Recently my daughter went to an event called ‘Missions Fest’ and she was particularly impressed with one speaker by the name of Shane Claiborne.
Being her dad, I thought I would see why she was impressed by him. My first impression when I saw a picture of him I had concerns because he has long dreadlocks. However, I ignored that in order to listen to what he had to say. After listening to a few videos and reading a few articles by him, I actually could see why my daughter was impressed by him.
Shane Claiborne is truly hard not to like, in that he is very humble and he lives what he believes. This is also something that is admitted by some of his worse critiques. As such, when I read him if I wasn’t a discerning Christian, I would probably be very impressed with Shane.
However, what I started to notice is that it wasn’t so much what he said that I had a problem with, it is what he didn’t say. He spent a lot of time talking about fruit, such as helping the poor etc… and very little about theology. So much so that I still do not really know what he believes about the essential doctrines of the faith.
Doing more research, I noticed that he was in an evangelical branch of a movement called ‘The New Monasticism’. Probably the biggest tell tale sign that my suspicions are correct about him however is his biggest mentor is none other than the liberal Tony Campolo
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I could go on and on about things I found out about Shane Claiborne, but that isn’t actually why I am I started this thread.
Although, I am showing my daughter what my concerns are about Shane Claiborne. What I had in mind in addition to this is to find an alternative person to introduce to my daughter that combines solid doctrinal teaching that flows right into faith in action.
Can you think of someone that matches that description, that perhaps I could read or watch a video of?
When I think about someone who matches that description I think of someone like George Muller.
Tom
