I just finished reading Matthew. A part that stuck out to me was when the woman dumped the expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet(Mt. 26:6). The disciples were pissed and said, “what a waste of money. It could have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” I contrasted this story with the ever-so-popular story among the “poor for Jesus” crowd, the rich young man found in Matthew 19:16. In this story, Jesus told him to sell everything he had and give to the poor and the young man did not. In the story of the woman, she voluntarily poured out an expensive perfume to wash the feet of Jesus. I think the simple difference between these two examples is that the rich young ruler was not willing to give up his stuff for Jesus and the woman didn’t care what she gave up because she had Jesus. I believe that we are blessed to be a blessing. I think it’s good to have the mindset that we are not our own and our stuff is not our own. So, whether we are rich or poor, we use what we have for the sake of the Kingdom. That’s my thought.

Party on, Wayne.

Your response was the reason I was hesitant to post a review. I think a lot of what Claiborne is doing is amazing and I commend him greatly for his obvious love of Jesus and his passion for the poor.

I just found his exegesis lacking and prefer a more balanced approach (not just in the poverty side of his book but other little subtleties he throws out here or there).

Joel’s reference to piety is what I was feeling the whole time I read his book.

I wonder if he would argue that one must be poor for the sake of Jesus, or if maybe what he’s advocating is simply a polemic way of living that is counter to the westernized “empire” theology so often found in the American Church. I also think that what he’s done is some pretty masterful contextualization and helped the impoverished of Philadelphia come to know God through a theology that they can call their own. Like Gutierrez and his liberation theology, is Claiborne’s theology fit to be applied, in whole, across the board in every social and cultural clime? I don’t think so, and I don’t think Shane would argue the specifics in this way, either (but I could totally be wrong here, I understand this is totally subjective).

When I finished the book, what has stuck with me was not some new, hip, ‘sexy’ view of Christianity and social justice but instead a radical (that is, as Shane puts it, a ‘back to basics’) view of ecclesiology and theology. I think that Shane advocates not necessarily a directive to *be* poor ASAP, but a willingness to give everything up for the sake of God and neighbor; to be willing to embody the Gospel that is, above many other things, first good news for the poor.

To that end, I commend him. But I also hold in tension with all of these things the tendency of Christians, as you said, to swing to extremes. At the end of the day, though, I think I tend to line up with Claiborne’s theology because I tend to line up with many of the people who wrote his source material.

Anyway, I do appreciate your short review of the book. I hope you didn’t feel like I was calling you out in some incendiary kind of way.

Now my one paragraph review:

Claiborne tries hard to be gracious in his book, which I appreciate a ton. Unfortunately, his theology is myopic in it’s interpretation of much of Jesus’ life and message. There’s also a lot Scripture taken out of context. In that sense, it gets really lopsided. I much prefer “Neither Poverty Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions (New Studies in Biblical Theology)” (Craig L. Blomberg) because it is much more grounded in Scripture.

At their core, both theologies are basically about pride; pride that “I had such amazing faith that God has blessed me with all this bling,” or pride that “I am such a super follower of God because I live in a cardboard box.” Any systematic that swings on “if I do this then I’m better than someone else who doesn’t do it,” is garbage.