Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals Shane Claiborne
Zondervan—Religion | Christian Life | Spiritual Growth
355 pages
This book is a project in renewing the imagination of the church in the United States and of those who would seek to know Jesus. We are seeing more and more that the church has fallen in love with the state and that this love affair is killing the church’s imagination. The powerful benefits and temptations of running the world’s largest superpower have bent the church’s identity. Having power at its fingertips, the church often finds “guiding the course of history” a more alluring goal than following the crucified Christ. Too often the patriotic values of pride and strength triumph over the spiritual virtues of humility, gentleness, and sacrificial love. (Page 17, Jesus for President)
This is the basic thesis of the book, and just as wide of a range of topics as it may stir up, is just as many that the authors attempt to tackle. The book is divided up into 4 large sections and a couple of appendixes that cover topics from war to peace, taxes to voting, subverting the empire to submitting to the very empire you are subverting, to political parties and how Jesus fits into the whole mix. It’s a rather fascinating research project intermixed with stories and quotes that seek to spark the imagination towards Kingdom living in the third way of Jesus - a way that is neither right nor left but a way that is gospel centered.
Too often we get caught up in the political game of Republican vs. Democrat believing that one or the other holds all the beliefs of the gospel. Unfortunately this is far from the truth and this book exposes that fallacy with fervor. Perhaps my favorite topic of discussion throughout the book was the pacifistic position that was taken in relation to the War on Terror and any other war that will eventually take place. As a long time pacifist, this certainly helped me to think in imaginative ways around the idea of war as necessity and even as a possibility.
This book is long, and in the length there are times that it feels as if it drones on and on about a topic until it nearly beats the horse to death… but they do a great job of breaking that up with timely stories and new ideas. I would highly recommend this book—but be prepared to be provoked and disagree with the conclusions there within.
There have only been two times in my life when I felt as if I was watching history in the making, and both times they were tragedies: the Challenger explosion and the morning of September 11th. Tonight was the first time that I saw history in the making and I knew that it was something different, something positive, something courageous and something world altering. Tonight, Barack Obama accepted the nomination of his party and became the first African-American Presidential Candidate of a major political party in the United States of America.
This is one of those times in the spectrum of history that will be one of the most significant historical moments of all time. It will be one of those moments that my children and my children’s children will read about in text books, and see replayed in their classrooms. This will be one of those moments that will live on.
I have been a life-long fan of history and with the advent of You Tube I have been able to find scores of amazing historical speeches by great men like Dr. Martin Luther King and JFK, Bobby Kennedy and FDR. Speeches that not only inspire, but captivate your imagination and motivate you to step up and step outside of yourself to achieve something beyond your wildest dreams. These men are some of my “historical heroes” for their courage and bravery to stand up against ideas that were the cultural norm of the day. Barack Obama is quickly finding himself among the ranks of these men in a historical context.
Tonight was a historical night… and I’m thankful that I was able to see positive history take place for a change. I am also thankful that John McCain did the decent and noble thing of trying not to upstage Obama on such a historical occasion with VP talk. I’m glad he decided to wait until tomorrow. It truly does speak of his decency and understanding of the historical gravity of tonight.
The rest of this political election cycle is certainly going to be exciting… and I can’t wait to see how it turns out. It’s a close one, full of completely differing ideals by both men who stand in stark contrast to one another. This is going to be interesting!
Opening night at the Democratic National Convention, author Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz, etc.) gave the closing benediction. If you were watching CNN, they didn’t televise it along with a lot of other things that happened throughout the day. But if you’re interested in hearing what he said/prayed for, here it is courtesy of CSPAN.
NOTE: The sound drops out at one point for a couple of seconds but does resume.
As I watch the coverage of the Democratic National Convention I continue to hear phrases such as “Most Liberal Senator in the Congress” (referring to Obama) and my favorite given by Rudy Guiliani “Joe Biden is the third most liberal Senator in the Congress.” I guess I never realized there was a ranking system for such things… who then is second? And how is Hillary and Pelosi or even Kennedy not among the top 3?
As I started thinking about “most liberal” vs. “moderate liberal” vs. “conservative” I wondered: “What is it that separates liberal from conservative?” What are the issues that truly make one liberal or conservative - especially if you take abortion and homosexuality off the agenda?
Are those two issues (abortion/homosexuality) truly the issues that divide liberal from conservative? I highly doubt it and am sure that there is more to it than that… but these are the only two that we ever hear about–the rest is simply rhetoric.
So, who can help me out… who can answer my question, cause I’d really like to know what truly divides us.
This past Sunday I had the opportunity to speak at The Journey, a relatively new church plant here in the city. It was a great experience and the volunteers and staff were absolutely brilliant in how they brought everything together! For a church just a little over a year old, they’re averaging around 100 adults and doing some amazing things in the city! (Most churches in SF average around 25-40, so they’re already well above the curve!)
The topic I was assigned was “War. What is it Good For?” - nice and controversial for my first message in San Francisco! I haven’t posted a sermon in quite some time, perhaps because I haven’t written one on my own in so long… but here it is!
“You were nothing but great to your ho, and you told her that she was the only ho for you, and that she was better than all the other hos in the world, and then… then suddenly she’s not your ho no mo.” ~ Michael
Citizens of Illinois, you have no idea how good you have it. I mean really, have no idea how good you have it. Last week Tracy and I ventured out to experience once again the world of the California DMV and what an experience it was. We arrived around 9:30am in order to register our car and get our drivers license’s… we didn’t leave until almost 1:30.
We waited in seven different lines throughout the morning as we were continually shuffled from station to station. The first line was the registration line where we picked up paperwork that needed to be filled out, then we were sent along to wait in the line for the paperwork for our Drivers License (we had to show 3 separate pieces of identification - Social Security Card, Birth Certificate, Drivers License - in order to even receive the paperwork.) Then we got to wait… and wait… and wait until we were processed. I took the vehicle registration and couldn’t believe the price tag! (In Illinois its just over $70… here I paid over $200. Ouch!) After I paid my money, the registration still wasn’t complete… we had to have a Drivers License processed first, so I began that process, filled out the paperwork and waited in line to have my picture taken. After my picture was taken I was then shuffled into another line where I had to take the written test… that’s right, in California you can’t just transfer a Drivers License… you have to apply like a 16 year old minus the drivers test… they waive that if you already have a license.
I waited in line, took the test and then waited in line again to have my test graded… Tracy missed 3, the max you could miss before failure. I missed 0… obviously I’m the better driver. Tracy then made her way to have our car inspected to finish out the registration while I waited in line to complete my drivers license process.
We passed our vehicle inspection and walked out with our new plates… but no new Drivers License. In Illinois you walk out with a new license on the spot… it gets printed right before your eyes. In California you have to wait for it to come to you in the mail… and it can take up to a month. Thankfully it only took a week and today we got our licenses in the mail.
Citizens of Illinois, you have no clue how good you have it.
Anyhow, I thought I’d share a couple of Drivers License (DL) pics with you… the first one is my Illinois DL pic and the second is my California DL pic. My how things have changed in just a little over a year.
Since arriving in our apartment in San Francisco we’ve had to figure out ways to make the best possible use of our space in order to have everything that we need in a 1 bedroom apartment… one of the necessities is some sort of home office. Since we didn’t want the office to also share space in the bedroom we decided to put it in the hallway closet. Yes, that’s right the hallway closet… and no its not a walk-in closet.
The office comes equipped with a desk, a whiteboard, pictures on the wall, a paper shredder, a printer, 2 file cabinets and 4 filing boxes, a desk lamp, an external hard drive and space for writing, filing and a laptop. Sounds hard to believe but it can be done! Here are a few pics:
(click images for full size)
The crazy thing is that this actually works… and it works well! It doesn’t feel crammed, it doesn’t feel too tight and I’m able to fit pretty much everything I need in there to work. This is how we did it… we went to IKEA!
At IKEA we purchased two filing cabinets on caster wheels that can be moved around and measured them to make sure they’d fit in perfectly with enough space for legs! Then at IKEA we made our way to the custom counter top section and purchased a counter top that was the proper size. They’re even willing to cut it to size if you need to! Got a cheap desk lamp for light, a powerstrip and one of the IKEA “white boards” and made our way home. I put it all together in about an hour for a grand total cost of less than $250 bucks.
The only “issue” is that there is no power outlet in the closet. This is where the powerstrip comes into play. I leave everything plugged into the powerstrip and the powerstrip is always connected to an extension cord that gets plugged in across the hall when I need to use the office. It’s as simple as opening the doors and connecting the extension cord… unplugging the extension cord and closing the doors. It fits, and it works!
So, if you need a space saving technique for a home office… give this a shot! It really does work!
As I watch the coverage of the Democratic National Convention I continue to hear phrases such as “Most Liberal Senator in the Congress” (referring to Obama) and my favorite given by Rudy Guiliani “Joe Biden is the third most liberal Senator in the Congress.” I guess I never realized there was a ranking system for such things… who then is second? And how is Hillary and Pelosi or even Kennedy not among the top 3?
“You were nothing but great to your ho, and you told her that she was the only ho for you, and that she was better than all the other hos in the world, and then… then suddenly she’s not your ho no mo.”
