We met up in Dallas. Hemant, Joel Keebler, the publicist from Waterbrook Press and I. We made our way to dinner with James, his wife Betty, Pastor Tony Evans and his wife and a group of staffers from “Life Today”.

At dinner Hemant and I listened as James and Tony (a mega star pastor in his own right) discussed how James might approach President Bush regarding offering advice on the war in Iraq. This is not a joke. The wall was filled with photos of James and President Bush. He is one person who’s call Bush will answer. It was a surreal experience for me. I was falling down laughing inside my head thinking how it was impacting my atheist colleague Hemant. I can’t wait to read his report on his blog.

Let me say that James Robison is one of the most generous “powerful” christian leaders I have ever been in close proximity to. He was very kind and respectful of Hemant, geuninely intrigued and even grandfatherly-ish in his approach to trying to understand Hemant’s friendly athiest idea. Iliked him.

The show went well. In fact that had us do shows. The production team was outstanding and very professional. 6 cameras in the studio. James is magical on camera. I have worked with others who have this gift. It is as if they are most comfortable with themselves when the camera is on them. He was very polished and professional. It was fun to watch.

James gave Hemant lots of time to explain his mission and encouraged pastors to invite Hemant to come and speak . He did the same for me. The show will air sometime end of May. We will keep you updated.

A wonderful addition was the presence of about 10 atheists in the audience who came to cheer Hemant on. In fact Tx Atheist, one of the origianl Ebay Atheist bloggers drove 3 hours to be in the audience. I really enjoyed meeting Tx he is a very cool person. Megan who also has done a lot of blogging on OTM blogs lives in Dallas and came to the studio. It was fine to introduce Tx to Megan and for all of us to be able to meet face to face after only hearing each others voices via the blog.

check out www.friendlyatheist.com Hemants blog for more

Jim is going to be on the radio twice this weekend:

1. On KGNW 820 AM (Christian Radio) Saturday from 9-9:30 AM PST
2. On KVI 570 AM (Conservative Radio) Sunday from 4-5 PM PST (Hopefully with Matt Casper)

Click on the links to find live streams of the programs over the Internet.

I just found out from Hemant’s blog (thanks Hemant!) that Publishers Weekly has a preview of the book on their site.