Flourishing

At least since the 2000 presidential election (woops! I ruined this post by bringing it up) we have been repeatedly told about the polarization of American society. For a while (and I guess still, to some extent) talking heads were speaking of blue and red states. It has become a sort of convenient shorthand for describing divergent moral values, political philosophies, and even cultures between Americans.

Enter Purple State of Mind.

Purple State of Mind is basically a conversation between two old friends on issues that often either unite or divide us: our identities, choices, and beliefs. Here’s how they put it.

“Craig Detweiler and John Marks have known each other for twenty-five years. When they roomed together as sophomores at Davidson College, they were devout Christians. It was Craig’s first year in the faith, John’s last. After college, they parted ways, and when they met again, years later, they never talked about what happened… until now…
Their conversation starts as a bull session between pals and becomes a story about how people make friends, and how they lose them; how people change, how they grow, and how they deal with the big stuff: death, sex, the meaning of life, God. The conversation between Craig and John captures in all its intimacy and difficulty a one on one reckoning between two people who want to understand each other but won’t compromise their beliefs.”

If the film succeeds, and I think it does, it is because it manages to capture an authentic conversation. Unless your understanding of a conversation is two people reading a legal brief or academic paper (if it is, I’m sorry) then you’re ready to live with some ambiguity and some rough edges. There are some rough edges in Purple State of Mind, but if they weren’t there the project would fall apart.

I’ll post more on this later, but If you’ve seen the film, how ’bout telling us what you thought?

Jon Boyd told me about a really cool collaboration. The Byfor project brings together several artists including Following Christ 08 worship leader Brian Moss and Michael Card. It’s available at byfor.org. Their album “Sweet Sacrifice” is now available under a Creative Commons License. Check it out.

Welcome to Flourishing! This is the inaugural post on my (un)official Following Christ 2008 weblog. If you want a little bit of background about what this blog is all about, check out the “about” tab at the top of the page. If you’re thinking, “Who the heck is this guy?” check out the “about jeff” tab above.

I’m hoping to get this online community humming with Christian academics, professionals, and practitioners all of whom are thinking about what “human flourishing” (the conference theme) means for Christians and how it relates to life in general, to academic and professionals disciplines, and a whole lot more.

I want you to get creative and think about this topic and let’s have some generative conversations that can not only help us craft a cooler conference, but lead us into changing not only our disciplines, our culture, but maybe even more.