The Irresistible Revolution

I've heard Shane Claiborne speak twice, the book was on my shelf for more than a year, I've even had dinner with him! I thought that I'd heard what he had to say and that I didn't need to read the book, until a conversation with one of my students who'd read Irresistible Revolution in High School. After reading the book, he and a few friends decided to honor the lunch ladies at their school with a special dinner, served by tuxedoed high schoolers. So I picked it up and read it over the past month on airplanes and buses. Sure, I'd heard several of the anecdotes from the book in his presentations, but there is so much more. Claiborne refers repeatedly to source material that inspired his own theological reflections on the relationships between Christians and poverty: Martin Luther King Jr, Dorothy Day, Charles Marsh, and others. He wrestles articulately with a lot of the things I've wrestled with in the years since I began college: how should Christians respond to sweatshops, violence, war, the church? His response to these questions is in many ways more radical than mine have been, but they have both encouraged me to persevere in ways that I've invested my life more deeply and challenged me in ways that I've made selfish choices. He reads the Bible as if Jesus really meant what he said, and challenges the reader to do likewise. I'm considering this as a text for a group of students I work with who will recruit volunteers from their residence halls to serve in various capacities, mostly within under-resourced communities. My hesitation comes with the sometimes political slant taken in the book, that may serve to alienate several of the students I work with. However, as I've now finished the book, I'm more convinced that his message and Biblical interpretation are right on. I'm recommending this book broadly, if you are a Christian who is serious about your faith, or someone whose not been convinced that the Christianity we see in America today is for you. I'm also wondering which other writer/speakers I've short changed by assuming that I know all they have to say after hearing them speak for forty minutes.