TED and Christianity

October 11th, 2009 by bobpayne

TEDxSMU on Saturday felt like someone took a hunk of liberal California and dropped it into the buckle of the Bible belt.  But my experience at TEDx got me to thinking.  Why is it that the kind of thinking that is embraced and encouraged by any TED event is so different from the prevailing thinking typically associated with the southern part of the US?  Are southerners stupider than the rest of the country?  No, of course not.  A paper published by Virginia Commonwealth University in 2006 proved that IQ is relatively the same across all states.  Some would say that it is a religious thing.  Alright, fine, let’s look at that.

I am a truth-seeker, an honest one, and one with an open mind.  That quest has led me to become a follower of Jesus.  But I’m a bit of a rogue Christian.  I don’t hold to 100% of the conservative mindset.  So, like a half-breed child, I’m bound to be rejected by most of the Christians because I won’t toe the line and rejected by most TEDders because I hold to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

I was utterly amazed on Saturday taking in the TED talks.  I was equally dismayed that this potentially world-changing event wasn’t originated by the church.  If we supposedly have a direct line to God and he is supposedly on our side, how did we drop the ball on this thing?  No, seriously.  Follow me on this …

Why aren’t Christians coming from all directions to gather on a particular day for an event where a speaker proclaims the truth in an inspirational way for the purpose of changing hearts as well as minds?  Why don’t we regularly come together to hear music and listen to a sage from the stage whose purpose is to inspire as much as it is to inform?  Why don’t we … Heeeey.  Wait a second.  Isn’t that called a ’sermon’?  We do exactly this on every single Sunday.

Okay, so maybe we’re not so different after all.  So why the animosity on both sides?

Andrea Eberle, a TEDder and Christian that I met during the last session pegged it.  She said,  “There are really two kinds of people that call themselves Christian.  One kind’s Christianity is based on culture, religion, a set of rules.  The other kind’s Christianity is based on relationship, a real relationship with Jesus.  The former don’t like liberal thinkers because change threatens their fragile set of rules.  The latter would embrace change because real relationships demand change.  Therefore, they would embrace TED.”

Christians have got to embrace the differences between the two groups and stop being threatened by having their apple carts upset.  TEDders and other liberal thinkers have to realize that genuine followers of Christ really are interested in changing the world because, after all, their role model did exactly that.

Kids, there is way more that we have in common than what separates us.

Tags: TED, TEDxSMU