A Fairly Easily Resistible Philosophy on Life: Living as an Ordinary Moderate-Liberal Protestant

I've almost finished reading Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (for the second time; the first time I read it was 2 years ago). I've been thinking about the book a lot, as it now has many direct applications for the manner in which I want to live my life during this year in Hollywood (and beyond...) I was originally going to blog tonight about some experiences working at PATH, but some thoughts on Irresistible Revolution have been weighing on my mind instead.

For those of you who don't know anything about Shane Claiborne's book, it is basically an account of how one individual has chosen to live his life in accordance with the message of the Christian Gospel. Shane Claiborne is a founding member of The Simple Way, an intentional community in Philadelphia. He is passionate about not only "serving" the poor, but living amongst the poor and even "being poor" by 21st century US standards. He notes that a huge segment of Christians base their faith on being "born again" because there's an account of Jesus telling someone in the Bible that they must be "born again" to enter the kingdom of heaven. What if there were an entire segment of the Christian population who based their faith on selling all of their possessions and giving the money to the poor -- because there's an account in the Bible of Jesus telling one guy to do exactly that, as well.

A couple weeks ago, my housemates and I, along with Matthew our site coordinator, were having a discussion on the book (we have "community day" where the six of us take time to check in, have book discussions, pray and be present with each other every monday). One of the interim pastors of First Pres. Hollywood had joined us as a guest to talk with us about some of his own experiences in Christian mission. The pastor hadn't read the book, but he eagerly listened as we talked about it and gave him a brief synopsis of the book's premise. During the discussion, the pastor cautioned that many types of theology like Shane's tend to "idealize the poor." Just because people find themselves in conditions of poverty doesn't mean that they're blameless and that their lifestyles should be imitated. We don't worship the poor or the Revolution, or Social Justice; we worship Jesus Christ. Poor people have their own spiritual problems and lifestyle problems that don't only stem from poverty.

This was a good point for me to hear. One of my only criticisms of the book up to that point had been my "theory" that Shane had to have sugarcoated and left details out of many of his stories and anecdotes that he describes in the book. He talks about giving away thousands of dollars to people on wall street and seeing people use it to share with each other and buy food for strangers. He recalls how a group of college protesters and homeless people working together helped overturn laws that forbid people from sleeping in an abandoned building or eating in a park. He tells stories about how he and his cohorts seemingly effortlessly would teach inner city kids to resist entering the cycle of violence. As someone that at least has a LITTLE bit of experience with some of these issues, I read the book and think to myself "How is it so easy for him to do all this cool stuff?!" There MUST be 20 stories of failure for every one beautiful kum-bay-ya moment. In the small neighborhood where we live, it seems unbelievably difficult for kids to escape the pull of gangs. The middle schoolers we tutor in our community house curse at each other, constantly talk about how "gangster" they are, and evidently must be watched closely because they're very frequently "dared" to steal things from the community house. Usually from my point of view, it does not seem like living in urban poverty should be idealized.

As I've made the startlingly clear realization that Shane Claiborne in his book and I myself in my own theology tend to "idealize the poor," I've tried to make sense for how I should change my outlook. Does Shane have something that I'm missing? Does he not realize that he idealizes the poor? Has he really lost sight of worshiping Jesus in his quest to live simply among the "least of these?" And at this point, I've reached the conclusion that *duh* of COURSE Shane Claiborne and other intellectual, liberation theology author types realize that they idealize the poor. Shane KNOWS he's sugar coating. He knew that his book wasn't going to get the majority of middle-upper class citizens to move out of their suburbs and into the inner city and start inviting homeless people over for dinner. He's got a little more self-awareness than that. He's heard from plenty of critics and he knows perfectly well that many well-thought out projects and sincere efforts to live among and increase the quality of life for poor people fall flat on their faces.

But why the hell would he admit that in his book? "Um yeah, God says that there should 'be no poor among you,' but even though I personally am working to change that, it's really not practical or necessary for most people to try it. Besides, plenty of homeless people are perfectly content just living on the streets getting by on the products of other people's guilt anyway." That type of attitude isn't going to move anybody. Although many people in conditions of poverty were born into it with very little chance of getting out, not every single poor person is a "victim of the system." Some have no one to blame but themselves. Some have simply made poor decisions -- and some have been given second and third chances and continued to make bad decisions every time. Some prefer to rely on the government/other people's aid and have very little interest in becoming self-sufficient or taking responsibility for their own lives. Most people who have encountered poverty in the US know this. I contend that Shane Claiborne knows this. It's a politically incorrect, but widely known truth -- and it's the reason why attempts to fight poverty are so half-hearted (well, one of the reasons anyway).

Shane Claiborne knows that it's true, but declaring that it's true and then LIVING as if it's true only perpetuates the problem. If we seriously let this truth become a guiding principle of our lives, we stay walled in our suburbs. We become convinced that poverty shouldn't get too high on our priority list, because our efforts to solve it fail. The more important truth is that the reason that our efforts to solve poverty fail is that we never TRULY believed poverty could be solved in the first place.

It is really, really tough to make any headway on issues like poverty and homelessness. Shane Claiborne (and slowly but surely, I as well) know that short-term mission trips, under-funded non-profits, and the charity of middle-class Christian "do-gooders" isn't going to get it done. The only way to affect real change is through entire lifestyle changes that are, as the book title says, quite radical. When wealthy people go out to meet and really get to know the poor with the attitude that real change really is possible, that's when both sides are radically transformed. And the only way to create that sort of encounter is to idealize the poor. Idealize them as much as possible. Make it sexy as hell for gifted, privileged white kids to forgo comfort and money in favor of totally dedicating their lives to living in solidarity with people who aren't so privileged. And perhaps some of those facts about life that most of us know to be true will become myths some day.