Up/rooted meeting with Hemant Mehta

Posted by Helen on: 06.19.2007 /

Up/rooted is a local organization for emerging Christians. Mike Clawson is one of the organizers - I heard about it through him.

Yesterday I went to the Up/rooted West meeting yesterday which was a book discussion with Hemant Mehta about I Sold My Soul on eBay. It was fun to see Hemant and Mike and Julie again. There were a couple of other people there I’d met through Mike or up/rooted (I’ve been to one other meeting of theirs). I didn’t know the rest of the group, most of whom were from Mike and Julie’s church Via Christus.

There were about 13 people there. The meeting was in someone’s house - a nice friendly setting. Mike commented that this was pretty much how his church service was when Hemant visited last year.

I heard the story from Mike of why Hemant visited his church. I don’t think I’d heard it before (or maybe I just have a bad memory). Basically Mike got in touch with Jim and said “Why are you only sending Hemant to megachurches? What about these other churches?”, putting his and Julie’s church on the list. And Jim said “Ok, let’s send Hemant to your church”.

Hemant talked about his upbringing, getting involved in atheist organizations at college, the ebay atheist project and writing his book. Then Mike opened things up for questions.

Hemant reiterated what Jim and Matt found: he said that not one person came up to him to initiate conversation in all his church visits. If he spoke to people they would talk with him but they didn’t initiate the conversation. One person said “I’ve been in several countries and it’s the same way - do you think that’s human nature?” My problem with that is - I thought followers of Jesus were supposed to do better than let ‘human nature’ determine their behavior. If Jesus was curious and noticed people and gave them attention - which is what I see in the Bible stories about him - shouldn’t his followers be the same way?

Hemant mentioned how all his activities showing leadership skills and volunteer involvement are for atheist organizations. He left them off his resume because he thinks that would come across negatively to employers, whereas they would probably like it had he done the same things for churches. It seems likely to me that he’s right. I was interested to hear he has a teaching job in the Chicagoland area beginning this fall. It didn’t come up that he was an atheist, in fact ‘The eBay Atheist’, during the hiring process. He’s hoping it won’t come up immediately when he starts the job but I wouldn’t be surprised if some astute students figure it out right away.

There was a big photo of Hemant inside a church on the front page of a local newspaper, right after the Wall Street Journal ran its article. Hemant told a funny story about that: he called the church to see if they could go in and take photographs during the week and was told “No, we’re closed.” But when he and the photographer went to take photographs outside the church they found the door was unlocked anyway. So they went in and took some inside photos too.

One person, after hearing that Hemant was often reluctant to say he was an atheist as a teenager, brought up how Christians also often feel reluctant to say they are Christians in a group of people who aren’t, or who define ‘Christian differently. She pointed out that this brings up all kinds of stereotypes about Christians, often negative or not applying to that person. While it was a good observation, I was glad Mike and Hemant shared how there’s a difference between atheists feeling like a persecuted minority and Christians feeling like it. Christians aren’t a minority in the way atheists are. Maybe they feel like it because they define their group narrowly enough that there are not many of them. However, if you consider all people who think of themselves as Christians, that is a significant majority. Whereas all people who consider themselves atheists is still a small minority. Also, as Hemant mentioned, there is prejudice against atheists which Christians never face, such as all the people who would vote against an atheist running for a political office. And again, his likely accurate sense that his atheist volunteer activities would hurt his job prospects whereas Christian ones would help.

There was some discussion of how the more extreme Christians and atheists tend to get a voice more than moderate ones - it would be nice if moderate ones could be heard too, so people don’t assume the extreme ones are representative/typical. Hemant said that recent atheist books by Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens, Harris etc. have got people interested in hearing about atheists in general, which is good for atheists.

Hemant mentioned that Mike has been posting on his blog lately, in an “ask a pastor” series in which Hemant asked Mike to answer questions sent in by atheists. They commented that most of the criticism of Mike’s answers has come from other Christians, not atheists.

My favorite line of the evening: Mike brought up how there was a discussion once about how Hemant would make a good ‘atheist pastor’. Hemant said “I’d be like Joel Osteen, just with one less Bible verse!” (Meaning, Joel Osteen only has one Bible verse and the rest of what he says is stuff Hemant could say - since it’s general ‘be a better person’ principles)

Edited to add: I just remembered another favorite part: Hemant demonstrated the Kirk Cameron/Ray Comfort evangelism spiel on someone in the room who had never heard it. The “Have you ever lied? What does that make you?” etc. He was brilliant. He could be on their show! :-)

To me, one of the most powerful things about the evening was not any specific thing said, but the way Mike and Hemant treated each other. They are obviously friends who respect each other. I think showing friendship like this speaks volumes. It proves that no matter what some people think, it’s possible (and fun!) for Christians and atheists to be friends.

I don’t usually like to drive that far in the evening and night, but it was worth it - I’m glad I went! I expect I’ll see most or all of the people there again in a month at the Midwest Emergent Gathering. I’ll be leading a workshop there called “Helping Lost People Like You: Simple ways Christians can improve their relationships with other people”.

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Semi-Related Posts

• Lunch with Lainie
• Preview of Jim and Casper go to Church
• 1/28/08 city up/rooted meeting
• 12/17/07 Up/rooted city meeting
• Up/rooted meeting with Spencer Burke, Neil Cole and Alan Hirsch
• May 19 up/rooted meeting about Everything Must Change
• Chicago Up/rooted meeting

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