Ep 5: Practices to Prevent a Civil War (with Shane Claiborne)
The End of an Empire, Jesus for President, and the Practice of Confession
Friends, please melt your weapons down into drumsticks and drum roll with me...
We are thrilled to welcome Shane Claiborne to the podcast! Shane was a guide at our Philly retreat in July, and he is one of the most compelling, joy-filled, brave, creatively subversive people on the planet. So inspiring. Check out his incredible work at Red Letter Christians, and please read all his books!
Democracy in Crisis.
Shane begins this episode by sharing a study on the history of democracies in crisis…noting the ways our country is following this historic pattern. Quite sobering, but extremely important. Thankfully, Shane also shares stories about his attempts to push toward hope and resurrection in these troubled days. Few people hold the painful truth together with joyful action like him. May we follow his example into BOTH reality AND possibility.
A Practice for Becoming Instruments of Peace.
When we turned to a practice, I expected something provocative and outward, but Shane turns us inward first: to the historic practice of Confession.
“To say ‘I’m sorry’, to confess our sins to God and one another, opens up space for healing and restoration…holy space to begin to repair the harm we’ve done.”
Shane invites us to name the log in our own eye before attempting to remove the speck in our neighbor’s eye. (Matt 7). How would the conversations in our world, church, neighborhood, family, etc change if we regularly put this into practice? Of course it’s important to speak up again the evil out there! But this truth-telling is only constructive when born out of a life that can first name our own complicity with darkness. Oh friends, may it begin with us. May we become people of holy reflection and fearless confession. May it begin with us.
A Confession Liturgy.
As the end of the episode, we offer a short confession carried by three prayers. The first and third are from Cole Arthur Riley’s important book “Black Liturgies,” and the middle is from the Book of Common Prayer. This is the confession liturgy we pray on Tuesday morning of every Pastors, Priests and Guides retreat. The first page of the liturgy is below…
As always, we encourage you to notice where God seems to be working in the practice, and stick with it. Like physical exercise, doing a practice once is good. We need to begin somewhere. But the possibility of true life-change opens up in the repetition. Let us keep returning to the practice of confession this week and every week.
Grace and peace,
Aaron and the PP&G Team