Since the release of his first book, The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne has both risen to prominence and taken a lot of flak in Evangelical circles.  He is one of those people who people either seem to love or hate.  He is one of the few people who seems to have the ability to remain within the mainstream of American church culture, yet offer some harsh critiques at the same time.  All the while he never comes off as mean-spirited or like he has an ax to grind.

His new book, Jesus for President, a collaboration with Chris Haw, is in some ways a sequel to the first book, but it goes in some unexpected directions along the way.  With a subtitle, Politics for Ordinary Radicals, some might expect that this book would be Claiborne’s take on the current political scene in the U.S. or some sort of alternative Christian voting guide.  While, the book is certainly political in the sense it talk about political issues, it never really delves into the American political system.  In fact a strong theme throughout the book is the futility of expecting any real change to come through the political process, much like the point that Greg Boyd made in his 2005 release, The Myth of a Christian Nation.  That certainly doesn’t mean Claiborne doesn’t have opinions about issues, though.

First, I think I need to say something about the actual book itself.  The book is full color paperback, and nearly every page has unique, hand-drawn (or at least made to look hand-drawn) artwork pertaining to the content on the page.  It is obvious that the was a labor of love for the authors.  The book is nearly 350 pages long, but in actual content it is probably comparable to other paperbacks half that length.  It’s a pretty quick read.

The book is broken up into four sections, and the first three are largely historical in nature.  In Section 1, the Old Testament narrative including Creation, the Fall, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, and the call of Abraham are reviewed.  The authors make special note that all throughout this time, God was working with humanity to bring redemption and restoration to the fallen world.  They talk of God’s plan for the Israelites, and His frustration with them for neglecting their calling.  They talk about God’s giving in to the Israelites demands for a king, and the prophets that were sent to keep these kings in check.  An interesting discussion in this section has to do with the Levitical laws and festivals the Jewish people were to observe.  A major point of these laws and observances, according to the authors, was to set Israel apart as an example for other nations to see.

At their core, these Hebrew laws were ways God was protecting the integrity of a new humanity.  It was not simply for their sake but for the sake of creation.  For the original plan of God was that Israel would be set apart to redeem the nations.  This was not a plan to reform the pagan nations around it – like making the neighboring Assyrian empire better at doing empire.  Rather, God would save the world through fascination, by setting up an alternative society on the margins of empire for the world to come and see what a society of love looks like.  It would be the city on a hill that God would use to light up the world, drawing the world back to God.

Obviously, Isreal largely failed at this task, and that brings us to Section 2.  This section starts with a retelling of the birth of Christ.  From the get-go, the story the Gospels tell of Jesus, are pitting him against Caesar.  The language and rhetorical forms that the writers use are mirrors of the way Caesars were explained in those days.  Jesus’ birth, life and death were all set against the backdrop of the Roman Empire.  First century readers of these narratives could not help but notice that a main point the Gospels are attmepting to get across is that Jesus is the real Lord, opposed to the imposter, Caesar.  From the start, Christianity was a movement that operated on the fringes of society, and to be a Christian, meant one opposing the empire.  This is the main thesis of the book.  One quick point on this.  It may sound like the authors are advocating a complete withdrawal from society at this point.  This however, isn’t the case.  What they are saying is that Jesus’ Kingdom is in the World, but not of it.  By that, they mean the Kingdom is operating in the here and now, but it operates on completely different principles than earthly kingdoms.  Whereas earthly Kingdoms maintain order by exercising power over others,  Jesus’ Kingodom is advanced by serving and loving our enemies.  This brings us to Section 3, which describes how the church missed this point.

Section 3 is largely devoted to describing the post-Apostolic age and beyond.  In the first and second centuries, being a Christian largely meant that you had as little to do with the empire as possible.  There are stories of whole legions of soldiers coming to Christ and refusing to fight.  To a large extent, it seems that the church was being faithful to the charge that Christ had given it.  Unfortunately, in 312 AD things took a turn for the worse when Constantine had his famous vision of a cross in the sky before the Battle of Milvian Bridge.  With this began an intermingling of Christianity and the Empire that is still affecting the way we think today.  With Christianity becoming a state religion, and war being justified as a Christian undertaking, it became hard to see the difference between the Church and the society at large.  Considerable time is spent describing how the authors see this intermingling affecting American society.  And this is probably the section that will make some people very angry.  Claiborne and Haw come out pretty strongly against the military in this section.  They even go so far as encouraging Christians in the military to leave, and they admit to helping enlisted people break their enlistments.  So obviously, there is a large group of people that probably won’t agree with this.  The one point that they do make that I find very hard to argue with is the long-lasting effects that war and armed combat has on those that are involved.

Section 4 concludes the book.  This section is where the authors give some examples of how the principles and ideas discussed earlier in the book apply to real life. The topics covered are pretty wide-ranging – homosexuality, ecology, economics, tithing, martyrdom, and, yes, politics – just to name a few.  For the sake of space, I won’t summarize them all here, but I will say that all of the topics are well researched and they make a good case for changing the status quo in the Church at large.  All of these things are discussed with the question of how we can live as Kingdom people while we are here.  On page 334, they sum it up like this:

The distinctly kingdom question is not about how we should vote but about how we should live.  The decision we make in each future election is no more important than how we vote everyday.  We vote every day for companies, for people, and we put money toward “campaigns.” We need to think of the faces behind the scenes.  Who are the masters Caesars that we pledge allegiance to by the way we live and through the things we put trust in?  We vote every day with our feet, our hands, our lips, and our wallets.  We are to vote for the peacemakers.  We are to vote for the marginalized, the oppressed, the most vulnerable of our society.  These are the ones Jesus voted for, those whom the empire had left behind, those whom no millionaire politician will represent.

While I was reading this book, there were a few things that struck me.  First, I think the reason that Claiborne seems to resonate with people has to do with the fact that he really does seem to practice what he preaches.  He lives in the inner city of Philadelphia with a bunch of other people, and they make their own clothes and grow their own food.  It’s one thing to disagree on an abstract concept, but it becomes a bit more difficult to totally discount what someone is saying when they fully living it.

The second thing that went through my mind was the question of how I would have responded to this book five years ago.  I have little doubt in my mind that I would have written these guys as liberals at best, or communists at worst.  But at this moment, there is something refreshing and beautiful that comes across to me here.  Perhaps it is the fact that these guys are my age, and they aren’t just talking.  They are actually doing something.  Perhaps it comes from my own frustrations with the status quo.  Either way, it is interesting how God uses certain things within our our spiritual journeys.

In summary, I highly recommend this book.  I  certainly can’t promise that everyone will like it, but I do think that it will challenge you and make you think.