I think that Brent did a great job of capturing the essence of the talk in his review. I was going to do a complete play-by-play, but instead I just want to make a couple of comments and observations.

First off, the group of friends I traveled to Sacramento with comprised two pastors/seminary students, two people with PhDs from the Media Lab at MIT, and myself, freshly done with my Aero/Astro PhD at Stanford. So needless to say, we’re a tough crowd.

But at the same time, I think that we represent somewhat of a component of the core audience for Rob and others in the emerging church line of thinking.

The event took place in the Crest Theater, a neat-looking old building in downtown Sacramento. The stage was simply set with a large, six-segment whiteboard. This was obviously a deliberate choice, and Rob made mention at the end that church buildings often mask the spiritual nature of the rest of life.

Rob, dressed in black, came on stage to applause, and immediately took out a marker and launched into Genesis 1. He had the aura of a college lecturer, and in fact he’d probably make a great professor. He was a bit frenetic, unsurprisingly if you’ve heard him talk, but easy to pay attention to.

As much as I enjoyed the general themes and presentation, I left feeling vaguely uneasy.

First of all, the audience was very young (average age early 20s?) and lapped up every word that Rob said. I talked to a couple of people that saw the talk in different cities, and this seems to be a constant theme. In general, I think it’s great that a younger generation is finding a voice to connect with.

There is a problem however.

Evangelicalism is not known for its great academic thinkers. In fact, the tone of many evangelicals is one of anti-intellectualism. Now along comes Rob with a professorial air, and he reads a lot, and people really think he’s one smart guy. That gives him a different aura of authority than a typical preacher. Again, nothing is wrong with this.

Except he got a lot of facts wrong.

I mean basic, scientific stuff (the kind of thing I’ve been studying for over a decade). He got the speed of light wrong, the subatomic structure of matter wrong, the ‘Butterfly Effect’ wrong, and bunch of other things. And, yes, these facts figured prominently into his talk. Because he’s a good speaker, he didn’t hedge on these things either–he stated the wrong information emphatically, and I doubt there were many people there that knew it was wrong.

OK, so he got a bunch of the science wrong, is that such a big deal? Actually, yes I think it is. And this is the source of my unease. So I picked up on the scientific things he got wrong, because that’s what I am trained in. What other things did he get wrong (theological, literary, etc…) that I’m not trained in and didn’t pick up? Maybe nothing, maybe everything–but I don’t know, and because of the scientific errors I’m a whole lot more skeptical towards everything else. (I’m actually not, because I agree with most of what he said, but I could be and that’s my point)

For example, one of Rob’s fundamental points made was that Genesis 1 is poetry, and he even states rather definitively that it is a chiasm. One of my friends is taking a Hebrew poetry class, and noted that Genesis 1 is not typically discussed as poetry. I’m not saying which is right and which is wrong, it’s just interesting. [**update:** I haven't studied this extensively and am not claiming that Rob is wrong on Genesis 1 (maybe that will be the subject of a future post). My point is that his factual errors in the science make me more likely to question his other claims…]

Finally, in an academic lecture, one can ask questions, and most (all should but probably not all do) professors will give references for what they are saying. In a lecture like Rob gave, it was more performance art dressed up as a lecture. There’s no give and take, no discussion, no questions, and no referencing.

In conclusion, I think that what Rob had to say was great, and that he should be commended for doing innovative work. But in a lecture-performance like his talk was, I think that you have to make absolutely certain that your facts are right, otherwise you abuse the trust of the audience, and may end up losing the very people that you’re trying to reach the most.

I’ll follow this up with post detailing the science errors in the talk.