When God talks back | Tanya Luhrmann | TEDxStanford

what I want to talk about this morning

is remarkable phenomenon that
the people not only talk to God

but they learn to experience
God is talking back

Many many Americans and
many other people

are involved, as you may call,
in a renewalist spirituality -

a kind of spirituality
which they want to experience God

intimately, personally and interactive,

they want to reach out,
touch the Divine here on earth

I want to find out how they did that.

I am anthropologist,
my job is to immerse myself in

the world I come to study,
and to keep observing

so that at some degree, I got a sense of
what it take to

become a Native in that world.

Unlike Margret Mead &
Rev. Gregory Bateson

were pictured here in Papua New Guinea.

I did this work in America.

I spent two years
in the renewalist church in Chicago,

another two years
in one of the Bay area.

I went to Sunday Morning services.

I was a member of House priaire.

I was in the prayer's circle.

I hang out with people.

I prayed with people.

I really want to know how
their God became real to them.

So let me begin by asking,

who is the God in the church like this?

God is God, God is big,
God is mighty, and holy and beyond.

God is also a person among people,

The Pastor in this kind of church
want you to experience God

the way the earliest cycle of experience Jesus,

They walk with Jesus.

They eat with Jesus.

They talk with Jesus,

He was his friend,

These pastors will tell you that

You should put out
a cup of coffee for God,

You should have a beer with God

Go for a walk with God, hang out.

Do the kind of thing with God

that you get do with anyone who
you want to know as a person.

He cares about all the kinds of stuff
in your life.

the little stuff, where you want to go
in your summer vacation

what shirt you want to wear
tomorrow morning.

you can talk to him about that.

So I wanted to know how people learn to
interact with God

and how they felt God
speaking back to them.

I knew they can learn
the newcomers came to this church,

and they say things like:

"God talk to me."

and six months later they would say :

"I recognize God's voice the way I
recognize my mum's voice on the phone . "

But I thought the church's teach

and some of thoughts
you really think is yours,

They are really God's thoughts being given to you

and your job is to figure out
who is the God.

and the way people did talk