Is God Everywhere—Including Bars?

“Drink and be spiritual”—that’s Jane Ross’ spin on the old hedonist’s motto. Eschewing the stuffy quarters of the All Saints Episcopalian Parish in Brookline, Ross has taken her weekly Christian discussion group from the House of God to the Publik House Beer Bar and Kitchen. Every Saturday afternoon, before heading to the church’s five o’clock Celtic service, parishioners talk religion over a frothy pint of imported ale. It’s not you’re typical church group, but then again, Ross isn’t trying to draw the typical church-going crowd.

“I wanted to attract people who were spiritual but not necessarily religious,” says Ross, a fourth-year divinity student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, MA.

Regular participants in the group, which averages about five to six in any given week, range from a 26 year-old woman with plans to attend the Kennedy School of Government to Kathleen O’Connor, a retired Vice Principal and self-described lapsed Roman Catholic from Brookline. Both women appreciate the group’s informality.

“It’s a social before you get down and serious,” says O’Connor, who is at the Publik House for the fifth time this year.

Given the climate of Gordon-Conwell, Ross’ project seems an unlikely success story. “I got academic credit for this, from a seminary that doesn’t allow alcohol on campus anywhere,” says Ross. “Lots of students there have never been to a bar in their life.”

Ross also hosts a Sunday discussion group at a local sports bar in Allston, a project she hopes will eventually be as successful as the Brookline experiment.

“Jesus spent a lot of time hanging out with people where they were,” she says. “I think we’re following Jesus’ example.”