Last Saturday, I went to the Indianapolis venue for Rob Bell’s Everything is Spiritual 2006 “tour”.  Basically, it is a 1:45 hour lecture by Rob that goes by in what seems like 10 minutes.  I’m still trying to sort it all out, as it was incredible.

First off, as speakers come & go, it takes a really gifted on to keep my attention for 20 minutes, let alone an hour (call it adult ADHD), and I’m not sure I ever wandered during his talk.

Basically, it was a stage w/ a 30-foot white board, a black marker and Rob.  He started in Genesis 1:1 in the upper left corner, worked his way through the Genesis Rabba* and on into quantum mechanics, unified field theory, neutron stars, quarks, string theory and such before venturing into a spacetime desciption of the nature of God, finally finishing back up in Genesis with Adam (the first conjunction of spirit and matter).

Things I appreciated:
He didn’t dumb things down (too much – in the case of science)
Though he didn’t get all the pop-culture refs, my 15-year-old picked up most everything
Many, MANY things that made me go “hmmm”

Things I didn’t appreciate:
Too short
No Q&A afterward
No indication if this would be taped and made available for purchase

Things that made me go “hmmm”:
1. When God is mentioned in Genesis 1:1, He is called Elohim in Hebrew.  The suffix -im in Hebrew indicates the word is plural.  The next few verses then spell out the plural natures of God (creator, spirit, word).
2. Two-dimensional vs. three-dimensional vs. multi-deminsional thought
3. The “dials and knobs” view of the world
4. In Hebrew, there is no word/adjective for “spiritual”, as this would imply that there were things that were NOT spiritual.
5. MANY more…

Implications I’m still mulling (that hurt to think about):
Q: Is it “predestination” or “free will”? A: maybe it’s ‘Yip’.  (VERY long explanation…especially w/o a white board)

So, I’m now trying to sort it all out and trying to decide what the biggest “ah-ha’s” were for me, and how to get my hands on a copy of the lecture…

Any suggestions?

In the mean time, I’ll be waiting for March 2007 when his next book, Sex God, comes out…

*stuff I blogged on a couple weeks back (I’d heard about this from Tim Brown, a professor at Western Theological Seminary (about 30 minutes from where Rob pastors) so there’s likely a common source there somewhere…)