Quotessence
Home / Authors / Shane Claiborne
Shane Claiborne

Shane Claiborne Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleWorldChurchJesusChristianIfsSaidThinkingWayBelieve

Famous Shane Claiborne Quotes

“When you look at the Bible, and I read the Bible very seriously, for a lot of my life, I believed the Bible ordained the death penalty, and the Bible seemed to be very clear about that. But the more I look, the more troubled I became because it's not that simple. In the Bible, there's some 30 death-worth crimes, like working on the Sabbath, or disrespecting your parents. Are we that fundamental that we should bring back that death penalty?”

ShouldLooksParentSimpleClearCrimeFundamentalsPenaltiesDeath PenaltySabbath
Author:Shane Claiborne
Create image

“I think we've misinterpreted some of the scriptures to justify the death penalty. So whereas a lot of folks in America feel like we can do far better justice - it's more expensive to do the death penalty than the alternatives - there's so many reasons that people come to the conclusion to abolish the death penalty.”

PeopleThinkingFeelsReasonAmericaCan DoJusticeFolksScriptureConclusionAlternativesExpensiveJustifyPenaltiesDeath PenaltyAbolishMisinterpreted
Author:Shane Claiborne
Create image

“When we really began executions rather than lynchings, black folks were 22% of our population in 1950, for instance, but they were 75% of the executions. Now, African-Americans are 13% of the population, but they're still almost half of death row, and over a third of the executions. 34% of the executions are black folks. So, like, I mean, things like the race of the victim is one of the biggest determinants of who gets executed.”

MeanStillsBlackRaceHalfThirdsVictimFolksPopulationInstanceAfrican AmericanExecutionLynchingDeath Row
Author:Shane Claiborne
Create image

“The Catholic understanding has been that the death penalty has been become, like, outdated because in industrialized countries. We have other ways of protecting societies from dangerous people without killing them. And in fact, it's important to remember that much of the world has done away with the death penalty.”

PeopleWorldWayHas BeensImportantCountryDoneFactsRememberUnderstandingDangerousCatholicKillingPenaltiesDeath PenaltyOutdated
Author:Shane Claiborne
Create image

“We think of justice sometimes as getting what you deserve, you know - what crime was committed and what is the punishment for that crime. That's how a lot of the criminal justice works. But God's justice is restorative, so it's not as interested in those same questions of "What did they do wrong?" and "What is the punishment for that?" It's more about what harm was done and how do we heal that harm, and that's a much more redemptive version. So, it definitely doesn't turn a blind eye to harm, but it does say we want to heal the wounds of that.”

ThinkingKnowsWantDoeSometimesDoneEyeTurnsJusticeCrimeDeserveBlindCommittedHarmCriminalsWoundsPunishmentHealVersionsCriminal JusticeBlind EyesWhat You DeserveDeserve You
Author:Shane Claiborne
Create image

“There are some - called 'death fatigue' - people who just grow so tired of death, so they don't want to keep perpetuating death and creating more victims and more anger and more pain. They want to heal from that, and I think that's exactly what God wants to do. And, interestingly enough, that's part of what God's original law was doing with the 'eye for an eye' thing. It was actually to limit the patterns of retaliation and then to begin to heal from that.”

PeopleThinkingWantEnoughEyePainLawGrowsLimitsCreatingOriginalsVictimTiredPatternsHealFatigueRetaliationPerpetuatingEye For An Eye
Author:Shane Claiborne
Create image

“It's unilaterally true that it costs more to maintain the death penalty than the alternatives to it, and we can leverage more resources to victims families. We can do all sorts of creative ways of healing the pain that people have done by channeling the energy and resources to other more redemptive forms of justice.”

PeopleWayDonePainFormEnergyCan DoJusticeHealingCreativeCostResourcesVictimAlternativesPenaltiesDeath PenaltyChanneling
Author:Shane Claiborne
Create image