Ignorance of Scripture is bad enough, and it will lead someone to Hell. Willful ignorance, the purposeful rejection of God’s clear testimony, especially when it is so abundantly available, is inexcusable. And Shane Claiborne is being willfully ignorant.

Jesus literally staged a protest
IN
THE
TEMPLE.

Flipped some tables… and drove out the folks pretending to be holy.

It seems pretty clear that one of the most offensive things to God is when people use religion to cover up their greed and bigotry.

Rebuke it. In the name of… pic.twitter.com/4QFq7KF9yV

— Shane Claiborne (@ShaneClaiborne) January 21, 2026

Claiborne is attempting to equate the invasion of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota—which involved nothing more than people screaming at the pastor and congregants because they believed one of the elders worked for ICE—with the cleansing of the Temple in Matthew 21. He claims that Jesus organized a protest and drove out the people who claimed to be holy. However, none of that is true at all.

When Jesus flipped the tables and chased out the money changers it was because they had turned the Temple into a crooked game of commerce where people were being bilked just to be able to come and make their sacrifice. Matthew 21:12 reads:

“And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” (Matthew 21:12–13, ESV)

There was an ongoing practice in the Temple where worshippers were being cheated out of their money and livestock and forced to buy “approved” animals for the sacrifice. It was a crooked scheme that transformed the very purpose of the temple. Worship was turned into salesmanship.

When Jesus came into Jerusalem, he had just made his triumphal entry and would soon become the ultimate sacrifice for sin. When he entered the Temple and began “flipping tables,” it was about purifying the Temple and restoring genuine worship. There was no political protest on Jesus’ part whatsoever. It was about returning the house of God to its appropriate purpose.

What happened in Cities Church had nothing to do with the worship of God. Rather, it was an attempt to turn the house of God from a place of worship into a source of sociopolitical gain. The acts of the “protestors” was more akin to the money changers and the religious elite transforming a place of worship into one of ill-gotten gain. Only, in this case, instead of money, the gain was in the form news media exposure. The protestors sought to remove God from his throne and place themselves in the spotlight, to be worshipped as heroes of the cause du jour.

Claiborne has no right to attempt to make these two events similar in any capacity. They could not be more different. In fact, the only way what happened in Cities Church could bear a resemblance to the Temple cleansing of Christ would be if Christians in the church chased out the protestors in order to restore the preaching of the Word, corporate prayer, and congregational singing to the Lord. Only then would there be any sense of similarity.

Shane Claiborne is promoting purposeful ignorance in his post. And, he is doing for his own sociopolitical gain. This makes him far more similar to the greedy money changers that it does Jesus Christ. For this reason, he should be marked and avoided.