I have always been amazed by how many homilies on the bible’s most compelling passages –Jesus’ teachings on wealth, for example – systematically trivialize the boldness of the lessons. In times of cultural change and dwindling activity of the faithful, it seems that preachers want to soften the message of Jesus so as not to offend or upset. God is put into a small box, contained within a book, to be worshiped for exactly one hour on Sundays –or Saturdays after five. As I have written before, Jesus is then made lame, passive, uninspiring.

In recent days I have been studying two modern men, Justin Fatica and Shane Claiborne, who have responded boldly in their own ways to the God they found in scripture. It’s hard to imagine these two as friends: Fatica is a basketball jersey-wearing fitness fanatic who could pass for a rough-and-tumble personal trainer; Claiborne wears thick glasses and modest garb and has been mistaken as riffraff at the very events at which he was the keynote speaker.

Fatica, a Catholic, is the founder of Hard as Nails Ministry, a controversial youth ministry that seeks to present a Christian message as intense as the culture of “sex, drugs, violence and hate” it decries. The ministry was recently featured in an HBO documentary. Although Fatica’s style is over the top and at times even cringe-worthy (one of his tactics is to call a young woman fat in front of a group of her peers in order to get the crowd to empathize with her suffering), his passion is refreshing:

I believe that we need to really hear the hearts of these kids, and what they're going through. We need to ask ourselves, are we living for what's important? Most groups I speak in are a mixed group. There are kids that have had a good foundation, and there are kids that have no foundation, they don't have much of anything. It's all different kinds of kids from different places.

What I believe is that the young are going through something. And it's something serious. And while we spend all this time trying to gain money, wealth, fame--all these things that matter for some people. But the goal is, to get the message out that we need to get back to the basics, and love the young people of America.

Claiborne is a founding member of The Simple Way monastic community in Philadelphia and is author of the book “The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.” He has worked with Mother Theresa, practices solidarity with the poor, and has brought his message to the masses in his media outreach. On Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet, Claiborne spoke of the need for a Christian revolution:

“I'm convinced that if the Christian church loses this generation, it will be not because we didn't entertain them, but because we didn't dare them, you know, with the truth of the world. And it won't be because we'd made the Gospel too hard, but because we made it too easy, and we just played games with kids and didn't actually challenge them to think about how they live.”

On this post-Christmas December day, with violence thrusting itself onto the headlines, Fatica and Claiborne are two turtle doves - two heralds for 2008.