TRAVERSE CITY -- Steve Ruble thoughtfully took a sip of his Waltzing Matilda Rye Amber Ale.
Then he paraphrased philosopher John Locke ("Not the guy from 'Lost,' someone clarified) and wondered, "What's the difference between God speaking to you in a dream and dreaming that God's talking to you?"
The Rev. Bryan Berghoef also weighed in: "Can you have an original thought that isn't influenced by your senses?"
Berghoef laughed at his question and said, "I guess that would be nonsensical."
The two men were among a dozen people who gathered at Right Brain Brewery in Traverse City on a snowy Thursday evening for the weekly Pub Theology discussion. The gatherings were started in October by Berghoef, minister at the Watershed Church, a Christian Reformed Church that meets in Building 50 at the Grand Traverse Commons Sunday mornings.
The pub meetings are loosely knit and open, Berghoef said.
"We love for new people to show up, people of varying faiths or people who are skeptical of religion, as long as they are willing to engage in honest conversation and admit they have questions," he said. "We're not here to challenge beliefs."
He said he got the idea while in London and uses the basic poster the church there uses.
The eye-catching poster worked on Andrew Pomerville, minister of Bellaire's Church in the Hills, a Presbyterian Church USA denomination.
He and Corey Lecuraux, minister of the First Baptist Church in Bellaire, started their own group, Spirituality Untapped, which also meets on Thursday evenings at a microbrewery -- Short's in downtown Bellaire.
"The church needs to be having these discussions," Pomerville said. "There are a lot of people who are looking and we need to go to them."
He said his group's discussions are "across the board."
"We don't agree, but that's what makes it fun," he said.
Don Hoyt, 30, of Bellaire, likes the opportunity to hang out with people his own age, as well as talk about religion.
"Living in Bellaire and working in Gaylord, it can be difficult finding forums where young people are gathering," he said. "It's a unique setting."
Hoyt said he grew up Catholic and was used to more rigid and formal settings for religious gatherings. He appreciates the openness -- and the Bellaire Brown brew Short's serves.
Topics at the Antrim County group have included "What it means to have hope in something" and "doubt." A recent discussion centered on cynicism and when it begins. The 1986 Challenger explosion was a "where-were-you moment" for his age group, Hoyt said, as well as a time when they realized "not everything goes according to plan."
Topics for the Right Brain group include "If people really lived as Jesus taught, what would the world look like?" and "If you could boil your view of the world down to three things, what would they be?"
Right Brain's recent meeting included people who ranged from a minister to a stay-at-home mom to an atheist. And topics served as jumping-off points for conversations that swung from Jesus to Johnny Cash, when a particular song came over the sound system at the bar.
"I grew up as fundamentalist and I know the Bible very well," said Ruble, 24, a computer programmer from Traverse City. Now he's an atheist who reads science textbooks for fun. His computer knowledge, as well as an interest in quantum physics, inspired tangential conversations about Question No. 5 on the evening's list: "Are there any truly random events?"
"You can't make a computer generate random numbers," Ruble said. He then talked about rolling dice, chaos theory, purpose, reason and cause in a side conversation with Berghoef.
"It's a little unconventional," said Rick White, 47, of Traverse City, "but we have good conversations and good beer.
"Historically, a lot of church things have happened in taverns," he said, "especially during the Reformation."
Holly White, a manager at Right Brain, loves having the group meet at her pub.
"They're very intellectual," she said. "It's not purely God. It's talking about life, really. They're not judgmental and they're really open."
Here's to you
-- Pub Theology, Right Brain Brewery, Traverse City, Thursdays, 8:30 p.m.watershedtc.ning.com/group/pubtheology; 218-3285
-- Spirituality Untapped, Shorts Brewing Co., Bellaire, Thursdays, 7 p.m.www.bellaireuntapped.blogspot.com; 533-6001
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