Selective Hearing at Wild Goose

Catherine Caimano has a post at Faith & Leadership which offers a critical look at the Wild Goose Festival.  Her bottom-line critique: Not Enough Jesus.  She got this impression, it seems, from attending a few sessions and overhearing people talk in private conversations.

Among the elements to which she refers is the “Sexuality and Justice” panel that I moderated.  What’s interesting is that I used an extended biblical illustration connecting Jesus’ healing of the man lowered through the roof with Peter’s healing of the cripple by the Temple gate in Acts 3.  After that session, several people stopped me to thank me for talking about Jesus and the Bible.  One young couple said, “We love it here, but we’re youth pastors in a conservative church and it’s tough for us to bring what we’re hearing back.  Thanks for using the Bible — we haven’t heard much Bible here.”

My session on prayer was similarly obsessed with the Bible and Jesus’ teaching on prayer, to the vocal consternation of some in the crowd.

Jay Bakker’s talk was explicitly about Jesus’ welcoming of people in his ministry.

And Nadia Bolz-Weber’s homily at the Bluegrass Liturgy was vintage Nadia: Lutheran, biblical, and christocentric.

I could go on, but I’d start sounding defensive. 🙂

What do you think?  Was Wild Goose not Jesusy enough, as Caimano reports? (Faith & Leadership does not allow comments, so maybe this can serve as a forum to discuss her article.)