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Original Essays | June 11, 2013

Sandi Doughton: IMG Preparing for the Next Megaquake

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Note: Sandi Doughton, along with an expert panel, will be appearing at Powell's City of Books on Friday, June 21, at 7:30 p.m. When my editor at... Continue »
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13 Local Warehouse Christianity- Inspirational

The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical

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The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical Cover

ISBN13: 9780310266303
ISBN10: 0310266300
Condition: Standard
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Review-A-Day

"[A] stunning book, utterly compelling, part autobiography, part theological treatise. It's also unbelievably accessible, and chockfull of the kind of passion and eloquence that can cause one to seriously ruminate over the nature of the life that he or she lives." Chris Faatz, Powells.com (read the entire Powells.com review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Many of us find ourselves caught somewhere between unbelieving activists and inactive believers. We can write a check to feed starving children or hold signs in the streets and feel like we've made a difference without ever encountering the faces of the suffering masses. In this book, Shane Claiborne describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love, inviting us into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside each of us and extends into a broken world. Shane's faith led him to dress the wounds of lepers with Mother Teresa, visit families in Iraq amidst bombings, and dump $10,000 in coins and bills on Wall Street to redistribute wealth. Shane lives out this revolution each day in his local neighborhood, an impoverished community in North Philadelphia, by living among the homeless, helping local kids with homework, and "practicing resurrection" in the forgotten places of our world.

Shane's message will comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable...but will also invite us into an irresistible revolution. His is a vision for ordinary radicals ready to change the world with little acts of love.

Review:

"If there is such a thing as a disarming radical, 30-year-old Claiborne is it. A former Tennessee Methodist and born-again, high school prom king, Claiborne is now a founding member of one of a growing number of radical faith communities. His is called the Simple Way, located in a destitute neighborhood of Philadelphia. It is a house of young believers, some single, some married, who live among the poor and homeless. They call themselves 'ordinary radicals' because they attempt to live like Christ and the earliest converts to Christianity, ignoring social status and unencumbered by material comforts. Claiborne's chatty and compelling narrative is magnetic — his stories (from galvanizing a student movement that saved a group of homeless families from eviction to reaching Mother Teresa herself from a dorm phone at 2 a.m.) draw the reader in with humor and intimacy, only to turn the most common ways of practicing religion upside down. He somehow skewers the insulation of suburban living and the hypocrisy of wealthy churches without any self-righteous finger pointing. 'The world,' he says, 'cannot afford the American dream.' Claiborne's conviction, personal experience and description of others like him are a clarion call to rethink the meaning of church, conversion and Christianity; no reader will go away unshaken." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"Claiborne is insightful on the huge U.S. cultural and economic divide: the problem isn't that wealthy Christians don't care about the poor, he says, it's that they simply don't know the poor. A moving, often humorous account of a life of faith lived to the fullest." Booklist (Starred Review)

Review:

"Part memoir, part social manifesto and part theological commentary....The book is most affecting as a memoir." Christian Science Monitor

Synopsis:

Using unconventional examples from his own life, Shane Claiborne stirs up questions about the church and the world, and challenges readers to truly live out their Christian faith.

Synopsis:

The author has a vision for ordinary radicals ready to change the world with little acts of love. He describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love and invites readers into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside and extends into a broken world.
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About the Author

Shane Claiborne is a prominent activist and soughtafter speaker. He is one of the founding members of the Simple Way, a community in inner city Philadelphia that has helped birth and connect radical faith communities around the world. Shane serves on the board of directors for the Christian Community Development Association and in his down-time is quite a dynamic circus performer.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
meghanjanssen, January 31, 2008 (view all comments by meghanjanssen)
Shane Claiborne has a lot of interesting stories and valuable insights. It's a funny book; very Donald Miller-esque in tone. There were several parts where I had to cringe as Claiborne tended to border on self-righteousness from time to time, but I don't think that it distracted too much from the beautiful images he successfully presented of what it means to live in real Christian community, the way Jesus did and required ALL his followers to do as well.

The accounts of the time Claiborne spent in Iraq were most poignant and personally challenging for me to read. In the first few years following the United States' spring 2003 occupation in Iraq, I heard several Bush-supporters say to me accusationally, "It's easy for you to march down the street and hold a sign saying you want peace, but there are young men and women overseas right now actually putting their lives on the line for what they believe in." They were right. It was easy for me to march in anti-war rallies and say what I thought, but Claiborne actually put his belief in Jesus' teachings about love into action by joining his brothers and sisters in the Middle East as a Christian peacekeeper. That's what sets the Christian pacifists apart from regular pacifists, I'd say.

Overall, the book leaves the reader with a very strong message that waving our hands in the air at a trendy megachurch every Sunday has nothing to do with Jesus' teachings on discipleship. Hopefully I will be able to take some of the new insights I've gleaned from this book and actually do something with them. I think that's the point.
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uncle_loki, August 11, 2007 (view all comments by uncle_loki)
It's been a while since I read a book that actually made me feel guilty. Alot of Christian authors are mid to upper class, educated, land owners talking about how we should emulate a gritty, blue collar, homeless guy (Jesus). And I'll be honest; it's hard for me to read books like that without a smirk and a slight feeling of superiority, but Claiborne is different. He is one of the few Christian authors I would describe as truly authentic.
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timoccc, August 24, 2006 (view all comments by timoccc)
Irresistable Revolution IS well titled: it's irresistably funny and moving and thought-provoking. Claiborne writes with the candor and humor of Don Miller and the passion and zeal of Jim Wallis. I found it a very good read and had trouble putting it down at times. I think it's very hard to find books that are as enjoyable and as grounded in the harsher realities of our world than this one.

What i did find quite resistable about the book is that it seems to me glaringly lopsided. Christians' responsibility to the poor and the passion of God for justice and mercy are undeniable, yet where in the book is there any significant mention of the reality of eternity? I totally agree that evangelicals have missed so much of the gospel by emphasizing eternity at the expense of God's kingdom coming to earth, and at the same time it seems to me that Claiborne has done the exact same thing in reverse: he wants to speak the truth in love, so where is the truth about people being reconciled to God in Jesus, both here and now AND forever? Maybe as the prophetic type that he is, his only concern is to wake us out of our self-absorbed matierialistic slumber. At the same time, I read the book and wonder how Claiborne and his cohort go about helping people find their way back to God and not just out of poverty and injustice? I'm confident they do this; I'm just not sure why he would make no significant mention of it in his book that I could find? Seems to me that the baby of eternity as ultimate reality may have gotten thrown out with the bathwater of right-wing, watered down evangelicalism.

Overall, I'd want anyone I know to read this book. And I wouldn't want anyone to think this wing of the revolution is the only revolution there is for the church to be about. Jesus spoke plainly of both justice in this world and eternity in the world to come, and i wish this book had spoken more of both truths instead of one at the expense of the other.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780310266303
Author:
Claiborne, Shane
Publisher:
Zondervan Publishing Company
Foreword by:
Wallis, Jim
Foreword:
Wallis, Jim
Subject:
Christian Life
Subject:
Christian Life - Character & Values
Subject:
Christian biography
Subject:
Christian Life - Social Issues
Subject:
Christianity - Christian Life - Character & Values
Subject:
Church and the world
Subject:
Christian biography -- United States.
Subject:
Christianity - General
Subject:
Christianity-Social Issues
Copyright:
2006
Edition Description:
Supersaver
Publication Date:
February 1, 2006
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Language:
English
Pages:
367
Dimensions:
7.19x5.04x.88 in. .52 lbs.
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Related Subjects

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Health and Self-Help » Health and Medicine » General Medicine
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Religion » Western Religions » Emergent and Postmodern

The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$7.50 In Stock
Product details 367 pages Zondervan Publishing Company - English 9780310266303 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "If there is such a thing as a disarming radical, 30-year-old Claiborne is it. A former Tennessee Methodist and born-again, high school prom king, Claiborne is now a founding member of one of a growing number of radical faith communities. His is called the Simple Way, located in a destitute neighborhood of Philadelphia. It is a house of young believers, some single, some married, who live among the poor and homeless. They call themselves 'ordinary radicals' because they attempt to live like Christ and the earliest converts to Christianity, ignoring social status and unencumbered by material comforts. Claiborne's chatty and compelling narrative is magnetic — his stories (from galvanizing a student movement that saved a group of homeless families from eviction to reaching Mother Teresa herself from a dorm phone at 2 a.m.) draw the reader in with humor and intimacy, only to turn the most common ways of practicing religion upside down. He somehow skewers the insulation of suburban living and the hypocrisy of wealthy churches without any self-righteous finger pointing. 'The world,' he says, 'cannot afford the American dream.' Claiborne's conviction, personal experience and description of others like him are a clarion call to rethink the meaning of church, conversion and Christianity; no reader will go away unshaken." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review A Day" by , "[A] stunning book, utterly compelling, part autobiography, part theological treatise. It's also unbelievably accessible, and chockfull of the kind of passion and eloquence that can cause one to seriously ruminate over the nature of the life that he or she lives." (read the entire Powells.com review)
"Review" by , "Claiborne is insightful on the huge U.S. cultural and economic divide: the problem isn't that wealthy Christians don't care about the poor, he says, it's that they simply don't know the poor. A moving, often humorous account of a life of faith lived to the fullest."
"Review" by , "Part memoir, part social manifesto and part theological commentary....The book is most affecting as a memoir."
"Synopsis" by , Using unconventional examples from his own life, Shane Claiborne stirs up questions about the church and the world, and challenges readers to truly live out their Christian faith.
"Synopsis" by , The author has a vision for ordinary radicals ready to change the world with little acts of love. He describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love and invites readers into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside and extends into a broken world.
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