I hope you've had some quality holiday time and are as excited as I am for the new year. (I'm a sucker for the freshness of a new year.)
This is just a quick post to let you know that I'm back and ready to cast with some fun new portable podcasting gear (check out the M-Audio Microtrack -I got a great price on it and bought it with combined CHristmas money/returns --thanks Gma, Pama, and PaPete)
Currently working on:
1)A new year's experiment: Each day I'm choosing a different focus (Will/Work, Getting Support, Positive Thinking, Spirituality, Bodily Health) and seeing how it effects my day and doing a short audio blurn on it.
2)This Friday is my interview with Brian Mclaren! Check the comments for the question clusters I've emailed him. I hope to cover some of those questions/topics.
3)I have plenty of other fun and interesting podcasts ideas in mind and am excited about each of them. If only I can find the time to do them. Patience might be a virtue, but I tired of waiting for it. (;
Let me know if you have any ideas of people to interview (including yourself), or other projects. Here's to a wonder-filled new year!
-Leif
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4 comments:
Hey Leif,
Wish I had sound right now and you here a low pitched comment about that little digital masterpiece you just bought. It would go something like this.
(Insert Barry White voice here)
Ohhhhhhhhh Yeahhhhhhhhhh!!!
I have purchased a few things from M-Audio and their products are rock solid and perform flawlessly. Enjoy your new toy.
Stef
Hey Leif
You are doing a really great job with this also . .
sync_ron_icity
Hey Ron,
Thanks for the encouragement!
Oh yeah, and here are the questions I forgot to post (interview is done and will be posted by tommorow morn).
1. On The Last Word: How much resistance/persecution have you received for The Last Word…, and its more hopeful/inclusive ideas? Do you think that this resistance comes primarily from the very fears that the book aims to help ease? Would you agree that many Christians, though they might not like to put it this way, believe that their salvation depends on holding the correct beliefs –and thus listening outside of one’s theological circle becomes an extremely dangerous venture. And if so, how hopeful are you that today’s more conservative Christians can overcome their views of a God of vengeance, and of hell traditionally conceived, etc?
2. On Evangelical Hangovers: Despite my personally being convinced that the traditional idea of God ultimately rejecting some people as ‘irredeemable’ (the ECT view) is not true to the nature of God –I find myself still quite fearful that I have some ‘centrally’ evil aspect to me, something that is capable of resisting God’s transforming love eternally, and that I will ultimately be ‘among the damned’. (Which reminds me, I do want to say how appreciative I am that when I shared this fear with you before, you kindly stated “In the end, I am convinced that grace will abound and reconciliation will have the last word, and all will be well.”) Have you encountered many others like me, and what have you found to be the best healing salve for this fear?
3. On Jesus: While what Jesus was about and what it seems to mean to truly follow him has been become clearer to me over the past few years, if I’m honest, who he really is and what my relationship to him is meant to be has become fuzzier. It was another difficult Christmas for me because of this. I understand that you have an upcoming book about Jesus called “The secret message of Jesus” –perhaps this will help me and others in the same boat. But for now, I am torn between a more liberal Christian understanding that Jesus was metaphorically the son of God, in that he was filled with God’s Spirit and was more faithful to that Spirit than any other (to the point of dying) to the more traditional belief that he was literally God’s only incarnation. While my heart is still very attracted to the idea of a God who becomes enfleshed in humanity and who I could speak with “man to man”, my mind has a number of major obstacles to believing this. As you’ve been called (by Time) a bridge between the L & R Christians –what do you have to say on this topic (Jesus’ontology).
4. On World Religions: Christian Inclusivists traditionally assert (to varying degrees) that while God can and does work through other religions, the salvific power of God is still only to be found in the Cross and the resurrection. I’m leaning these days to a position that would say that God’s salvific power (in short, self-sacrificial love) is (perhaps) most powerfully demonstrated at the Cross (the pinnacle) & Rez, but that this power has also been acting and talked about since the beginning of time and can be seen in other religions, stories, cultures, and even continues to this day. Even Paul said that we, as the church, are finishing what was lacking in Christ’s suffering on the cross. What do you think of this idea and its power to humble Christian imperialism/Exclusivism?
5. A personal question on basic trust in God: I’ve changed my theology quite a bit over the past 17 years of being a Christian. So much so, that I don’t really even like the word ‘believe’ anymore –it sounds too solid. I like words like hope, trust, leaning, and hunch. They allow me the freedom to express a currently held ‘belief’ but without the tenacity/baggage usually associated with the words “I believe”. Frankly, I’m just tired of the pain and humiliation of being wrong, of being let down, etc. The up side of this is I seem to be able to connect much more with a diverse number of people –I’m less pushy, dogmatic, etc. and more open to listening, respecting and being open to their ideas. The down side is even what I consider to be most basic, what I really want to believe –that there is a caring Being at the center of it all –I find that I don’t really want to trust (take the risk) that this is true. I still hope it is true–because I’ve heard nothing better, and find something in me relax and rejoice at the idea of an all loving God who is ultimately in control (not in the determining sense, in the cosmic context). And I can conceptualize God in much more inclusive, embracing, hopeful terms (like expressed in ‘The Last Word”) –but I’m scared to trust again and to then be let down, made the fool, etc. I’m not sure if that’s what it is, but I think it is. I’d imagine there are a number of recovering evangelicals or wannabe-Christians who feel similarly. Any advice for those of us who are having a hard time even believing that there is a loving God who knows, hears, and can respond to us?
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