Desire for change I can believe in

For quite some time, now, I've been disenchanted with the Christian church as it exists in the United States. It seems so hollow, so prude, so reserved, especially for a church whose central tenet is that while we are all sinners, we are all loved by God, and should treat each other accordingly.

I happened across a book written to people like me (a devout, Lutheran-confirmed churchgoer until 16, who still considers himself Christian yet has not found a church that actually seems to practice the religion), titled "The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical", by Shane Claiborne. I'm still working on processing everything I've been reading, and how some of the assertions it's made can be integrated into my life-view to help me be the person I want to be, but I've simply copied some of the sections that I found struck me most, and on occasion added my thoughts on it.

"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." It's true--so many Christian churches tell you to set aside your unholy ways and to embrace Christ, yet what do they give you instead? A community whose whole purpose seems to be maintaining itself as an insular, superior community.

"Christianity can be built around isolating ourselves from evildoers and sinners, creating a community of religious piety and moral purity. That's the Christianity I grew up with. Christianity can also be built around joining with the broken sinners and evildoers of our world crying out to God, groaning for grace.
That's the Christianity I have fallen in love with."

"...the higher a person's frequency of church attendance, the more likely they are to be sexist, racist, anti-gay, promilitary, and committed to their local church...If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar opposition to the Beatitudes Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to the pop Christianity that has taken over the airwaves of North America."

"When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist." - late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara

"We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside...but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved." - Martin Luther King Jr., "A Time to Break the Silence" (sermon, Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967)

"The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away."
This one sounds more trite, but I think back to Christmas, birthdays, etc., and since I've reached maturity, I've inevitably been far more gratified giving others gifts than in receiving them myself. It's funny that "re-gifting" has a negative connotation, when you think about it. Isn't that called generosity? I guess it's mostly applied to stuff people don't want, but who, in all honesty, gives those? If you don't appreciate something, give it to someone who will.

"...what's at stake today [in Iraq] is the reputation not just of America but of Christianity...I heard people in Iraq call leaders in the US 'Christian extremists,' just as leaders here speak of 'Muslim extremists.'"

From "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe":
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course [Aslan] isn't safe. But he's good.
Following God as a Christian was never safe--look at Jesus. He suffered a public execution. Why are such a high proportion of Catholic saints martyrs? Being a real Christian means loving and caring for everyone, regardless of their shortcomings. According to scripture, everyone sins--we have to face that and band together to help each other as equals in the eyes of god. It's no coincidence that Jesus says it's harder for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to make it to heaven. It goes against many directives of American society to sacrifice what you've accumulated and to follow a dangerous course of life helping others, rather than helping yourself, and once someone has achieved the American dream of success, it's even more difficult.

"The Scriptures say that we should not fear those things which can destroy the body, but we are to fear that which can destroy the soul (Matt. 10:28). While the ghettos may have their share of violence and crime, the suburbs are the home of the more subtle demonic forces--numbness, complacency, comfort--and it is these that can eat away at our souls."

"When we talk about materialism and simplicity, we must always begin with love for God and neighbor, otherwise we're operating out of little more than legalistic, guilt-ridden self-righteousness...we can live lives of disciplined simplicity and still be distant from the poor...Rather than being bound up by how much stuff we need to buy, we can get enslaved to how simply we must live."
"Conservatives stand up and thank God that they are not like the homosexuals, the Muslims, the liberals. Liberals stand up and thank God that they are not like the war makers, the yuppies, the conservatives. It is a similar self-righteousness, just with different definitions of evildoing. It can paralyze us in judgment and guilt and rob us of life."

a good observation to summarize much of this falls in this one quote:
"The greatest cause of atheism is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." - Brennan Manning

An outrightly hypocritical faith that behaves in opposition to its texts' central tenets, claiming to be moral and accepting yet in reality doing anything but, won't inspire real faith among those who aren't already integrated and befuddled by it. In order to follow the Christianity that I learned to love as a child, and still hold dear despite my lack of a community to support me in following its teachings, I'm going to have to reject the modern institution and instead make the effort to embrace the lifestyle true Christianity demands.


ADDED 6/26

"I am reminded of how Gandhi said that if he had to choose between a violent person and a coward, he would choose the violent person. For a violent person can be taught to love, but very little can be done with a coward."

"Some of us have spent so much time fighting what we are against that we can barely remember what we are for."

"...if our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry, then we are guilty of heresy."

"We've all heard the saying, 'Give someone a fish and they'll eat for a day, but teach them to fish and they'll eat for the rest of their life.' But our friend John Perkins challenges us to go farther. He says, 'The problem is that nobody is asking who owns the pond.' As we consider economics, some of us will give people fish. Others will teach people to fish. But still others must be looking at who owns the pond and who polluted it, for these are also essential questions for our survival. We must storm the fence that has been built around the pond and make sure everyone can get to it, for there are enough fish for all of us."