Philosopher Who Talks to God Brings His Message to Moravian

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Have you ever wished you could talk to God?  

Moravian College offered the opportunity to at least talk to a man who talks to God, by welcoming philosopher and author Jerry Martin on October 8. Martin delivered his lecture titled, “When God Talks Back,” which was sponsored by the Philosophy Club and the Interfaith Council.

“I don’t claim to be another prophet,” said Martin to a crowd of students and faculty in Moravian’s Haupert Union Building. “I’m not sure why he chose me. I’m just here to tell God’s story.”

Martin is the author of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher and is coordinator of the Theology Without Walls initiative, an interfaith project at the American Academy of Religion. He is well known for his supposed ability to communicate with the divine powers, God and Jesus.

During his lecture at Moravian, Martin outlined the content of his book, which details the dialogues between him and the omnipotent voice he communicates with. He further discussed his transition from a non-believer during his early life as a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder to a profound theist outside of any parochial sect. Defining his current faith and creed, Martin displayed his breaching of the deep vendetta between philosophers and spiritualists to form his own faction of “theology without walls.”

Dr. Martin was raised Protestant. However, he admitted that preceding these interactions he considered himself a religious skeptic. He currently has no affiliation to any organized religion. One of God’s messages Martin relays is that no particular religion is necessarily the correct one.

“To the extent that he tried to provide us with some sort of philosophical background about his talk, I think he did a good job. He was a good philosopher,” professor of philosophy Arash Naraghi remarked. “We want to have a welcoming environment here. We don’t want to pre-judged ideas. We want to remain open and expose ourselves to ideas no matter how weird or odd they might seem.”

Professor Naraghi is the advisor of Moravian’s Philosophy Club, which meets Wednesdays in the philosophy lounge of Comenius Hall for discussions concerning the “love of wisdom.”

“One thing actually struck me as quite interesting,” said Naraghi. “There was a time in our history — human history — that the claim that someone was talking to God was quite normal. But we are living in a time when someone makes that claim, your first reaction is ‘something is wrong with this guy’ [laughs]. I think to some extent it shows how the intellectual paradigm has shifted.”