Choir to enjoy

Take a moment to enjoy Toto’s Africa by Perpetuum Jazzile, performed live at Vokal Xtravaganzza 2008 (October 2008).

Courageous steps of Obama and Rick Warren!

I find the invitation of Obama to Rick Warren to offer the Invocation at the Inaugural ceremony a daring and courageous step! I don’t know the inner motivation of Obama; whether this is a step to appease the “Christians on the right” (Does Warren really belong to them? He has been fighting numerous battles and issues that the religious right hardly has considered until now). Or whether this is a step to engage a trust worthy spiritual leader in his responsibility I don’t know.

Whatever the reason I find this a courageous step… across differences of thinking and across some of those unnecessary walls that so many people build between them and those who think differently. We don’t need to agree on everything if we are to work together with our governments whether local or national.

To my understanding Warren is practicing the Jeremiah 29:7 principles which God gave to his people who were brought in exile in Babylon. “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Well done Warren, may the Lord bless you and give you favor to carry His glory with you wherever you go…Well done Obama! May the Lord bless you in your presidency and form in you the character and mind of Christ Jesus!

That’s the Way I see it!

John van Dinther

Below you will find a short press release from warren about this invitation…

LAKE FOREST, Calif., Dec. 18 /Christian Newswire/ — “I commend President-elect Obama for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn’t agree on every issue, to offer the Invocation at his historic Inaugural ceremony.

“Hopefully individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America.

“The Bible admonishes us to pray for our leaders. I am honored by this opportunity to pray God’s blessing on the office of the President and its current and future inhabitant, asking the Lord to provide wisdom to America’s leaders during this critical time in our nation’s history.”

Rick Warren

Synergy evening on film and human relationships!

The next Synergy Evening is scheduled for this coming Friday, 16 May with an emphasis on film.

Lars Johansson, teacher in Philosophy and Religion at Örebro Theological Seminary, will speak about films that help us understand human relationships. You and your friends are invited for discussion and mingling!

Lars also serves as the Director of “Forum for Faith, Culture, and Society,” which publishes the cultural magazine Nod and also facilitates the Nod Academy, which specializes in distance-learning dealing with contemporary issues and Christian faith. Lars teaches on films in lectures and courses and has also assisted in publishing the book, Film and Religion (Cordia, 2005).

Entrance is free, and fika is for sale in our café.

Note: The seminar will be held in Swedish!

The café opens at 7 pm with the seminar starting at 7.30. Time will be allotted for questions, discussion, and mingling afterwards.

//The Synergy Team – Organized by New Life Church and Powerplay

The next Synergy conference will take place 14 -16 November 2008, watch the Synergy “teaser” for the coming conference here!

A view from the pew (1) – a collection of digital post-its

1. Again another Jesus film, this time from the Muslim camp. Nader Talebzadeh, an Iranian movie director, has been 10 years in the making of a new film “based on the Islamic version of the life of Jesus, depicting the man Christians believe to be the messiah and son of God as a tormented Judean prophet foretelling the coming of Muhammad, the founder of the Muslim faith. See the film clips: check it out! Read more about the actor on BABYLON & BEYOND BLOG: A Muslim actor as Jesus Christ
2. Next week, May 8, 60 years of Israel’s independence. There is little cheer among its Arab citizens
3. Where is our world on its way? A closer look to the TIME magazine top 100 people (shows that the entertainment industry has taken over completely! TIME asked who you thought should be on the list of the 100 most influential people of the year. Over 200 candidates were given a rating of 1 to 100. And people’s #1 choice? Shigeru Miyamoto! The video game designer had almost 2 million votes, over 300,000 more than runner-up, Rain. After a tight race at the top, Stephen Colbert came in third place with close to 900,000 votes.
4. TIME also invited graphic artists to create a top 100 front page for their magazine, here are their 5 top picks: check it out!
5. Religion a figment of human imagination. “‘Humans alone practice religion because they’re the only creatures to have evolved imagination.’ That’s the argument of anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists.”
6. Sweden: Finally; refugees in hiding get subsidized healthcare!
7. What’s on in Sweden misses one of the greatest events of this month in the capitol city: the Jesus manifestation starting tomorrow…. I will be there will you?

Just some short digital post-its!

See you soon (tomorrow?)

John

The light that shines farthest,…

“The light that shines farthest, shines brightest at home.”
”Det ljus som når längst, skiner klarast hemma.”

Oswald Chambers.

Abortion Art – a new way of expressing oneself – or pushing the boundaries beyond “repair”?

Ulf Ekman told us on his blog that “the battle for the right of unborn children needs to continue and that we should not get tired of engaging us. We cannot allow indifference, cynicism, mockery or anger stop us from defending the most unprotected persons in our nation” (world –added by me).

I came across an article in last weeks Yale Daily News where I found stated:

Beginning next Tuesday (tomorrow) , Aliza Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock — saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.

But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”

“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”

The New York Times picked up the story and is still puzzled about it… Although Yale Daily News retracted the story in their Friday issue Aliza Shvarts is still ambivalent about her intentions.

Whether or not it is true, (and I really hope it is not!) the sheer thought of using the unborn children as a tool to manipulate the media, opinions and the Arts is yet another example of the depravity of humankind without God. How deep have we fallen?

John