Some hopeful words

Something about these words from David Williamson's comments on an interesting post at mootblog really stood out to me. Its good to remember that good news is happening in the midst of all the muck.

"When I say these are exciting times I mean it. Ecumenical phenomena such as Taize and St Egidio are bringing the church together to proclaim peace.

Initiatives such as Jubilee 2000, and groups including Speak and Sojourners are communicating a message of justice which beats to the pulse of the gospel.

At the same time, writers as eclectic as Rowan Williams, Phillip Yancey and Bono have drawn our attention to the phenomenon of grace. Its beauty and complexity shines out in such a way that it's baffling as to why the church responded by splitting into such crude divisions as Calvinism and Arminianism.

Blogging has also created a brilliant worldwide conversation and contemplation which is blessing hundreds of thousands (millions?) of Christians and helping us to share in each others joys and sorrows.

The testimony of Martin Luther King is still sending waves through the church which are strengthening with time. The experiment with party political alliances has left a bad taste in the mouth of millions, and there is a hunger for a return to the wilderness if needs be to give a prophetic voice.

The church's centre of gravity has shifted to the Global South, where a faith that is dependent on God is blazing across continents." (more)

Transcipt of Brian Mclaren Interview

Facinating. Some group called "understanding the times", in their "Emerging Church Alert" Bulletin, transcribed my interview with Brian Mclaren. A brief scan shows a few cuts, a number of typos, etc...but the meat is there. If you thought I tripped over my tongue in the interview, just wait till you see the text! (;
Thought it might be interesting to some of you to have a text version, and to see to what extent the heresy-hunters will go to 'nail things down'.
-Leif

Purple-o-meter -my theological worldview according to someone at quizfarm

To the guy who asked if my theology was primarily moving towards liberalism... "You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this." Emergent/Postmodern 86% Classical Liberal 64% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 57% Charismatic/Pentecostal 54% Roman Catholic 50% Neo orthodox 46% Modern Liberal 46% Reformed Evangelical 21% Fundamentalist 18% What's your theological worldview? I would say this is fairly accurate. Though some of the questions bugged me, it was a fairly interesting and challenging quiz to take. Rarely did I choose the full on agree or disagree option...but I guess thats part of the emergent attitude --trying to stay open minded enough to hear other perspectives. Thanks to Rob Spain for the link (an infrequent, but great blog if you haven't checked it out. I also found out about protopage through his site)

My Aurora Story (An encounter with God through the northern lights)

Today's show is an unedited story of my strange night and supernatural encounter with the Northern Lights. I also read a few listener emails and share some announcements.

Starting next week it looks like I'll have some more free time and thus finally be able to put more time into better quality production.

Hope you enjoy the show, and don't forget to pass on some of your extraordinary experiences as well.


In purple peace,
Leif

Why the silence?

Hello friends of Bleeding Purple,

I just wanted to apologize for the virtual silence of the past two weeks. The primary two reasons are that there are some personal issues (some very good, some very hard) that have been taking up all extra free time and that my #$%&!## windows-based laptop has been sucking BSD (blue screen of death) and it looks like I'm going to have to send it in. Thus, I am presently writing from work early on Friday morning. Honestly, in addition, I have been going through some struggles about podcasting --feeling pulled between motives (fun, fame, finance?) and philosophies (quality vs. quanity), etc. I've posted elsewhere ( in the Forums of Podcast Pickle) about these struggles if you're really interested.

Three podcasts are about 50% finished and coming soon...stay tuned and thanks for understanding and for your support and emails.

In peace,
-Leif

Three Futures: Tragedy, Technocracy, or Transformation

In this episode, I talk about what I see as the three most likely scenarious for human society in the near future. You could call it a choose your own adventure kind of podcast. You choose:

• Tragedy (environmental, war, science gone bad)
• Technocracy (control at the cost of human freedom)
• Transformation (listen to find out!)

Though I like how this show ended up sounding overall, I didn't have time time to really prepare what I wanted to say on these topics as clearly as I would have liked. Well, I think you'll still enjoy the show and get the general idea of why I think one of these three future scenarios is so likely.

• My Paper on technology and culture.

Thanks to my old friend Chris Behre for his song and vision of transformation. If you ever find this link Chris, let me know how you're doing! Thanks also to Mortal for the intro and transitions (from Lusis).




Note the new Audio Searcher Podzinger, at the bottom of the sidebar. Try it by typing a word in the text box, then playing that audio clip on the next page.

Tags: Musing, Musings, Futurism, The Future, Tragedy, Technocracy, Technopololy, Transformation, , Bleeding Purple Podcast, Leif Hansen, Podcast, Wonder, Hope, Love, Chris Behre, Mortal, Lusis, PodZinger