Posted by Helen on: 04.18.2008 /
After the panel discussion and lunch we went to Jim’s workshop, one of a number of workshops offered as part of the Dalai Lama Seeds of Compassion event. Jim talked with an interfaith panel of Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt, Todd Hunter, Nancy Murphy, Sunil Sardar (all Christians), Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America and a local Jewish Rabbi. Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt and Ingrid Mattson were in town because they were on one of the panel discussions earlier in the day.
I would have liked to see less Christians and more people from other faiths. Jim said he tried but couldn’t get some of the people of other faiths he invited.
Ingrid was awesome - for me she was the highlight of the workshop. She said it’s not only Christians who love Jesus - Muslims love Jesus too. She talked about Jesus feeding the five thousand and said it shows that if we all share we’ll each get a little bit less but then no-one will go without. And it also is a community-building thing to do. I’d never heard anyone interpret that story that way and I really liked it.
This was the third meeting of the day in which people from different spiritual traditions were sharing politely and respectfully with each other and looking for common ground. It was so encouraging to me seeing lots of people able to join with people of other faiths without feeling threatened or needing to try to change everyone to have their specific beliefs.
In the evening Rose’s church hosted Off The Map presents An Evening with Rob Bell and special guests (click the link to get to podcasts of the event and what other bloggers have said). There was food, music and segments with short talks, interviews and dialog.
Rob Bell’s upcoming book has a great title: Jesus wants to save Christians. It sounds very much in line with Off The Map’s goal of helping Christians learn to be normal. Rob is an excellent speaker. He seems like a decent guy with lots of good ideas about Christianity and spirituality. However, when Rob was asked questions by Jim and Rose I didn’t feel he picked up well on what they were asking.
Jim followed up Rob’s comments about his book by asking Rob (as best I recall) to give an example of Christians being saved in his church. Rob responded by talking about a rich woman. Before he said anything else he emphasized how amazingly super-wealthy she was. Right away I was confused, wondering why he would choose her rather than someone we could relate to, as ‘one of us’. He chose her and described her in a way that made her not like me.
I think this felt weird partly because lately I’ve been around people who emphasize how rich all of us are compared to most people around the world. Yet by implication Rob was talking about her as if she was in a different category from the rest of us in that room. He was using rich in a relative American sense rather than a global sense.
Rob then said how, because of her immense wealth, she was influential locally and could pull strings we couldn’t pull. Again, this was not developing into a story I could relate to personally! It was key to the story that she used her influence to start a ministry that helped people with needs. As she did so her heart was changed towards the people she was helping. In other words, she was being ’saved’ rather than the people with needs that she had helped.
I felt uncomfortable about celebrating this super-rich woman’s salvation, because she was part of the ‘them’ of the super-rich rather than the ‘us’ who need all saving. Everything about Rob’s premise that Jesus wants to save ‘Christians’ nicely puts the spotlight on ‘us’ rather than ‘them’ which I find very Jesus-like. (When I say ‘us’ I don’t mean me, strictly speaking, because I’m not a Christian, but in a general sense I could be a better person - in that sense I do need some ’saving’ for sure). Anyway Rob’s example failed because the person he chose was so different from me that she was part of ‘them’ not an ‘us’. The story hinges on her using resources I don’t have. I wish he had shared about an ordinary person like me. I’m sure there are ordinary people being ’saved’ in this way in his church otherwise he wouldn’t be motivated to write a book about it.
I expect Rob’s very excited about the super-rich woman becoming a better person (i.e. being ’saved’ by Jesus) and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just don’t think she was a helpful illustration to use in a room of people who aren’t super-rich. And the way he emphasized how rich she was only widened the gap.
Rose wants males with power and influence - which includes Rob although he is not super-rich - to use that to help transition the church to where women leaders (authors, speakers, pastors, ministry leaders) are as visible as men, nationally. She talked to Rob about this. Rob explained how much he has done to ensure women share the leadership with men at his church. That’s great but he seemed to miss that Rose wanted him also to be actively helping this happen at a national level. Check out Rose or Eugene Cho’s blogs for more about this segment (Rose quoted Eugene to Rob - Eugene totally gets where she’s coming from on this issue).
Rose’s segment ended with her bringing up a young female church leader who lacks women role-models. She lacks them because there are so few visible women leaders compared to men. When she asked Rob what he would say to her, he said, in effect “Don’t worry - it WILL happen!” Indicating he had entirely missed Rose’s point - which was, this has not yet happened and we question whether it will unless men like Rob, who in theory are in favor of it, get actively involved in bringing it about at the national level; so, Rob, what are you doing, or what will you do, to bring it about?
Andrew Himes shared powerfully from his own life. For me, his was the most moving segment. With tears in his eyes he talked about helping an old man by carrying his dying wife from her wheelchair to her bed.
Jim interviewed Doug, Todd, Rob and Sunil to close out the program for the evening.
It was fun to be among so many friendly people. I didn’t feel like “I’m almost an atheist and I don’t fit in here” because everyone who talked to me was friendly and didn’t make an issue of it or ask me weird questions I didn’t know how to answer.
After the event a few of us went out for drinks including Doug Pagitt. I was glad he came along to hang out and chat. He had some interesting comments about the Dalai Lama (I mentioned those in my post about the prayer breakfast).
Overall I had a wonderful time in Seattle - I’m very glad I went!
Comment by: Rose
1Good summation Helen. It was good to be with you. What an incredibly intense 24 hours. It’s not everyday you get to hangout with so many talented, gifted, genuine people.
Comment by: Helen
2Thanks Rose - yes it was very intense and not much of it was sleep!
I agree about the company - it certainly was a rare and wonderful opportunity to be with many awesome people.
Comment by: Off The Map » An Evening With Rob Bell
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