Shane Claiborne has an interesting article (part 1 of 3) today at Out of Ur, the blog for Christianity Today’s Leadership magazine. I’m currently reading Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. I like the book because, aside from a few sophomoric references, Claiborne defines “radical” in the correct sense of “getting back to the roots”. Hence the subtitle reference to being “an ordinary radical”; radical Christians aren’t defined by tattoos or body-piercing, but by living like Jesus, returning to the roots of Christian practice. Every Christian should be a radical in this sense, though most of us are not. Claiborne lives what he speaks. For years, he has lived in a different sort of Christian community in inner-city Philadelphia.

As for the article, the only weakness (I think) is that it seems to minimize hell as an eternal reality (though Claiborne doesn’t dismiss hell altogether), which is unnecessary to make his larger and vastly more important point: That millions of people are living in a hell on earth right now. Jesus did speak of an eternal hell, but there is no doubt that his life and ministry give us a powerful example of living among those in hell-on-earth and releasing God’s Spirit among them to set them free.

Claiborne (who is originally from Maryville, TN) is doing a great service for the church, and his book has really got me thinking about alternative ways of living in community WITH our community.