Irresistible Revolution

I'm a little over half-way through Shane Claiborne's book Irresistible Revolution, and am finding it very challenging. The language is simple and clear--in a way, it could be called an "easy read." But the ideas are so different from everything I've been used to thinking! I don't know what I think about this book! Claiborne is a founding member of The Simple Way, an intentional community in Philadelphia, PA. He's adcovating a way of life that is almost completely removed from mainstream Christianity--which is what challenges me. It is radical in so many ways--spiritually, economically, socially, politically. As I read it, there's a knot in my stomach as I wonder, Am I just getting off on some crazy thing here?

As I am exploring the book and the websites (including New Monasticism), several things are bubbling up in my mind. None of these should be taken as a hard effort to prove anything right or wrong; I am only honestly presenting the things that are fueling my confusion (hoping, of course, that doing so will help me gain some clarity):
1. There is a strong focus on inner-city ministry. That's all well and good, and I can see (even in my limited experience) the great needs in that setting, but I also see needs here--in a rural setting.
2. The author talks about the importance of leaving "possessions and biological families." I can understand obsessive attachments being harmful to full devotion, but biological family (again, in my experience) can be an excellent form of authentic community--where it is not is perhaps where there needs to be healing and restoration, not abandonment.
3. He notes that Jesus' "own biological family called him crazy for saying things that disrupted traditional family values." I'd like to look further into this--getting in on the author's meaning as well as finding those things in Scripture.
4. Is there a balance to be found between "peaceful resistance" or "jubilee celebration" and respect for authority (governmental, specifically)?
5. Pacifism. The author was in Iraq during the bombings. The stories he tells and the conclusions he comes to would almost seem pro-Iraq and anti-America. However, he does balance this somewhat by saying that it's not about being on one side or the other; God's Kingdom transcends biological, national, political boundaries, etc.

There are other things....my thinking is not yet very clear on it.
The author touches on how we sometimes have an attitude of "God bless America--and only America." Having been raised in a very conservative Christian family, very much on the political right, my first instinct is to puff up and set the book aside as "Anti- American." Just because something is American doesn't make it bad. But...there's a defensiveness that rises up in me that would indicate that maybe he's hitting a raw nerve. Knowing where the guy is coming from, I can't help but recognize there's truth. But I just don't know if the alarms going off in me are good warnings to avoid extremist thinking....or just an instrinct to protect what I am familiar with.