chris haw

Worth Reading

2011-11-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

This very interesting article, referred to me by the astute Jon McRay, is worth reading, analyzing, and talking about.

So there you have it, about one blog post every several months!

Egypt, Protest, and Langugage

2011-02-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

I'm eager to hear how the Egyptian revolution turns out and, for the moment, am excited for them all. It appears to be, relatively speaking, one of the least violent revolutions of our era. (How might Americans need to interpret these events in light of a long history of funding and arming Mubarak...?)

Anyway, I find this video, released prior to the events, helpful interpreting the power of protest and the general functioning of language in human relations, love, and power.

Hope is truly hope when things feel hopeless

2011-01-31T16:51:00.000-08:00

An article from the Star Ledger about our pastor and Church's efforts.

The Unsexy Word: Caution

2011-01-28T05:38:00.001-08:00

Our Murderous Guilt in Afghanistan

2010-12-15T07:42:00.001-08:00

A friend of mine is headed to Afghanistan for some peace work. Her co-laborer wrote the following piece. It brings to mind Jesus' words (paraphrased from Matt and Luke), "All of the blood shed from Abel to Zechariah is on you if you say the violence against the innocent is not our fault."

This also reminds me that we are the rich man, Afghans are Lazarus. Lazarus went to the bosom of Abraham and the rich man went to the fires of hell.

Hunger and Anger in Afghanistan

by Kathy Kelly

The Obama administration has announced the imminent release of a
December Review which will evaluate the U.S. troop presence in
Afghanistan. The military has yet to disclose what the specific
categories for evaluation will be. Yet many people in Afghanistan
might wish that hunger along with their anger over attacks against
civilians could top the list.

In Afghanistan, a nation where 850 children die every day, about a
quarter of the population goes hungry. The UN says that 7.4 million
Afghans live with hunger and fear of starvation, while millions more
rely on food help, and one in five children die before the age of
five.

"Do you think we like to live this way?" an Afghan man asked me, last
October, as he led us toward a primitive tent encampment on the
outskirts of Kabul. "Do you see how we live? The cold and the rain are
coming. How will we protect our children?" He flicked his forefinger
on a weather-beaten blanket covering a tent. The blanket immediately
ripped.

Standing next to him was a man who quietly handed me three crumpled
photos, never lifting his eyes from the ground. The spokesperson
identified the man as his cousin. The first picture showed his
cousin's ruined home. A U.S. aerial bombardment had destroyed the
dwelling. The next pictures were of two bloodied children. "All of his
children were killed," the spokesperson said. "All his family, his
wife, his five children, by an attack from the air." He went on to
explain that they had been goat herders in the San Gin province of
Afghanistan. They were happy with their lives, selling yoghurt and
fattening their animals. A Taliban fighter had come to their village
at night. The U.S. apparently wanted to kill this fighter, but instead
they destroyed his cousin's family. "We couldn't stay there," the
spokesperson said, pointing to a picture of the debris that was once
his cousin's home. "We were afraid we might be hit again, so all of us
left. We are four families."

Inside one of the tents, a young mother welcomed me to sit down on the
only available cushion. It appeared that they slept on the ground. The
families share one pot over a fire pit, and a few utensils. They also
have access to a water pump. Near their area is a tent where they join
for prayers, and also one that is used for classes. One man begged us
to tell the authorities that they have no medicines in the camp and
that many of the children are ill.

Days earlier, in far more comfortable setting, students at the Bamiyan
University, located in the central, mountainous province of Bamiyan,
had prodded us to comprehend their anger. In a straw poll, several
dozen were unanimous in stating that they want the U.S. to leave their
country. Several insisted that most U.S. people don't understand or
care about the impact of U.S. warfare in Afghanistan. An engineering
student held up a copy of the Time Magazine cover which showed a young
Afghan woman whose nose was horribly mutilated, allegedly as
punishment for defying men in her family. Time Magazine's accompanying
headline announced that the story would explain why U.S. troops must
remain in Afghanistan. "Do Americans care more about noses than
fingers?" the student asked. "Who will cover the stories about fingers
that are cut off?!" I felt embarrassed not to know what he was talking
about. Several weeks later, I read a New York Times article about a
trial taking place at an army base in Washington State. The article
shed light on the student's question. A U.S. Staff Sergeant from the
5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was charged with
leading a conspiracy to randomly target and kill unarmed Afghan
civilians. He and four other soldiers faced murder charges. The staff
sergeant is alleged to have planted evidence to cover up the murders
and to have carved fingers off corpses which he kept as war souvenirs.

Although the U.S. military forbids soldiers to mutilate corpses and go
on killing sprees that target civilians, the U.S. occupying forces in
Afghanistan have bragged, in recent weeks, about increased capacities
to kill with ever more invulnerable weapons. A company of 16 Abrams
tanks was recently delivered to Afghanistan. "We've taken the gloves
off," said an unnamed U.S. military official, "and it has had huge
impact." (Washington Post, November 19, 2010) The 68 ton tanks fire
high explosive, white phosphorus and anti-personnel shells that can
destroy a house a mile away. Each tank costs 4.3 million dollars and
uses 3 gallons of jet fuel per mile.

The Pentagon is also sending 12,500 XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapons
to Afghanistan, one to each infantry squad and Special Forces team in
Afghanistan. The XM25 gun can fire a projectile that will travel the
length of eight football fields. "When fired, the projectile is
designed to explode directly above a target," says the Army Times,
"raining shrapnel down on an enemy crouched behind cover."

In a report to the November 2010 NATO conference held in Lisbon, 29
aid groups working in Afghanistan warned that the increases in air
attacks, the use of night raids, and the destruction of civilian
property contributes to "rapidly deteriorating" security for most
Afghans and a rise in civilian casualties. People who flee from U.S.
attacks face food insecurity, loss of income, lack of health care, and
homelessness. The aid groups' report is entitled "Nowhere to Turn."
Increasingly, Afghans living in war zones have nowhere to hide.

Commenting on impoverishment and displacement caused by military
offensives, a Pakistani op-ed recently compared hunger and anger to
two live wires. When the wires touch, they create an incandescent and
uncontrollable flash.

It's hard to imagine the extent of explosive popular rage that would
result if the shoe were on the other foot, if U.S. people were subject
to aerial bombing, night raids, destruction of civilian homes,
displacement and starvation. In reality, the live wires of hunger and
anger could exist in our lives too; we could be angry, very angry,
about this war, angry enough to make it a political issue. But if our
hunger were for an end to the war, if our hunger even signaled a
desire to rethink and repent our murderous policies, if we honestly
sought forgiveness from Afghan civilians who've borne the brunt of our
war of choice, then perhaps an uncontrollable and incandescent flash
of fairness and peace could govern our future.

Wikileaks...

2010-12-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

Years ago, Wendell Berry wrote in response to the Bush Doctrine:

As a policy, this new strategy depends on the acquiescence of a public kept fearful and ignorant, subject to manipulation by the executive power, and on the compliance of an intimidated and office dependent legislature. To the extent that a government is secret, it cannot be democratic or its people free.

Following the leaks, a State Department official warned certain persons not to discuss these documents online, or it would jeopardize their job prospects, seeing as that shows their lack of respect toward classified documents, "which is part of most positions in the US government."

An Edifying Debate: Is It Ethical to Be Catholic: Queer Perspectives

2010-09-07T09:27:00.001-07:00

In the last few years I have been reading some Rene Girard, which led me to the British theologian James Alison. Alison, a Girardian, Catholic, and gay, makes for an intriguing vortex of thought. I certainly appreciated his On Being Liked.

In analyzing his thought, I came across a lecture/debate series held at the University of San Fransisco, titled, "Is it Ethical to Be Catholic: Queer Perspectives." You need to devote about an hour and a half to watching its 15 video segments on youtube.

While some would prefer the conversation be held around the question, "is it ethical to be queer," I find this conversation to be particularly provocative when also analogously applied to Protestants who have considered ecumenical engagement with the Catholic Church: how is one to think about or participate in a Church against which one holds apparent disagreements--be they in the interpretation of nature/biology/sexuality or in papacy/structural/hierarchical questions?

The conversation gets especially interesting not just when the second interlocutor disagrees staunchly with Alison but when Alison interprets a significant shift in the reading of biology/sex/love in pope Benedict's encyclical Deus Est Caritas. Alison sees "Papa-Ratzi" calling an end to the Paul VI styled anthropology (Humane Vitae) which inherently links unitive sex with procreation, and instead takes a descriptive (not prescriptive!) reading of Genesis. Benedict even goes to bring Plato's Symposium into the interpretation of Genesis. In general, Benedict is thereby beginning to allow discourse of "normative, healthy sexuality" into the realm of the sciences and not simply scriptural interpretation.

The Cost of War and Sanity

2010-08-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

From my parish's bulletin this week:

“The Military spends $1.9 million every minute. The Center for Defense Information notes that the 2008 official budget for military spending was drastically understated and that the real figure was over 900 billion dollars when all war expenses were included. Rounded off, what that means is that this nation, which cannot decide if basic health care is a human right, if we should provide the unemployed with extended benefits, and if supporting legislation to provide food for hungry children is a waste of money, is spending: 77 billion dollars a month - 19 billion dollars a week - Over 2 1⁄2 billion dollars a day - Over 100 million dollars an hour - Almost 2 million dollars a minute - over 31 thousand dollars a second.”

A Helpful Addition to the Priest Paedophilia Scandal

2010-04-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

I, like most people, am desperately saddened by any report of the abuse of children. I have no interest in letting such people "off the hook" but hope to see prudent justice executed--while I am also inclined to treat any person with a loving, merciful grace they don't deserve, as I hope to be treated. (That is another complex matter.)

Whatever one's take on sin and grace, I find this article to be a helpful voice in the discussion about Catholic priest abuse. Getting the stats right is particularly interesting:

-All sectors of civilization, some certainly more than others, have some rate of child abuse, averaging, appallingly, around 10-20% of men (as abusers). The rate among priests is at 4%.

So why despise an organization which is lower than half the average rate of abuse?

Simple: they know better, and they can do better. When the world acts too worldly, it is sadly to be expected. But when the Church acts too worldly, the world gasps and says it must get on acting as it should. This appears to me what the Catholic Church's critics are indirectly affirming.

The especially vitriolic voices who hope this scandal will serve as a fatal dynamiting in the Church's demolition are actually hoping the Church will be more Churchy. I am not only referring the Church's teachings in Mark 9:42, Matt 18:6 (et al) where any abuse of children is regarded with violent hatred by Jesus, but also to its structure and hierarchy. The avowed opponents of the harshness of excommunication and the dogmatic evils are coming out of the woodwork calling for millstones around the necks around pedophiles. While I do not wish to detract from the fervor from their millstone-mobs, I do wonder if they know that they want the Church to exercise its authority.

Why not call for the banning of marriage or life-partnership, as it boasts a large correlation with abuse? Why not despise the Protestant pastors or rabbis or, for that matter, other groups that show higher rates of abuse than priests? The other institutions or groups which are home to abusers do not maintain much of an organizational structure (at least compared to the Catholic Church) and therefore, I assume, we think there is no leverage to critique an "abuse of authority" therein. How, for example, could there ever be such a thing as a "Baptist cover-up," as its pastors are not subject to much of an organized structure?

I have never been under the assumption that the Church is anything but a "whore," in St. Augustine's words. That's why its members quickly clarified that its sacraments are meaningful apart from the quality of the priest dispensing them. Having joined the Church in the midst of its scandal, five years ago, I am under no false pretenses; but I am convinced that anything true the Church's critics have said is a drawing upon the Church's own tradition and teaching, which I am quite clear on: they defend the widow, orphan, the defenseless while denouncing (even more loudly than its critics) the usurer, the extortionist, the murderer, the abuser, the lier, and so on. But, taking the truth even deeper, it has also acknowledged that these sins are in all of us to some extent, beckoning from us a call to mingle our justice with mercy.

Post-note:
In Chesterton's assessment, whatever has not been inspired by Christian tradition in the West (which is nearly everything) has been mostly inspired by Greek pagan philosophy. While it has tickled some "new-agers" and others to revel in paganism as a better alternative to Catholic dreariness, I would hope they know that it took Christianity to regard padeophilia as a sin. Have we not read The Symposium or any other Greek work where child molestation is regarded as a matter of course?

I leave you with a quote from his Heretics:

There is only one thing in the modern world that has been face to face with Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern world which in that sense knows anything about Paganism: and that is Christianity. That fact is really the weak point in the whole of that hedonistic neo-Paganism of which I have spoken.

All that genuinely remains of the ancient hymns or the ancient dances of Europe, all that has honestly come to us from the festivals of Phoebus or Pan, is to be found in the festivals of the Christian Church. If any one wants to hold the end of a chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries, he had better take hold of a festoon of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at Christmas.

Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. The anarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of Christian origin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is Christianity.

The real difference between Paganism and Christianity is perfectly summed up in the difference between the pagan, or natural, virtues, and those three virtues of Christianity which the Church of Rome calls virtues of grace. The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three mystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, are faith, hope, and charity. Now much easy and foolish Christian rhetoric could easily be poured out upon those three words, but I desire to confine myself to the two facts which are evident about them. The first evident fact (in marked contrast to the delusion of the dancing pagan)—the first evident fact, I say, is that the pagan virtues, such as justice and temperance, are the sad virtues, and that the mystical virtues of faith, hope, and charity are the gay and exuberant virtues. And the second evident fact, which is even more evident, is the fact that the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, and that the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity are in their essence as unreasonable as they can be.

The Joy of Sales Resistance

2010-04-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

If you are anything like me, you might need a little help from being sucked into the gravitational field of the new iPad release. Even Holy Week, the crucifixion of God's Son and the very resurrection of the dead can't sustain my attention enough from looking up how the release went today. So, if you need a little help, check out this article on "9 reasons not to buy an iPad." Sure, its not Wendell Berry--or anything philosophically deep--but it helps.

Mind bowing cosmology, physics, and eschatology

2010-03-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

This cosmologist and physicist, Sean Carroll, discusses the direction of time and entropy. Half way through the second part of this lecture is particularly interesting and crazy, especially considering how to relate to his theories Christian doctrines regarding the end of the cosmos and the resurrection of the dead. I particularly wanted to raise a question about categorically different forms of life--whether we might consider how life might exist in entirely different forms in the universe, even non-carbon, non-biological, even non-physical life.

I happen to have done some research on the above questions of entropy and christian eschatology for Masters work. The scope of questions opened up really was thrilling, bringing my thoughts into dialogue with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin among others.

To think about the universe in such broad strokes brings to mind this quote from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (He is speaking about the deficiency of the stereotypically modern, scientific, materialistic approach to matter and reality, countering it with a more mystical, wondrous, and orthodox gratitude for the universe.):

In fairyland there had been a real law; a law that could be broken,
for the definition of a law is something that can be broken.
But the machinery of this [materialistic] cosmic prison was something that could not be broken; for we ourselves were only a part of its machinery.
We were either unable to do things or we were destined to do them.
The idea of the mystical condition quite disappeared; one can
neither have the firmness of keeping laws nor the fun of breaking them.
The largeness of this universe had nothing of that freshness and
airy outbreak which we have praised in the universe of the poet.
This modern universe is literally an empire; that is, it was vast,
but it is not free. One went into larger and larger windowless rooms,
rooms big with Babylonian perspective; but one never found the
smallest window or a whisper of outer air.

Their infernal parallels seemed to expand with distance;
but for me all good things come to a point, swords for instance.
So finding the boast of the big cosmos so unsatisfactory to my
emotions I began to argue about it a little; and I soon found that
the whole attitude was even shallower than could have been expected.
According to these people the cosmos was one thing since it had one
unbroken rule. Only (they would say) while it is one thing,
it is also the only thing there is. Why, then, should one worry
particularly to call it large? There is nothing to compare it with.
It would be just as sensible to call it small. A man [sic] may say,
"I like this vast cosmos, with its throng of stars and its crowd of
varied creatures." But if it comes to that why should not a man say,
"I like this cozy little cosmos, with its decent number of stars
and as neat a provision of live stock as I wish to see"? One is as
good as the other; they are both mere sentiments. It is mere sentiment
to rejoice that the sun is larger than the earth; it is quite as
sane a sentiment to rejoice that the sun is no larger than it is.
A man chooses to have an emotion about the largeness of the world;
why should he not choose to have an emotion about its smallness?

It happened that I had that emotion. When one is fond of
anything one addresses it by diminutives, even if it is an elephant
or a life-guardsman. The reason is, that anything, however huge,
that can be conceived of as complete, can be conceived of as small.
If military moustaches did not suggest a sword or tusks a tail,
then the object would be vast because it would be immeasurable.
But the moment you can imagine a guardsman you can imagine a
small guardsman. The moment you really see an elephant you can
call it "Tiny." If you can make a statue of a thing you can make
a statuette of it. These people professed that the universe was
one coherent thing; but they were not fond of the universe. But I was
frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind.

An Amazing and Important Movie: "Home"

2010-03-07T17:18:00.000-08:00

This movie, "Home" attempts to draw out the beauty of the earth and the utterly significant and important time we live in--one of cataclysmic change and dire need for change, action, and hope.

The movie's link.

And how lovely, you can watch it for free on youtube. They must not be doing it for the profit.

Some of My Friends were Pressuring Our Rowdy Gun Shops to Get their act together

2010-02-22T18:50:00.000-08:00

And the NRA showed up, armed with "God Bless America." To what God does that song sing?

Some Thoughts to Consider as we pray for, donate to, and help Haiti

2010-01-19T18:54:00.001-08:00

This is a post from Reuters that might seem a little critical, but it just wants us to think about how donations are best used. The writer highly recommend the work of Doctors Without Borders, all the while encouraging a generous outpouring of aid from all.

And an even more complex and insightful consideration of Haitian economy and aid, from Jeffrey Sachs.

A Complex Assessment and Suggestion About Banking Today: Look at North Dakota!

2010-01-04T05:25:00.001-08:00

An op-ed suggests a more local-state center of gravity, as opposed to a more federally centered banking system. I can't say I understand it all...

On the Global Climate Change Debate (esp Copenhagen)

2009-12-07T19:58:00.001-08:00

Worth considering: an op-ed in the NYTimes.

A published article with "Neue Quarterly"

2009-07-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Follow this link to a new article I wrote (actually months ago, just getting to press now). It is titled "Its not Business, Its Personal." The magazine had asked me to write a reflection on church salary structures, and how they often seem to reflect corporate hierarchies. What got us there? Going, as I do, to a Catholic Church, the situation is quite different from the evangelical protestant audience here. But I went to such a congregation for quite some time. So I put my theo-ethical hand to the writing plow.
(click the arrows to the right of the pages to read the e-mag.)

A published essay with Relevant Magazine

2009-07-07T20:48:00.000-07:00

Relevant magazine asked to publish my Other Journal article dryly titled "The Christian and the iPhone." And, with a little editing, we done did it. The article is in their paper magazine, July/August 2009. Page 27, "Just a Phone?"

With much gratitude to them, I must say that it is a pleasure to write for them as they have welcomed my ostensibly contrasting philosophy: when they first asked me to write a ways back I thought it suitable to laud the venerable qualities of irrelevance. And to put it gingerly I am quite uncomfortable to be published in a magazine advertising air force chaplains (p 24). To milk that irony, please note the text hovering around that mawkish picture: a text in proxy to the slaughtering of the innocents. If only Rome had some mission-minded, purpose-driven, relevant youth to solace those poor Semites suffering the collateral damage of a middle-east military occupation.

Page 17 (also displaying the presentable countenance of my co-author), touts how an iPhone can help you be greener; you work out the challenging math of such an ecological-integrity equation. Is there an easy answer to it...? To the Luddite, yes. To the gadgeteois, also yes. Thanks for the Relevant folks for publishing an essay in discomfort between the two.

Speaking Requests

2008-12-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

Hello people on the internet,
If you would like to put in a request for me to speak or lecture at your college, church, or conference, please send an email to chrishawspeaking AT gmail.com and you will receive the more necessary details.

Thanks,
Chris

Essays Posted

2008-12-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

I have posted most of the essays I have written thus far on my Villanova web-page (for Cirriculum Vitae purposes, etc.). Some are standard masters research work, others are more public essays, etc. Enjoy. (I believe I am missing a link to my Fermi Project essay, which I list here on the blog.)

A New Article from my e-Pen: The Christian and the iPhone

2008-12-05T06:54:00.001-08:00

I just wrote and published an article through the Mars Hill Graduate School Journal, The Other Journal. It is called, "The Christian and the iPhone: a Primer for Black Friday." Enjoy.

And I just found this article online and it is demonstrably more enjoyable than mine: "Am I Still Here," by Anthony Doerr, Orion Magazine.

JFP among Publisher's Weekly's "Books of the Year"

2008-09-26T18:05:00.000-07:00

Publishers Weekly ranked Jesus for President among their books of the year. I feel honored, and as I have had many conversations about political imagination, I feel it has been well-worth the effort.

Click here for their list. (Oh yeah, and if nothing else, it is a supreme honor to be on a list with Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, with their book, Saving Paradise--I've heard it is quite an excellent book.)

I've had a few conversations with folks about whether I would do anything different in the book. So far, in general, I am still quite satisfied--even after 2 years of grad school since finishing. But things I would like to see more emphasis on are the following topics, with reference to the research in that field:

-Girardian Atonement/Mimetic/Scapegoat Theory (Stricken by God? [a lovely looking compendium of essays], Girard Reader, Gil Bailie, etc.)
-Postfoundationalist Hermeneutics, Critiques of Historical-Critical Hermeneutics (I'm picking up Dale Martin's Sex and the Single Savior in this regard.)
-Economics (and the Church): (Hilaire Belloc's Servile State and Essay on the Restoration of Property, economic history since the Reformation [i.e. Karl Polanyi, Ellen Meiksens Wood, Michael Perelman, Wendell Berry, Eugene McCarraher.]

An Article from an Interview

2008-09-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

On our book tour, a man from Relevant Magazine, Adam Smith, interviewed Shane and I about our thoughts on Christians and political engagement. They titled the article In the Booth Not of the Booth, elaborating on their cover theme--How to Vote Without Losing Your Soul.

An Interview

2008-09-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

Author of "Mere Discipleship," Lee Camp, interviewed Shane and I about the content of our book. It is at a site called "Tokens," on various concerns surrounding faith and culture. It is an audio clip of our interview. (The image above is from the series we are part of, on the Politics of Jesus.)

Fermi Project Essay

2008-09-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

A bit ago I wrote an article for the Fermi Project folks. They are related to the folks at Relevant magazine. So, I thought I'd offer an essay privy to their concerns. It is titled "The Relevance of our Irrelevance." Visit the link if you wish.

A Review

2008-01-31T07:19:00.001-08:00

Publisher's Weekly gave us their "starred" rating. My friend told me that anybody getting such good reviews is probably not preaching the gospel. Woe to you when people speak well of you. I'll allow that to trouble my thoughts. If you read the book, see what you think...

Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. Zondervan,
Here is the must-read election-year book for Christian Americans. What should Christians do when allegiances to the state clash with personal faith? Haw and Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution) slice through politics as usual and well past the superficial layers of the culture wars with their lucid exploration of how Christians can and should relate to presidents and kings, empire and government. Their entertaining yet provocative tour of the Bible's social and economic order makes even the most abstruse Levitical laws come alive for our era. They also provide a valuable political context for Christ's life, reminding readers that Jesus did not preach the need to put God back into government-he urged his followers to live by a different set of rules altogether, to hold themselves apart as peculiar people. The compelling writing is enhanced by a lavish, eye-popping layout. The pages are a riot of textured callouts, colors, photos and fonts-the perfect packaging for a message that must compete in a world of sound bites. With this second book, Claiborne emerges as an affable, intelligent, humorous prophet of his generation, calling people out of business-as-usual in a corrupt world and back to the radically different social order of the biblical God. (Mar.)

Co-Authoring Jesus For President

2007-12-15T11:06:00.000-08:00

I have recently completed a book on the Christian political imagination with my co-author and friend Shane Claiborne. Every page of the book is hand built with images, poems, stitching, quotes, and so on. Ryan and Holly Sharp headed up the design.

It was released in books stores on March 2008. We gave a speaking tour (with other elements of music and such) regarding its content all across the empire in the summer of 2008. See jesusforpresident.org.