Over the past year, I have sought God’s direction regarding the crisis of our world. I felt God guiding me to Iraq, and six months ago I began blocking off March 2003 to make that possible. As the past few weeks have unfolded, I have spent hours in prayer and fasting, surrounded my elders who have aided in my discernment. I have considered the cost of going to Iraq, and I have considered the cost of not going to Iraq. Now, I have decided to join the incredible witness of Voices in the Wilderness, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Peaceful Tomorrows and so many others as I go with a delegation of a dozen people on an Iraq Peace Team. Clergy, priests, veterans, doctors, journalists, students, and concerned citizens have united with other devoted leaders such as Kathy Kelly (Nobel Peace prize nominee), Ramsey Clark (former US Attorney General), Bishop Thomas Gumbletonto keep an ongoing presence in Iraq for over the past decade. Family members of victims killed on September 11 have gone to Iraq and are crying out to our government, “Our grief is not a cry for war. please do not kill on our name” It is an honor to join these and hundreds of other voices in Baghdad with a peaceful presence of solidarity with the families of Iraq. I am thankful for my mother who stands behind me, knowing that the mothers of Iraq have children just as precious as her little one. I am also grateful to my community, the Simple Way, for supporting me without focusing on me. If you wish to remain connected to this journey, please contact my community at 215-427-2667 so we can send you email updates. Now I wish to lay out a few of my reasons for going to Iraq. Feel free to circulate this as you wish and please forward future emails to anyone you want. ~shaner

TO IRAQ by Shane Claiborne

I am going to Iraq because I believe in a god of scandalous grace. If I believed terrorists were beyond redemption, I would need to rip out half of my New Testament Scriptures, for they were written my a converted terrorist. I have pledged Allegiance to a King that loved evildoers so much He died for them (and of course the people of Iraq are no more evil or more holy than the people of the US) teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for. While the terrorists were nailing Him to the cross, my Jesus pleaded that they be shown mercy for they know what they were doing. We are all wretched, and we are all beautiful. No one is beyond redemption and no one is beyond repute. May we see in the hands of the oppressors our own hands, and in the faces of the oppressed our own faces. We are made of the same dust, and we cry the same salty tears.

I am going to Iraq in the footsteps of an executed and risen God. I follow a Jesus who rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey at Passover, knowing full well what He was walking into. This Jesus of the margins suffered an imperial execution by an oppressive regime of wealthy and pious elites. And now He dares me and woos me, come and follow, take my cross, lose my life to find it with a promise that life is more powerful than heath, and that it is more courageous to love our enemies than to kill them.

I am going to Iraq to stop terrorism. There are Muslim extremists and Christian extremists who kill in the name of their gods. Their leaders are millionaires who live in comfort while their citizens die neglected in the streets. I believe in another Kingdom that belongs to the poor and to the peacemakers. I believe in a safe world, and I know this world will never be safe as long as the masses live in poverty so that handful of people can live as they wish. Nor will the world be safe as long as we try to use violence to drive out violence. Violence only begets the very thing it seeks to destroy. My King warned His followers, “If we pick up the sword we will die by the sword.” How true this has proved to be throughout history. We armed Saddam in the conflict against Iran, and we armed Bin Ladin in the struggle against the Soviet Union. Timothy McVeigh, the most terrifying domestic terrorist in US history, was trained in the Gulf Was where he said he turned into “an animal.”

I am going to Iraq to stand in the way of war. Thousands of soldiers have gone to Iraq, willing to kill people they do not know because of a political allegiance. I go willing to die for people I do not know because of a spiritual allegiance. The soldiers have incredible courage, courage enough to die for something they believe in. I pray that Christians would have that same courage. The command of the soldiers is handed down, rank after rank, from a human commander in chief clinging to the myth of redemptive violence. My mandate is straight from the mouth of my heavenly King, through the lips of the Prince of Peace – to love my enemy, and yet I still falter. May we cling to the Truth that every human is created in the image of God. Do we believe the children of Iraq are just as precious as the children of New York? A love for our own people is not a bad thing, but why should love stop at the border? We, the people of Rebirth, have an allegiance that runs much deeper that nationalism.

I am going to Iraq as a missionary. In an age of omnipresent war, it is my hope that Christian Peacemaking becomes the new face of global missions. May we stand by those who face the impending wrath of Empire and whisper: “God loves you, I love you, and if my country bombs your country, I will be right here with you.” Otherwise, our gospel has little integrity. As on of the saints said, “If they come for the innocent and do not pass over our bodies , then cursed be our religion.” May our lives interrupt terrorism and war, in small ways, in large ways, in moments of crisis and in everyday rhythms. These are extreme times. And I go to Iraq as an extremist for Love.

A FINAL STORY The other day I was on an airline flight where I settled in next to 2 strangers. They began talking to each other, only to discover that they had much in common, namely political affiliation. They cracked some jokes against the liberals, and boasted of the military presence in Iraq. I tried to read, tried to sleep, tried to resist the temptation of starting an intense debate which would make for a long plane ride. Finally, I got out some homemade cookies and randomly offered them to my neighbors. They continued talking about how much they traveled, all the places they’ve been, and then they turned to me. “Where’s your next trip to?” on of them asked me curiously. I got a lump in my throat (since the correct answer was “Iraq”). I paused. “Well, next week I plan to go to Baghdad.” Their jaws dropped. Puzzled, one man asked, “With the military?” I giggled (for those who don’t know me, I don’t exactly fit the military prototype, with my dreadlocks and all)> “No,” I replied, “I will be going as a Christian Peacemaker to be with the families there and voice opposition to the war.”

I was amazed to see that they did NOT start arguing with me. They were intrigued that I believed in something so much that I would risk my life for it. We actually had a nice talk. And I will never forget what they said as we parted. These 2 people whom I had just met told me with great drama how “glued” they would be to the TV as they worried about me, wondering if would make it back safely. I stood in awe, knowing that this is the great tragedy we have no face to war. Degrees of separation allow us to destroy human beings we do not know except as “enemy”, as if Iraq was filled with millions of Saddams or Osamas, and no children. So in one hour, the walls came down a little. I thought of how powerful it was to have a face in Iraq, albeit a face these two had only met for a couple of hours on a plane. But now they hesitate as they hear the drums of war. And in the moment of hesitation, Truth is birthed. Granted, I would like for my two new friends to oppose the war because of the families in Iraq but if they oppose the war because of some goofball they met for an hour on a plane, that’ll work for now.

“And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing that will happened to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” Acts 20:22-24

http://www.thesimpleway.org/macro/shane_iraq.html

Shane Claiborne Wearing homemade clothes and dread-locked hair, Shane Claiborne is a 28-year old ‘extremist for love’. With tears and laughter, he unveils the tragic truth of our world and the incredible hope of ‘another way of life’. His ministry experience is varied, from a 10-week stint working alongside Mother Teresa in Calcutta, to a year spent serving a wealthy mega-congregation at Willow Creek Community Church outside Chicago.

Shane graduated from Eastern University, and did graduate work at Princeton Seminary.

Recently, Shane spent 3 weeks in Baghdad with the Iraq Peace Team (a project of Voices in the Wilderness and Christian Peacemaker Teams). Shane was witness to the military bombardment of Baghdad as well as the militarized areas between Baghdad and Amman. As a member of IPT, Shane took daily trips to sites where there had been bombings, visited hospitals and families, and attended worship services during the war.

Shane is a founding partner of The Simple Way, a radical faith community that lives among and serves the homeless in Kensington, North Philadelphia. They seek to follow Jesus, to rediscover the spirit of the early Church, and to incarnate the ‘Kingdom of God’ a way of life standing in stark contrast to the world of militarism and materialism. Their revolution is lived out locally, as their days are spent feeding hungry folks, playing with children, running a community store, hanging out with neighbours, and reclaiming trash-strewn lots by planting gardens. Shane and The Simple Way do much work to expose the fundamental structures that create poverty and to imagine alternatives to them.

Shane has helped birth and connect many grassroots Christian communities throughout the country, as well as prophetically awaken many others to consider the Gospel as a Way of life. Shane serves on the Board of Directors for the Christian Community Development Association, the largest national association of faith-based organizations. And he writes and travels extensively speaking about peacemaking, social justice, and Jesus.

Shane Claiborne was last at the festival in 2006 http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/index.php?a=80

~~~

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (Paperback)

by Shane Claiborne

From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. If there is such a thing as a disarming radical, 30-year-old Claiborne is it. A former Tennessee Methodist and born-again, high school prom king, Claiborne is now a founding member of one of a growing number of radical faith communities. His is called the Simple Way, located in a destitute neighborhood of Philadelphia. It is a house of young believers, some single, some married, who live among the poor and homeless. They call themselves “ordinary radicals” because they attempt to live like Christ and the earliest converts to Christianity, ignoring social status and unencumbered by material comforts. Claiborne’s chatty and compelling narrative is magnetic his stories (from galvanizing a student movement that saved a group of homeless families from eviction to reaching Mother Teresa herself from a dorm phone at 2 a.m.) draw the reader in with humor and intimacy, only to turn the most common ways of practicing religion upside down. He somehow skewers the insulation of suburban living and the hypocrisy of wealthy churches without any self-righteous finger pointing. “The world,” he says, “cannot afford the American dream.” Claiborne’s conviction, personal experience and description of others like him are a clarion call to rethink the meaning of church, conversion and Christianity; no reader will go away unshaken. (Feb.)

Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

~~~

From Booklist

*Starred Review* From dressing the wounds of lepers in Calcutta to living among the homeless in Philadelphia to visiting families in Iraq, social activist Claiborne strives to live an authentic Christian life. In his view, he is a radical in the truest sense of the word, returning to the roots of Christianity by living as Jesus did and doing “small things with great love.” A partner-founder of the Philadelphia-based faith community Simple Way, he presents an evangelical Christianity gentler and more inclusive than is usually seen, especially in the mass media. He describes Simple Way as a new culture that relies on radical interdependence and consists of grassroots organizations, intentional communities, and hospitality houses. Although the book isn’t an autobiography, in it Claiborne reports much about his life: growing up in the Bible Belt, becoming a Jesus freak, moving to Philadelphia despite his family’s misgivings, and helping the homeless there. Then he boldly requested an internship with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. She simply responded, “Come.” Besides illuminating his own faith journey, Claiborne is insightful on the huge U.S. cultural and economic divide: the problem isn’t that wealthy Christians don’t care about the poor, he says, it’s that they simply don’t know the poor. A moving, often humorous account of a life of faith lived to the fullest. June Sawyers

Copyright  American Library Association. All rights reserved

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