The Irresistible Revolution

I bet Shane Claiborne's new book is really good.

From the book:

"It’s what always happens to the saints and prophets who are dangerous: we bronze them, we drain them
of their passion and life and trap them in stained-glass windows and icons, confining them safely in memories of the past. St. Francis becomes a birdbath, Malcolm X
is put on a stamp, and Martin Luther King gets a holiday.
And Jesus gets commercialized, whether it’s the
plastic night-lights or the golden crucifixes. (And now
there is a bobbing-head “Buddy Jesus” for your car and
the “Jesus is my homeboy” T-shirt.) It becomes hard
to know who Jesus really is, much less to imagine that
Jesus ever laughed, cried, or had poop that smelled.
I can remember when Christianity
was still safe, comfortable, trendy. I grew up in the Bible Belt, in East
Tennessee, where there’s a church building on nearly
every corner. I can’t remember meeting anyone Jewish
or Muslim, and I distinctly remember being dissuaded
from dating a Catholic girl because she “prayed to
Mary.” I attended two or three different youth groups,
whichever had the best entertainment and drew the
largest crowd. Church was a place where there were
cute girls, free junk food, and cheap snowboarding
trips. I discovered a Christianity
that entertained me with quirky songs and velcro walls.1
In middle school, I had a sincere “conversion”
experience. We took a trip to a large Christian festival
with bands, speakers, and late-night pranks. One night
a short, bald preacherman named Duffy Robbins gave
an invitation to “accept Jesus,” and nearly our whole
youth group went forward (a new concept for most
of us), crying and snotting, hugging people
we didn’t know. I was born again. The next year, we went to that
same festival, and most of us went forward again (it
was so good the first time) and got born again, again.
In fact, we looked forward to it every year. I must have
gotten born again six or eight times, and it was great
every time. (I highly recommend it.)
But then you start to think there must be more to
Christianity, more than just laying your life and sins at
the foot of the cross. I came to realize that preachers were telling me to lay my life at the foot of the cross and weren’t giving me anything to pick up. A lot of us were hearing “don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t sleep
around” and naturally started asking, “Okay, well, that
was pretty much my life, so what do I do now?” Where
were the do’s? And nobody seemed to have much to
offer us. Handing out tracts at the mall just didn’t seem
like the fullness of Christian discipleship, not to mention
it just wasn’t as fun as making out at the movies.
I was just another believer. I believed all the right
stuff — that Jesus is the Son of God, died and rose again. I
had become a “believer,” but I had no idea what it means to be a follower. People
had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live.
So as we do in our culture, I thought perhaps I
needed to buy more stuff, Christian stuff. Luckily, I
found an entire Christian industrial complex ready to
help with Christian music, bumper stickers, T-shirts,
books, and even candy (“Testamints” . . . dead serious .
. . mints with a Bible verse attached, candy with a
Christian aftertaste). They had lists of bands and the
Christian alternatives to them, so I got rid of all my old
CDs. (And I must confess, I was a bit disappointed by
the Christian counterfeit. Who could compare to Guns N’ Roses and Vanilla Ice?)"