Shane Claiborne's Litany Of Resistance

Jesus For President Litany of Resistance

Created with the help of our friends Jim Loney (CPT Reservist) and Brian Walsh (activist theologian)

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One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world

All: Have mercy on us
One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world

All: Free us from the bondage of sin and death
One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world

All: Hear our prayer. Grant us peace.


One: For the victims of war

All: Have mercy
One: Women, men and children

All: Have mercy
One: The maimed and the crippled

All: Have mercy
One: The abandoned and the homeless

All: Have mercy
One: the imprisoned and the tortured

All: Have mercy
One: The widowed and the orphaned

All: Have mercy
One: The bleeding and the dying

All: Have mercy
One: The weary and the desperate

All: Have mercy
One: The lost and the forsaken

All: Have mercy


One: O God -- Have mercy on us sinners

All: Forgive us for we know not what we do
One: For our scorched and blackened earth

All: Forgive us
One: For the scandal of billions wasted in war

All: Forgive us
One: For our arms makers and arms dealers

All: Forgive us

One: For our Caesars and Herods

All: Forgive us

One: For the violence that is rooted in our hearts

All: Forgive us






One: For the times we turn others into enemies

All: Forgive us

One: Deliver us, O God

All: Guide our feet into the way of peace

One: Hear our prayer.

All: Grant us peace.


One: From the arrogance of power

All: Deliver us
One: From the myth of redemptive violence

All: Deliver us
One: From the tyranny of greed

All: Deliver us
One: From the ugliness of racism

All: Deliver us
One: From the cancer of hatred

All: Deliver us
One: From the seduction of wealth

All: Deliver us
One: From the addiction of control

All: Deliver us
One: From the idolatry of nationalism

All: Deliver us
One: From the paralysis of cynicism

All: Deliver us
One: From the violence of apathy

All: Deliver us
One: From the ghettos of poverty

All: Deliver us
One: From the ghettos of wealth

All: Deliver us
One: From a lack of imagination

All: Deliver us

One: Deliver us, O God

All: Guide our feet into the way of peace

One: We will not conform to the patterns of this world

All: Let us be transformed by the renewing of our minds

One: With the help of God’s grace

All: Let us resist evil wherever we find it


One: With the waging of war

All: We will not comply
One: With the legalization of murder

All: We will not comply

One: With the slaughter of innocents

All: We will not comply
One: With laws that betray human life

All: We will not comply
One: With the destruction of community

All: We will not comply
One: With the pointing finger and malicious talk

All: We will not comply
One: With the idea that happiness must be purchased

All: We will not comply
One: With the ravaging of the earth

All: We will not comply

One: With principalities and powers that oppress

All: We will not comply
One: With the destruction of peoples

All: We will not comply
One: With the raping of women

All: We will not comply
One: With governments that kill

All: We will not comply
One: With the theology of empire

All: We will not comply
One: With the business of militarism

All: We will not comply
One: With the hoarding of riches

All: We will not comply
One: With the dissemination of fear

All: We will not comply


One: Today we pledge our ultimate allegiance… to the Kingdom of God

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To a peace that is not like Rome’s

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Gospel of enemy love

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Kingdom of the poor and broken

All: We pledge allegiance

One: To a King that loves his enemies so much he died for them

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the least of these, with whom Christ dwells

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the transnational Church that transcends the artificial borders of nations

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the refugee of Nazareth

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the homeless rabbi who had no place to lay his head

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the cross rather than the sword

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the banner of love above any flag

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the one who rules with a towel rather than an iron fist

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the one who rides a donkey rather than a war-horse

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the revolution that sets both oppressed and oppressors free

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Way that leads to life

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Slaughtered Lamb

All: We pledge allegiance
One: And together we proclaim his praises, from the margins of the empire to the centers of wealth and power

All: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb
One: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb
All: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb

Mistakes 2

Sorry for the misspelling on the title of this post: TheoPoetic Musings: My Political Canidate---Jesus For President: Long Live The Slaughtered Lamb, but since it's too late for me to change it and the links to it, I'm leaving it as is. I caught the spelling error after posting it and linking to it in another post---it should be: My Political Candidate---Jesus For President: Long Live The Slaughtered Lamb.

Secondly from this post: TheoPoetic Musings: 08-08-08 At 8 P.M.: My Cousin's Wedding: "Also, my mom believes that homosexuality is God's answer to the problem of overpopulation." should be corrected to: "Also, my mom believes that homosexuality is possibly God's way of dealing with/one of God's answers to the problem of overpopulation."

Please let me know if you catch any other mistakes such as spelling errors, broken links or what not.

Jesus For President---The Book

For those of you wondering where I got the phrase "Jesus For President: Long Live The Slaughtered Lamb" from in this post: TheoPoetic Musings: My Political Canidate---Jesus For President: Long Live The Slaughtered Lamb and what it's all about---here is the book that inspired it all: Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals.

I am in the midst of reading the book at the moment---I only have 54 pages left, so look forward to many good quotes soon---but until then here are a few items to peruse:

Jesus For President: The Official Website

Book Review: Jesus for President (initial thoughts)

Book Review: Jesus for President (Part 1)

Jesus for President: Revolution in Jesusland

Jesus for President: An Ecumenical Campaign

Jesus for President: Long live the slaughtered Lamb!

And: Jesus for President, a Book Review for Atheists; Part 1, What is Shane Claiborne?.

I highly recommend this book so go out and pick up a copy or two from your local or church bookstore or order it from Amazon for you, your relatives and/or your friends today. It is well worth it and should inspire your Christian political imagination!

My Political Canidate---Jesus For President: Long Live The Slaughtered Lamb

For those of you as sick of bipartisan politics as I am and all the hate mongering and bigotry on both sides, here is a much needed alternative: Christarchy!

What is Christarchy! you may ask? Here is a brief definition from the above site:

Christarchy! is a growing network of people who want to put the ethical teachings of Jesus into practice (living simply, caring for the poor, practicing hospitality, making peace, etc.) Jesus calls us to a revolutionary way of life. He challenges the economic, political, social, and religious status quo. And we want to follow in his footsteps.

Also check out: Christarchy: Support groups for the Jesus revolution.

Here is a much more detailed explanation:

I much prefer the term “Christarchy” to anarchy. Christarchy is the combination of the words “Christ” and “anarchy”. The “an” in “anarchy” means “no”, but I do believe in a ruler, and that ruler is Christ, so the term “Christarchy” means much more sense. Christ is the ruler of all things. I am not an anarchist, but I do strive to be a Christarchist- someone fully under the rule of Christ.

The biggest outcomes of being a Christarchist in my life are resisting my impulses to collect power and instead trust that God is in control. My attempts to collect power is an attempt to gain control because I doubt that God is in control. In trusting God is in control, I also seek a society where power is shared, where no one is oppressed and everyone is seen as equal. Where we don’t try to power over each other but instead interact with each other in voluntary submission to one another. Letting go of power and submitting ourselves to others requires the power of Christ- and therefore is something I think the Church can attempt to do much more than the larger society.

Being a Christarchist also means a profound change in the ways I view politics. I used to put my hope in the government in making changes towards bringing about the kingdom of God, but I now see that that is false. Christ is the divine ruler, and my hope lies in Him, not in my government. The government may make some good and some bad decisions, but the kingdom of God can only come through Christ. I believe that Christ will use the Church to do his good work on earth. I have given up lobbying government, believing in politicians, and even in voting, and instead have put my belief in the ultimate rule of Christ. My hope is in Christ, through the Church, not in our government. The government will continue, and I will submit to it, but I will also subvert it. (Hopefully more about this in later posts.)

I think if the American Church embraces Christ as their true ruler, we will begin to step out of the American empire, (and yes, I believe that we are living under an empire, much like the early Church lived under the Roman empire) and we will begin building an alternate society, a new way, as a witness within the American empire that another way is possible. This is my biggest hope. That the Church can move out from the middle of the empire, to the margins where it belongs, and where it can once again become a prophetic witness to Christ and his kingdom. I think Christarchist ideas can help us get there. They can help us see that the empires of this world stand in opposition to the kingdom of God. Government policies, economic systems, and prevailing social and cultural values can be critiqued by the kingdom of God. If we take ourselves out from the rule of the world and put ourselves under the rule of Christ (Christarchy), we can begin seeing both the good and the bad, the beauty and depravity, of the worldly empires. We cannot see this as clearly when we are living under them and giving them authority in our lives.

If we rule out violent anarchism, there remains pacifist, antinationalist, anticapitalist, moral, and antidemocratic anarchism (i.e., that which is hostile to the falsified democracy of bourgeois states). There remains the anarchism which acts by means of persuasion, by the creation of small groups and networks, denouncing falsehood and oppression, aiming at a true overturning of authorities of all kinds as people at the bottom speak and organize themselves. -Jacques Ellul “Anarchy and Christianity”

Indeed, Jesus should be Lord in all areas of our lives including politics and economics.

See also: Make Affluence History.