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Progressive Christian

A New (Old) God, Quantum Physics, and Riding the Big Waves: Breakfast with Rob Bell

March 21, 2013 by Deborah Arca

Continued from Page 2

Well, let me just say at the most superficial level it's fascinating. It's just fascinating. Many of us in the modern world were raised on this very clean line between the physical and the spiritual, between the material and the immaterial. We were taught that there is this real world we can actually count on, and then there may or may not be this sort of esoteric world of that which might or might not exist. Some people have faith and some people don't, but the rest of us are these hard-core materialists. Material reality at its core is pretty funky, if I may use a scientific term.

So, that line might not be a line after all, and that's just interesting. It was Jeffrey Krueger at Time magazine last year who just said that with the Higgs Boson we are dealing with something spiritual. This is a mainstream, credible magazine saying that these latest discoveries at the fresh edge of quantum physics have a spiritual component. I know lots of scientists would be like "oh come one, that's ridiculous," but, you start talking about packets of energy that are 99.9% empty space, that are animated by probabilities and unpredictability, that somehow we're able to harness into X-rays and iPods. What in the world? Actually, that's the right way to put it: What in the world is this? And I think what's happening, from my very basic layman's perspective. You have the best scientists in the world talking with wonder and awe, which puts us into the land of poetry and theology and mystics. They all may be on the same team after all. And that's just compelling.

:::page break:::

So these electrons firing randomly and forming pathways only when observed, leads you to say...?

Well, one of the things in the book I explore is simply involvement. For many people the fundamental way we see things is that we are these individual autonomous units. But when quantum physicists start talking about how things are affected when they're observed, that just puts us all much more into a relational space. So there is the power of the scientists in the lab and a white coat with a clipboard standing objectively over something, and there is a time and a place for that and we have lots of luxuries and conveniences because of this sort of understanding of things. But, at its core, the universe is far more inter-subjective; we are way more involved than we first realized. So, when people of faith have been talking about the relational dimensions of our existence and the importance of relationships and the awareness that things are shaping us and we are shaping other things, this isn't a crazy idea—this is actually really well founded. So, when people talk about "good vibes" and being positive and other people being a "drain" and being toxic, we have this sort of loose language about the way we operate in the world, but there's actually a lot of truth to it.

I love how you talk about joy, and that joy is central to your experience and expression of God. You talk about someone having a good "vibe," but it's not just language, it's actually biblically grounded as you say, and also scientifically, energetically founded.

Yeah, we talk about joy as "contagious." And it may actually be. When we talk about, "Man, I was in-spired," which essentially means "I breathed in life," you may actually have breathed in life; there may have been way more going on there. So you know how many people, when they talk about who they are, will go back somewhere in their history and tell of how somebody spoke an affirming word over them or somebody told them "you know what, you're really talented at this," or "I could see you doing that" and it altered the entire trajectory of their life? Did the person just speak, or was there some sort of exchange, in a way in which their consciousness was seared with this new announcement of who they could be?

So it just heightens the importance of our interactions. I talk about the body being a highly sophisticated radar system with a sub-cortical awareness we have called intuition; for thousands of years people trusted this. Somewhere along the way, for a lot of people it became, if you can't rationally analyze it and articulate it then it's probably suspect and it essentially cuts us off from this whole world of intuition that is way more trustworthy maybe than we first thought.

You're starting to talk more and more like a Californian every day! (laughter) I'm from California so I can say that. But seriously, where do you locate yourself in Christianity these days? I mean...

I don't! It's not even remotely interesting to me.

(more laughter)

Say more about that.

I've just never even found it even a small bit compelling to try and talk about myself or where I fit or...

Article Continued On Next Page

Page: 3 of 6

3/21/2013 4:00:00 AM

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About Deborah Arca

Deborah Arca is the former Director of Content at Patheos. Prior to joining Patheos, Deborah managed the Programs in Christian Spirituality at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, including the Program's renowned spiritual direction program and the nationally-renowned Lilly-funded Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project. Deborah has also been a youth minister, a director of music and theatre programs for children and teens, and a music minister. Deborah belongs to a progressive United Church of Christ church in Englewood, CO.

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