Mennonite Weekly Review

NORTH NEWTON, Kan. — One of Dale Schrag’s favorite sayings is “Jesus meant what he said, and he was talking to us.”

Shane Claiborne talks with Naomi Graber of Elkhart, Ind., after speaking at Bethel College. Also pictured are Kelsie Miller of Goshen, Ind., standing at center, and Rachel Voran of Newton, Kan., seated at right. — Photo by Vada Snider/Bethel College

Schrag, Bethel College director of church relations, borrowed the saying referencing the 16th-century Anabaptists from Lynn Miller of Bluffton, Ohio. Shane Claiborne, says Schrag, proved he was cut whole from 16th-century Anabaptist cloth.

Claiborne — a leading voice for Christians reclaiming the early church’s emphasis on living in community and serving the poor — gave two presentations at Bethel March 5-6.

“I grew up in east Tennessee,” Claiborne told a crowd of more than 500 in Bethel’s Memorial Hall and a packed house the next day in Krehbiel Auditorium for convocation. “For a while, I had the experience of being ‘born again’ every year.

“Eventually, I began to think, ‘There’s got to be more to it than this, more than just believing. Even the demons believe.’ ” Citing 1 Corinthians 13, Claiborne noted that giving away everything, submitting to martyrdom or having all faith and all knowledge are nothing without love.

“The more I read Jesus,” said Claiborne, who has a degree from Eastern University and has studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, “the more I found in conflict with the faith I’d grown up with. The kingdom of God was not only something to hope for when we die, but something to work for now.

“[We were taught] there was life after death, but I was hearing people say, ‘What about life before death?’ This was about Jesus, who came to help people live now.”

He spoke of his experience working with Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta and observing Mother Teresa’s badly deformed feet. Finally, one of the sisters explained to him that many pairs of donated shoes came to the ministry each year, and Mother Teresa wanted to be sure everyone else got the best shoes. Years of wearing poorly fitting shoes herself had deformed Mother Teresa’s feet.

“What would the world look like if we all took Jesus’ words that seriously, of giving the best away to others?” Claiborne said. “The best thing to do with the best things is to give them away, not keep them for ourselves.”

Claiborne’s desire to take Jesus seriously led him not only to Calcutta but also to Baghdad during a time of bombardment by coalition forces. It caused him and a group of friends to form The Simple Way community in inner-city Philadelphia, constructed along the lines of the early church with sharing of financial and other resources, and part of a resurgence of intentional Christian communities that has come to be called a “new monasticism.”