Voices In My Head Podcast Episode 320: A Conversation With Shane Claiborne

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. And by the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head. Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host Rick Lee James, and I'm glad that you could be back with us this week. This is a very special episode with guest Shane Claiborne, and it's a great conversation. I'm excited to bring it to you. Before we do that though, I have a couple of quick words from these sponsors. And now a word from our sponsors.

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This is Rick Lee James, and the music you are hearing is from my new album, Thunder. The title track, Thunder, is a never-before-released song by the late Rich Mullins. There are also 12 other tracks made up of original music, hymns, and readings to guide the listener listener on a journey. You can buy Thunder today on clear vinyl and CD, or stream it on Spotify, Apple Music, and almost every other music streaming service. Thunder, hear it today at rickleejames.com. This episode of Voices in My Head is brought to you by Podbean. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. Visit podbean.com/voices to find out more. That's podbean.com/voices. And we're back, and this is a very special episode of Voices in My Head that's coming to you actually from back in 2017. I wanted to bring a brand new episode to you this week, but it's been a very busy time here in our life. Summer has begun, my son has been getting over pneumonia, my parents are getting ready to move here from West Virginia, so we are heading to West Virginia very soon. Last night, literally, there was tornadoes hitting and destroyed just Dayton around us a a lot of places in Dayton, a lot of places in Celina. And so we know there's going to be a lot of relief work and help, so we're going to try to be a part of that in whatever way we can. And it just so happens that even though I have several guests planned on future shows, it was just going to be an easier thing this week to let you hear a flashback episode.

And the reason I wanted to share this flashback episode specifically—

there's a couple different reasons, one being this is the most listened to episode of our podcast that we've had, and we've had a lot of listens over the years.

But Shane Claiborne is a wonderful guest, really great great guy and I enjoyed hanging out with him.

And I think this conversation is worth listening to again. We talked a lot about Rich Mullins because Shane knew Rich and I was getting ready to record Rich Mullins' song for my new album, Thunder, which is now released.

At the time it wasn't.

And at the time we had recorded, it was also the year of the anniversary of Rich Mullins, the 20th anniversary of Rich Mullins' death. So it was really great to get to hear some firsthand stories about Rich Mullins from somebody who knew him well. And then to have some other conversations about very important things that have to do with the gospel and the way we live, and things like turning guns into plowshares and, uh, some of the great work that Shane is doing. So I felt like this was an episode that was worth revisiting, and I hope that you'll take time to listen to it. Maybe if you even heard it the first time a couple of years ago when we broadcast it, I really think it's something that would do us a lot of good to, to listen to again today. So, uh, You don't need to hear me talk as much as you probably need to hear Shane today, so I'm going to turn it over and let you hear the conversation that I had with Shane Claiborne back in 2017 here on the Voices in My Head podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll be back with you again next week.

God bless. Shane Claiborne is a follower of Jesus, and following Jesus has led him on many adventures. Following Jesus has taken him from the streets the streets of Calcutta where he worked with Mother Teresa to the wealthy suburbs of Chicago where he served at the influential megachurch Willow Creek. As a peacemaker, his journeys with Jesus have taken him to some of the world's most troubled regions, from Rwanda to the West Bank, and he's been on peace delegations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shane is the leader of The Simple Way, a faith community in inner-city Philadelphia that has helped birth and connect radical faith communities around the world. Following Jesus has also led Shane to write and travel extensively speaking about peacemaking, social justice, and of course, Jesus. His books include Jesus for President, Red Letter Revolution, Common Prayer, Follow Me to Freedom, and his classic, The Irresistible Revolution. All of this barely even scratches the surface of things that following Jesus has led Shane Claiborne to. He's been featured in movies, has appeared in numerous publications and TV shows, and on top of all that, He's a really nice guy. I'm so glad that following Jesus has led him to Voices in My Head podcast where we can have a conversation today. Shane Claiborne, welcome to the Voices in My Head podcast.

Yeah, man, it's great to be here with you. Thanks for having me.

Well, I am just thrilled. I've been a watcher from afar for a long time and a reader of yours and trying to follow some of the example that you have set. Have set before us as you have been doing your best to follow the example of Jesus in the world. So I want to thank you for that commitment and, and just being a light. I think for my money there's few people that I can think of that are doing what you're doing in exactly the way you're doing it, at least in North America in this way. And so it's going to be fun to have a conversation today. As we begin, I wonder if you could just quickly define for us in your words, because I'm not sure if this is a phrase that you actually came up with or if it's just one that's associated with you because of your writings. But define for us, what is an ordinary radical?

Well, yeah, I don't know if I came up with that or not either, but I like the word radical because in its truest sense it means root. You know, like a radish is a root, and it has to do with getting at the very root of something. And so to me 'Be Radical' is about getting at the heart of what it means to love our neighbor as ourself and to love Jesus with all of our heart and mind and strength. I like the earthiness of it and the simplicity of it. I think sometimes we think of radical as extreme or over the top. That's why I think it's important that it be coupled with ordinary because there's so many people out there that are doing beautiful things with their lives. I tend to use those words together. I think we're going to get to talk about Rich Mullins a little bit, but he talked about ragamuffins, and I think that's probably my version of ragamuffin.

Very cool. I couldn't have asked for a better segue, actually, than that as we go into our discussion. Listeners will know if they've been listening to the last few episodes that a couple of weeks ago I was in Nashville for a book release called Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth. On that show, I had a couple of the authors and I had David Mullins, Rich's brother, together on the podcast, and we were sharing some stories of Rich Mullins because it is the 20th anniversary of when he left our world to go be with the Lord. And, um, and I really enjoyed your section in the book where you got to talk a little bit about Rich. And I don't think maybe a lot of people realize that you two had crossed paths. It's not necessarily, um, somebody that you would think of automatically because you're not really known for being a musician or anything like that. But you did have some time with Rich Mullins. Tell us how you first came in contact with him.

Well, I had appreciated Rich's music, although I'll have to confess I was a little bit of a punk rocker, and so I liked it a little heavier most of the time. But when I went to Wheaton, I went to Wheaton College my senior year, and I was really there primarily for an internship that I was doing working at Willow Creek, but then I got there and I found out, wow, Rich had decided to take a sabbatical and be at Wheaton for that year. And he had written a play about St. Francis of Assisi, who I loved, and was also going to live— I think he lived on campus and everything. I'll tell you the funny first encounter that we had was, it was actually my— I don't sing at all. And so the word was that he had written this musical about St. Francis, so they were looking for people to try out for it. And so Wheaton had all these wonderful musicians and stuff. And my hall director in my dorm was going to try out and he said, "You want to come?" And I was like, "Yeah, I'll just come and listen. It would be cool to—" I'd love to see Rich in the band and see people try out. So I went along with him too. I think I took some homework with me or whatever. I was just going to kind of check it out. And then I got there and so first of all, I had a Rage Against the Machine t-shirt on with a black American flag. It said, "Evil Empire." I had multicolored hair and I show up. And so then Rich just kind of looks over and there weren't as many people there as I thought. And so he said, "I need somebody else to help read." And he picked me and he said, "Come up here and help read just as like a filler." Everybody else could try out. I was just kind of running lines. He goes, "You can lose the Southern accent." I was like, "No, I can't lose the Southern accent. This is for real." Anyway, we hit it off through all that. I ended up being in the— I had the only non-musical part in the play, this one-armed country-like mountain man. That's the role I played. Sadly, my hall director I don't think got a part, so I couldn't like, you know, I had to kind of leave that on the down low. But through all of that, I just spent as much time with him as I could and just came to really love my brother. Yeah, what a great light in the world.

Oh, that's awesome. Well, you know, I would consider Rich to be one of those ordinary radicals that you were just talking about a few minutes ago, which is why I asked that question first. I think he, through his music, has affected many people's lives, of course, unless, you know, they were punk rockers or something like you. Nah, I'm just kidding. But when I think about the effect that Rich Mullin has had on many people's ministry, I wonder what effect he had upon you and the ministry that you would be carrying out in the coming days after college, because most of us didn't have that opportunity to actually get to spend time with him. And I wonder if you can pinpoint maybe anything that that just sort of being around him and learning from him had taught you about living out this ordinary radical life?

Well, Rick was enamored with Jesus, and that emanated from him. As you probably know, he wrote a whole album just on Jesus, you know, and on the words of Jesus. And part of, I think, why he loved St. Francis so much was that Francis just read the Sermon on the Mount and sold everything he had and gave it to the poor and lived this really radical life. But it was a very simple life of just loving Jesus and loving the poor. And a lot of Rich Mullins' message was simple, you know. It was this idea that we kind of overcomplicate complicate things. And, um, and in the end, it's about how we love, and especially how we love the most marginalized and most vulnerable people in our world. Um, so, uh, yeah, that, that's, that's what I remember most about, um, Rich. And I, I think what, what's amazing too is what a corrective that is to so much of our Christianity. I mean, even when he was still alive, a lot of Christianity had gotten so distracted from Jesus. And when we, when we get distracted from Jesus, we end up talking a lot about things Jesus didn't talk about, and we don't talk about the things Jesus talked a lot about, you know. And I think it's that kind of invitation to say, "What would it look like if we fell in love with Jesus again and allowed Christ to really be the center of our Christianity?" Because for, you know, a lot of people, Christians have looked very unlike Christ, and we've become known for the things that Jesus spoke out against, like self-righteousness. And we've often become known more for who we've excluded than who we've embraced, and sometimes more for what we're against than what we're for. And I think Rich was a beautiful example of what real Christianity can look like.

Well, that's awesome to hear that. Well, I'm a big fan of Rick's music, and the more I hear about his life, I do think that that probably is a pretty good description for him. Maybe we could say he just never got over getting saved to some extent, like some of us do. And I think that's a beautiful thing. And I think of the different things in his life that he did do, whether it be taking a vow to live only at the level of what the average American was living at, and the money that he money he was making was going to his church for them to decide where it went to, or spending a lot of his time on Indian reservations and things that many of us would, you know, would think like, wow, that's a really radical thing to do. But it just sounds like Rich kind of lived his life there in that place. And I'm sure you can relate with all the places that you've been to. I can't think of any other thing except Jesus calling people to do things like this, you know, to call us to get up and go. And it just seems like he's always calling the least likely people. You know, I love how Dr. William Willemann says, you know, it's a good thing I'm not the one calling people and Jesus is, because I really question Jesus' judgment sometimes. He just doesn't seem to call the people that I would. And there's a lot of places that we could go, but I think that I've heard you say before that stories seem to be a lot more effective when talking to people than statistics are. And Rich was certainly a great storyteller, not only with his music, but seeing some of the recordings of him telling stories live, I feel like his life was a story in many ways. Is there any story about Rich that comes to mind with you other than you first meeting him that just kind of sticks out in your mind as like, yeah, that's a Rick story?

Oh wow, gosh, there's so many that come to mind. I mean, one of them that I heard about secondhand was that he and one of his buddies were on a train, you know, and they were really kind of on there for a while, and so they started sort of having one of those bro-downs, you know, confessing some of the some things on our heart and some of our struggles and different things. The train kind of comes to the station and they've really had this pretty powerful heart-to-heart. This woman stands up and recognizes Rich and she says, "Sorry to interrupt, but I can't help but ask, are you Rich Mullins?" Rich used to say, "At that point, I began to think of all the things that she could have heard me say about myself and I had to decide whether or not I was Rich Mullins." Wow. The thing I love about that, and he ends by saying, "I looked her in the eyes and I smiled and said, 'Yes, I am. I'm Rick Lee James.'" And I think this decision to own his own darkness and his own struggles is very much a part of who he was. And just as he modeled with integrity so many beautiful Jesus-like principles and things, he also, I think, People love Rich because of his transparency and his honesty and his openness about his own struggles. And one of the things I say about Rich a lot is that folks love him because they're looking for Christians that are honest, not for Christians that are perfect. And too often we've acted like we're perfect and we haven't really been honest. And so I don't think that the world is kind of looking for Christians that have everything together. They're actually looking for Christians that are willing to admit that we don't, you know. Um, so sometimes people say to me, well, the church is full of hypocrites, and, and nowadays I say, no, it's not. We've always got room for more. Yeah, that's right.

There's always room for more, that's for sure. Well, while, while we're on that subject, I'm going to transition a bit out of our talk about Rich Mullins, but I, I really appreciate you just taking time, uh, to talk about him a little bit today. It's a rare opportunity that I get to sit and talk with people who knew Rich. And so that's just a wonderful— just thank you on a personal level. I love hearing stories about him. But talking about, you know, the church being full of hypocrites, and you're right, all of us are from time to time, and maybe daily, maybe more than I want to admit. But we're in turbulent times, and I know you know this, and maybe we're always in turbulent times as long as the Lord tarries. But I think about lately, and we're thinking about very recently now, this shooting in Las Vegas. And there have been multiple shootings since that one, but that's the one that's sort of been on our mind and in the news because it was so big, and so tragic, and so horrific. And I want to present a scenario to you because I know your heart on this matter of guns, and violence, and This scenario happened to me just maybe 2 months ago, and so I'm gonna, I'm gonna have this scenario given to you and see how maybe you would have thought through or responded, just to help me, because honestly, when this happened, I was struck dumb and I didn't know what to say. I was in a church where I was playing a concert, and a man came up to me, and I had finished the part of the service I was playing in, and I kind of made my way out to the foyer just to kind of sit where my table was, and I was just trying to listen to the sermon. And a man came up to me, and I guess he was the head usher or someone like that, and he just started talking to me about his guns and how he was holding a gun right now. You know, he was packing at church, and he started telling me about all the people in his church that were packing guns. And there's probably 50 people in that sanctuary today who have their guns with them. And And I thought, why is he telling me all this? And then he said these words to me, and I really like— I hadn't struck up this conversation or anything. I was just sitting there trying to listen, but he was passionate about it. And he said these words, and I thought, this is where I'd love to have your input. He said basically how much he hated Democrats, and then he said, they want to kill babies, that's one thing, but if they come after my guns, they won't take them without a fight. And this was a head usher in a church. That's— and that, it threw me off. I was speechless. And I thought, how far away have we gotten from the gospel here? Yeah, to make a statement like that, um, in a, in a church foyer. But I wonder if that was you. And, and I'm— you've had way more, I'm sure, scenarios similar to that where someone comes up and talks to 'Would you have a response at that moment to someone?' I mean, I was just kind of struck because I wasn't expecting it. I didn't know what to say. I wonder how you would respond in a situation like that.

Oh gosh, well, bless your heart, man. I guess I would probably just say, 'Man, I got the best bodyguard in the world, sweet Lord Jesus. He's got my back, man.' I think, well, first of all, I grew up in Tennessee with guns everywhere. We've got a country music song that says, "This house is protected by the good Lord and a gun." Right. "And if you come unwanted, you'll meet 'em both, son." So that's my people, my world I grew up in. But I think that the more I leaned into Jesus, the more I saw those deep contradictions. I think it's why many people have a distaste for Christianity as they see these inherent differences, whether it's guns or slavery. Like Frederick Douglass said, "I love the pure, peaceable Christianity of Christ, but I see no reason to call the Christianity of this land Christian. It looks so unlike its Christ." That, as we were justifying slavery on one hand, and folks that were lynching black folks that then went to church on Sunday morning. You know, I think we've had this fusion. You even go to the KKK's website and it has an entire section on the theology of the cross and why they light the cross to burn up the darkness. It's really distorted, sick theology. Um, so I mean, part of what— why I keep coming back to Jesus is that, um, Jesus didn't carry a gun. He carried a cross, you know. And he's known as the Lamb of God. And the one thing that lambs don't do is they don't don't hurt anybody. As I look at Jesus, who from the moment he's born comes vulnerable as a refugee, as a baby born in a manger because there was no room in the inn. He's executed on the cross, and as he dies, he forgives the people that are killing him. I mean, he absolutely— when I look at the Sermon on the Mount, I think these ideas that we have of like stand your ground They are a direct affront to turn the other cheek and towards the nonviolence of Jesus. And I don't think that that means we don't react to evil. I think what Jesus is showing us is that we can interact with evil without becoming it, and that we can wear evil down with love. As the early Christians said, "Grace has the power to dull even the sharpest sword." And, you know, so I think that we live in a culture that is absolutely held hostage to fear. It is a fear-driven culture. And the Bible has something to say about fear, and it says, "Perfect love casteth out fear." And I think that we also see that fear casteth out love. It doesn't make much room for love, and when fear is driving us, We become very dangerous people. Our policies become very dangerous and oppressive policies when they're driven out of fear rather than love. But Jesus came to free us from that. I think Jesus came to show us how we can live fearlessly even in a world where evil was very real. I mean, I think when Jesus told the disciples to love their enemies, he knew they were going to be fed to beasts and quartered and hung upside down on crosses. I mean, evil was as real 2,000 years ago as it is now. Yeah. Jesus is showing us a way to transcend it without becoming it. So I just haven't figured out a way to reconcile Jesus' command to love our enemies with simultaneously preparing to kill them. Right, right. So, yeah, it doesn't work.

And I just was part of a conversation today where somebody asked the question, "You think Jesus would buy a gun?" And somebody pretty quickly, as the conversation always goes to, "Well, think about this. He went to the temple with a whip in his hand. He drove everybody out." And my response was, "So what you're saying is if a gun was available, Jesus would have gone into the temple and started shooting up the place. That's what you're saying by that." And I always find that we, for some reason, our people are so desperate to hang on to our ways of violence, even in the church, and I'm not sure why. I think maybe you hit the nail on the head though when you talked about the way that fear drives us at times. I know it for me as a person who is in church and is constantly working and talking with people who are followers of Christ, it's one thing that again and again it frustrates me, but it, I think, hurts my heart a little bit too when I hear ways that we're always trying to wiggle out of following Jesus. It must be, as I even think about the context of this this conversation we're having. It must be so much harder to have perfect love than it is to have fear. It must be something that you really have to work at in order to have perfect love in that way. I just wonder at times, is there any other way to convince our people of it short of the Holy Spirit doing the work but us as as ministers just to consistently be living this out on a daily basis and just trying to show it by example and live it out. Because, you know, I feel like 2016 was sort of an exercise in following fear for our country. You know, there was fear talk everywhere, and, you know, throughout the election it just continued being that way. And then after the election it became about fearing the other and fearing refugees and fearing people who are going to hurt us. And it's just interesting that in, you know, our nation, which is one of the most violent in the world, we're scared to death that somebody else is going to get us. I'm almost as scared as those within the nation. I am on that level. I wonder if you could— I'm going on too long, but I'm wondering if you could share a little bit of the story, because I think this is a beautiful story that I've read about you writing. I've heard you tell about what you're doing with actually being a part of taking weapons and turning them into tools, so to speak, into plowshares and weapons into plowshares. And I know there's some beautiful stories that have come out of that work, but I don't know if a lot of our listeners know about that. Would you be willing to share a little bit about that?

Yeah, sure. Well, so we have been really inspired by the— vision in the prophets, both Isaiah and Micah give this vision that God's people will beat their swords into plows and their spears into pruning hooks. That, you know, and then it goes on to say nation will not rise up against nation, they will study war and violence no more, people will live without fear. It's a beautiful image of where the world is headed. And you kind of start to go, it's been said that hope changes the one who hopes. If you believe that's what is coming, then you start to live differently. If we believe that people are going to beat their swords into plows, it doesn't make sense to keep making more swords. In the United States, we found that we have 5% of the world's population, but almost half of the world's civilians own guns. Wow. It's pretty remarkable. So, you know, like we have almost one gun for every person in the United States. So, if we've got 100 guns for 100 people, the next biggest country is India where they have 4 guns for every 100 people. So, it's just unprecedented. And, you know, where there are more guns, there's more gun violence. There's more suicides. So, we have 30,000 deaths a year. From guns, and many of them are— you start to just go, "This doesn't need to be normal. It doesn't have to be this way." Some people will say, "Well, it's not a gun problem, it's a heart problem," and really what we've been saying is it's both. These aren't exclusive. We need God to change hearts. No law can change someone's heart. No law can change someone who's racist or hateful or whatever. How does that work? But God may be looking to us to change some laws. You know, like we actually— sometimes we just say all we can do is pray, you know, about something like Las Vegas. And I think sometimes that's a lie. You know, we should pray, but when we say all we can do is pray, it's often not true. There are lots of other things we can do. And so we've been very active on this. And this is not just an issue. I mean, I think what happens for a lot of us is this becomes personal.— and that happened to me when a 19-year-old kid collapsed on my front steps after being shot, and he ended up dying. His name was Papito. And there kind of comes a moment where Dr. Martin Luther King said, "We're called to be the Good Samaritan and lift our neighbor, you know, out of the ditch, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch, you start to say, 'Maybe we need to rethink the whole road to Jericho.'" And that's where we've really been doing a lot of work on this. But we got so excited about that, we started asking people, you know, we got 300 million Does anybody want to donate any and transform them from guns into plows? It's amazing what you can do with Facebook and Twitter. People started donating guns. The first one we got was an AK-47 where this guy was like, "I have no idea why I have this. You don't use it to hunt deer." He donated an AK-47. We transformed it into a shovel and a rake. .22 Long Rifle. Then we began getting all kinds of other guns. I've got one right here beside me that was a handgun we found in an abandoned house in Philly. The mothers and fathers that had lost their kids on the streets of Philadelphia to gun violence were the ones that transformed this one. They beat it. We heated it up in the forge, and they took the hammer and beat this gun into a plow. Literally, it's now what we use in our community garden here. In Philly. And it's that vision, you know, that I look at it and I— one of the things I love about the swords to plows vision of the prophets is it ends by saying nation will not rise up against nation, but it begins with the people, that we begin to beat our swords into plows. We refuse to kill. And it's not, you know, the kings and commanders-in-chief and presidents that lead to peace, but it's the people who refuse to kill that lead their leaders to peace and that lead that way, that prophetic image that We will study war no more. So we're writing a book now called Beating Guns, and my friends that are the blacksmiths, they're awesome. You can find them online. Their name is really beautiful. It's Raw Tools, which is war flipped around backwards, rawtools.org. And so we're going to keep doing it all over the country, and not just transforming guns, but praying for God to heal hearts and to heal our streets. That are so often plagued by this violence that goes all the way back to the inaugural sin of Cain and Abel, and praying that God would heal this world that's so full of violence.

Oh, sure. And, you know, when you talk about, you know, when we say all we can do is pray, if you look in the Book of Common Prayer at the Catechism and ask the question, "What is prayer?" the response is that prayer is responding to God. And so it's an interesting thing that, I mean, even an action that we take is it is a prayer to God. It's not just words that we say or moments when we're kneeling at the altar. It truly is a life. And I love the old Keith Green song, "Make my life a prayer to you." And I think about words like that. And I think it's such an imaginative way that you're talking about here of putting some practical things on the ground that people can do. Why not donate your guns to us and let us do something Instead of taking an instrument that is meant to destroy and kill, why don't we turn it into something that actually helps to bring life? So I think that's a really beautiful thing that you're being a part of with that. I can't wait to read that book. I think it's going to be a great read.

Yeah, I think, you know, as I think about what we need to have in the church, part of that is a consistent ethic of life. And, you know, the Pope and many Christians— I think this is what Rich Mullins also embodies was this ethic of life that we've so narrowly defined the pro-life movement in America to just mean pro-birth, really, to be anti-abortion. And I think abortion is a very important issue that God cares about, but it's not the only one. You know, I think the movement for Black lives is a pro-life movement. Immigration, how we welcome refugees and immigrants, is a pro-life issue. Gun violence. The death penalty, all of these are, I think, also things that we could stand for life and stand against death. It may be that the United States of America is the only place where you can be pro-guns, pro-war, pro-death penalty, and still call yourself pro-life. Yeah, yeah. But I think what we need is people that are really pro-life from the womb to the tomb, you know, that really believe that every life is sacred, and we want to stand consistently against whatever destroys life. Destroys it. Amen.

I believe that. Well, maybe one other topic before I have to say goodbye to you today. And again, I want to thank you for taking time this afternoon. But while we're on the subject of life, I know a lot of Christians maybe haven't even thought through this, but many of us get uncomfortable when we start talking about the death penalty. And I think it's an interesting thing because if we are people who are pro-life, as you just It's hard to at times reconcile with the death penalty. And, you know, immediately again we're good about grabbing scriptures and, "Well, they killed people in the Old Testament for doing this and that." But when we come to Jesus and we see that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, that he shows us what God is really like, I wonder if even in the death penalty if there's a more creative and more redemptive way. And I think what you have done is a lot of good work to that. I've heard you say before, you know, we don't we don't rape someone to show that rape is wrong. And I think like, well, you're right, we don't like burn an arsonist at the stake to show them that, you know, setting a fire is wrong to somebody's house or something like that. But we do for some reason say that, you know, killing is the right way to show that killing is wrong. And I know that this is something that's close to your heart. And matter of fact, I think you were maybe near where I was a couple weeks ago. I'm in Springfield, Ohio, and apparently you had stayed with some people in this area not too long ago. But could you talk to us just a little bit about the work that you're doing in that regard with, with trying to help a more redemptive way, I guess I would say, than the death penalty? Because you're not about saying no, there are no consequences to the crime and there's, there's no consequences to the thing that these people have done. But I think that again you're helping us see some imaginative responses to crimes like this.

Yeah, well, I should start by saying I spent a lot of my life on the other side of this issue, very passionately for the death penalty. And, you know, for a big chunk of my, my life, I believe that the death penalty was ordained by God, had its roots in Scripture, you know, and I had all the Bible verses to back that up. And then I kept looking closer and I saw a lot of holes in my theology, and that's what I really did in the Executing Grace book was look at a lot of the theology behind it. But one of the things that's so troubling about the death penalty is that it has survived in America not in spite of Christians, but because of us. The death penalty wouldn't stand a chance in America if it weren't for Christians. And 85% of executions in the last 40 years have been in the Bible Belt. Wherever Christians are most concentrated is where we continue to hold on to it. And to me that's so troubling because I look closely at Jesus and even at the entire Bible and I see that the whole story is about redemption and grace. And if we even believe that someone who we know murdered someone is beyond redemption, we could rip out half the Bible. You know, Moses murdered a man in the book of Exodus. David killed Uriah to cover up his sin with Bathsheba. Saul of Tarsus, you know, tortured early Christians, oversaw the killing of Stephen. And so the Bible would be a lot shorter without grace. Mm, that's true. I think one of the questions that the death penalty raises is, is anybody beyond redemption? And one of the truths that I hold at the very heart of my faith is that Jesus came not for the righteous but for the sinners, that Jesus came for people who have even done terrible things and God is healing the wounds of that, and I believe that this is one of those things that Christians could we could be a part of making history on. Overwhelmingly young Christians are against the death penalty because they can't reconcile it with Jesus. 95% of Americans, when they were asked, "Would Jesus be in favor of the death penalty?" 95% said no. We just have to convince the Christians that Jesus meant what he said. Wow, wow. That mercy triumphs over judgment, you know, "Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone." So I think we've got We've got to really be a part of making history on this. I think we'll look back at the death penalty a lot like we look back at slavery, with shame and with horror, realizing that we justified it with the Bible, but that we were on the wrong side of that. It doesn't take a lot of courage a generation after we've ended slavery to say slavery is wrong, but it takes courage when slavery is still the status quo, you know, and I think in the same way with the death penalty, this is a moment for courage. And so we should be asking all of our, you know, Christian musicians and pastors and authors to really stand on the side of grace and redemption on this, because I think it's only a matter of time before we abolish the death penalty, but the question will be what role did the church play in ending it? Good words to us.

Good food for thought today, for sure. Well, I really want to thank you for making time. I really appreciate it. I know your schedule is— it seems like you're probably one of the most busy people I know of. It just seems like you're always somewhere doing something. And I know you've been married, I think, for a couple years now, but that's new news to me, so I guess I should say congratulations on your marriage. Marriage as well. But, uh, I, I know that even having a family itself, that, that takes a lot of our time. So I'm, I'm always appreciative of people when they are able just to give a few minutes to talk about hopefully some things that matter here on the podcast. I, uh, I want to maybe close our time today, and I know that one of my favorite books that you've been a part of is, is sort of, uh, bringing a new version of the Book of Common Prayer to. And I actually have the original Book of Common Prayer in front of me. Not the original, it's a reprint, I promise. But I have the Book of Common Prayer and I wonder if I could just read a short prayer for unity of God's people as I close this podcast today. It says, O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace, deliver thy church, we beseech thee, from all prejudice and contention and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union and concord. Lord, that as there is but one body and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and of one mind, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and love, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Well, Shane Claiborne, thank you so much Thank you so much for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound found in hope. God bless you and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.