WILMINGTON — Shane Claiborne’s popular presentations at Wilmington College in 2018 and ’19 sparked interest in bringing him back to speak to a new cohort of students and others at 7 p.m. Tuesday, September 20 in the McCoy Room of Kelly Religious Center.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is the first program in the 2022-23 Office of Campus Ministry’s Quaker Lecture Series.

He will present on “Tearing Down Walls and the Death Penalty.”

Claiborne is a champion for grace, which has led him to jail advocating for the homeless, and to places like Iraq and Afghanistan to stand against war.

Now grace fuels his passion to end the death penalty and help stop gun violence.

Claiborne is a prominent speaker, activist and best-selling author who worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta and founded The Simple Way community in the poorest area of Philadelphia.

He also heads Red Letter Christians, a movement of persons who are committed to living “as if Jesus meant the things he said.”

Claiborne’s books include Jesus for President, Red Letter Revolution, Common Prayer, Follow Me to Freedom, Jesus, Bombs and Ice Cream, Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers, Executing Grace, his classic The Irresistible Revolution, and his newest book, Beating Guns.

His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Wilmington’s Books-n-More will be selling his titles at the event.

He has been featured in such films as Another World Is Possible and Ordinary Radicals.

Claiborne speaks more than 100 times a year, nationally and internationally, and his work has appeared in Esquire, SPIN, Christianity Today, Time and The Wall Street Journal. He has appeared on broadcast media ranging from Fox News and Al Jazeera to CNN and NPR.

Also, he’s given academic lectures at Harvard, Princeton, Liberty, Duke, and Notre Dame universities.