversations that I have with people who believe what this book challenges, I find there’s absolutely no room for argument. To be Christian is to be Republican and, perhaps more importantly, vice versa. But as the authors brilliantly point out in response to the question of whether the US is in fact a Christian nation:

The United States is Christian insomuch as it looks like Christ.

Now I have no problem with Christians taking a political view. In fact, I have problems with Christians who think you should not or, more naively, cannot take one. But we have been warned to be as wise as serpents and navigating political waters these days, as in Jesus’ day, requires great wisdom. As they say

the most important question for the church today isn’t whether Christianity is political but how is Christianity political

Those who leave no room for argument perhaps leave no room for God to speak to them through works like Jesus for President and that, for me, is a great tragedy. We need present-day prophets like Claiborne and Haw to remind us of what Jesus teaches and to remind us that he is the standard that we should measure ourselves by daily. Listen to this for a sample of what you’re in for here:

In [the fourth century church’s] pursuit of "making disciples of every nation" and baptizing all those within the [Roman] empire, they stumbled into baptizing the empire itself…. producing what so many liberal and conservative Christians want today – an empire run on the blood of Jesus Christ, a holy Christian state. Through inheriting all the "kingdoms of this world," the church became the kind of beast that Jesus worked and taught against. The history of the church has been largely a history of "believers" refusing to believe in the way of the crucified Nazarene and instead giving in to the very temptation he resisted – power, relevancy, spectacle. One says that we must love our enemies, the other says that we must kill them; one promotes the economics of competition, while the other admonishes the forgiveness of debts. To which do we pledge allegiance?

I’ve lent this book to someone else in the community now and it will be making its rounds. It will no doubt spark debate. I have a feeling though that Claiborne and Haw… and Jesus… are after repentance, not simply debate. show less

A friend of mine recently pointed out the importance of discernment when choosing what books to read. Most of us will not complete more than a dozen or so books in a year, and with all the fantastic books out there, we need to be careful not to waste our time on dribble. Unfortunately, Jesus for President, by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, is not a fantastic book. It is a stunning example of what happens when Christians allow our political ideology and biases to affect how we approach the show more Bible. Billed as a “book to provoke the Christian political imagination,” the reader is left with more provocation than actual thought. Showing no understanding of the differing roles of the Church and the state, the authors conflate the two in a misguided attempt to shape Christians approach to politics. The end result is a work that only the most radical of the Christian left will find intriguing, while the rest of us are left wondering if it is Jesus they are following or the god of Liberalism. The book is replete with error, all of which fit into one or more of four different categories.

1. Bad Hermeneutics (Biblical Interpretation)
The most egregious and prevalent of all their errors, the authors blatantly rape Scripture in order to bend it to their ideology. For example, even though 1 Chronicles makes it quite clear that David was not to build the Temple because he had shed much blood, Claiborne and Haw argue that God didn’t want a temple because He likes sleeping in tents with poor people (pg. 35). Of course this doesn’t explain why God seems to have been pleased to dwell in the temple Solomon built. In another instance the authors state that the Israelites had laws for dealing with illegal immigrants (pg. 58). By choosing the phrase “illegal immigrants,” instead of what the text actually says “aliens,” the authors are trying to make a passage that has little relevance to our current immigration debate fit their own ideological purpose. At one point Claiborne and Haw state that Jesus was from a family of “peasants” (pg. 116), when we now know that the fact that he was a carpenter most likely put him in what we would know as the middle-class. In another instance, the authors say that the people were hungry for revolution, and thus chose for Barrabas to be freed instead of Jesus (pg. 76), when the Gospel account makes it clear that it was the prompting of the Pharisees that led to this decision. Finally, they state that the book of Revelation was written in code so the empire wouldn’t know what John was really saying (pg. 148), when it is commonly recognized that the genre of Revelation is apocalyptic and is thus written in such a mysterious manner.

2. Bad Theology
Despite the fact that Chris Haw is said to be working on a graduate degree in theology, the authors make some incredibly basic errors in theological understanding. In many cases they footnote their arguments by thanking some scholar for giving them “new eyes to see” on a particular issue, but due to the obscure nature of their argument, we are left feeling that they simply choose which eyes they like best. In one disturbing instance, they state that violence kills the image of God within a person (pg. 205). The doctrine of Imago Dei is one of the most foundational beliefs for Christian thinking, and no where does the Bible indicate that a person can have more or less of the image of God within them. The image of God is what gives each person their value, and, if the authors’ assertion were true, we would be left with some people that are intrinsically more valuable than others, hardly the traditional Christian understanding. Another instance where the authors show their ignorance is their understanding of the Trinity. In a poor attempt at humor, the authors tell a joke in which Jesus is letting people into Heaven whose names are not written in the Book of Life (pg. 290). This type of naiveté is easily repudiated when one recognizes that the Trinity cannot be divided, and thus would certainly know who is allowed into Heaven. Of course, this issue is further complicated by the authors seeming to indicate that they might not believe that Hell exists anyway. In another instance, Claiborne and Haw state that it is difficult to know whether or not Jesus would pay taxes if he lived in the U.S. (pg. 257), of course the simple phrase “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” seems to answer that quandary. In still another case, the authors revel in the act of lying when it fits their political cause (pg. 297).

3. Bad Political Philosophy and Logic
In many places Claiborne and Haw show utter inconsistency in their logic, coupled with a radically naïve approach to politics. For instance, they state that capitalism is a yoke that we need to be freed from (pg. 113). And while they admit that writing a book participates in capitalism, they don’t seem to grasp the fact that without capitalism their book would not be able to be printed or distributed. In a truly confusing paragraph, the authors argue that the industrial revolution wasn’t really an advancement, an assertion so absurd it is difficult to even respond to (I’ll let the fact that you are reading this be my rebuttal). And in perhaps the most stunning example of the sheer absurdity of their logic, Claiborne states that, if faced with genocide, he would simply take his clothes off and squawk like a chicken (pg. 273). Such a simplistic assertion fails to grasp the fallen world we currently inhabit, and instead makes a joke of over a million deaths on one continent alone.

4. Bad Use of Historical Argument
Still another way that Claiborne and Haw mislead their readers is by a deceptive use of history. They state that the more the early Church lived out the Gospel, the more they collided with the Roman Empire (pg. 141), when even a cursory understanding of early Church history shows that persecution was sporadic and wholly contingent on who was running the empire, not the degree to which Christians lived the Gospel. In an attempt to show the futility of violence, the authors state that an attempted assassination plot against Hitler only galvanized his resolve and made any efforts towards peace impossible (pg. 203). What they fail to mention is that this happened mere months from the end of WWII, and there was no indication that Hitler was going to surrender under any circumstances.

There are many other examples of all these types of errors I could list, all with equally simple rebuttals. The point is that Claiborne and Haw do not contribute anything new to the discussion of how our faith should influence policy. Rather, they simply carry the water for the far left, attempting to argue that Jesus agrees with them. Personally I am tired of people trying to prove that Jesus agrees with their ideologies, instead, I believe, we should be trying to agree with Jesus. Admittedly this is incredibly difficult for any of us to do, especially since Christ didn’t have much to say about the role of the state (contra Claiborne and Haw). What He did address, however, is how we as Christians should act, and I think if we put those things into practice the politics will come naturally. show less

Most Christians I know fall into two broad categories. The younger type of Christian (along with the older young-in-the-faith type) tend to be more idealistic and less jaded. The more ... let's call them "mature", trade a bit of that idealistic fire for a "reasonable" Christian life. I don't feel like speculating about which camp I fall into.

Claiborne's a third type of person. He's as idealistic and visionary as they come, but without rancor. He's managed to mature in his Kingdom-vision show more without losing his passion. I hesitated to read this book for a while because I assumed it would lay out some grand call to discipleship that would thoroughly discourage most of the Christians I know. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Irresistible Revolution tells of Claiborne's own experiments in living faithful to the gospel, along with some of the lessons he's learned. Instead of prescribing solutions to lukewarm Christendom, he presents a story that's so attractive you can't help but want to join in.

One of the best aspects of this book was Claiborne's humour. Here's an example. One of the times he was in court for civil disobedience, he called the prosecutor the persecutor by accident. Priceless. In a world that takes itself far too seriously, divine foolishness is one way to get noticed!

Reading Claiborne is like moving from the sin-heavy atmosphere of this world to the rarefied air of the Kingdom of God.

Note: A free review copy of this book was provided by Zondervan. show less