Robin R. Meyers
Dr. Robin Meyers is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC), a tenured professor in the philosophy department at Oklahoma City University, an author, a syndicated columnist, and an award-winning commentator for National Public Radio. He has been the Senior Minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC church of Oklahoma City, the fastest-growing UCC church in the Kansas-Oklahoma conference, since 1985.
Dr. Meyers was born in Oklahoma City, and grew up in Wichita, Kansas. After graduating from Wichita State University (1975), he received his MDiv from the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University (1979) and his Doctor of Ministry degree from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey (1981). In 1991 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Oklahoma’s Communication Department, for his work in the area of persuasion and preaching.
Dr. Meyers is the author of five books. His first, With Ears to Hear: Preaching as Self-Persuasion (Pilgrim Press, 1993), is a textbook for preachers, and his second is a book on living a simpler and more sacramental existence, entitled Morning Sun on a White Piano: Simple Pleasures and the Sacramental Life (Doubleday, New York, 1998), which was endorsed by Bill Moyers. A third book, The Virtue in the Vice: Finding Seven Lively Virtues in the Seven Deadly Sins came out in August 2004 from H.C.I., endorsed by Desmond Tutu. A fourth book, Why the Christian Right Is Wrong: A Minister’s Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, and Your Future (Jossey/Bass, San Francisco, 2006), expanded upon an antiwar speech he delivered at the University of Oklahoma that became an internet phenomenon, endorsed by Bill Moyers, Desmond Tutu, John Shelby Spong, and the late William Sloane Coffin Jr.
His fifth book, due out February 24, 2009, from Harper Collins, is entitled Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshipping Christ and Start Following Jesus (Harper One, 2009), endorsed by Desmond Tutu, Bill Moyers, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Dr. Fred B. Craddock, and Diana Butler Bass.
Dr. Meyers is a member of the Jesus Seminar, and a frequent preacher and speaker at church conferences and communication workshops across the country. He was twice a finalist for the pulpit of The Riverside Church, the Earl Preacher at the Earl Lectures in Berkeley in 2000, winner of the Angie Debo Civil Libertarian of the Year Award from the ACLU, and was featured in an HBO documentary, The Execution of Wanda Jean, the story of the first woman executed in Oklahoma and of Dr. Meyers’s efforts to save her life. His Sunday morning sermon broadcast (KOKC AM 1520, 9:30 a.m.) reaches the largest listening audience of any religious broadcast in Oklahoma. He is married to Shawn Meyers, an Oklahoma City artist, and they are the parents of three children, Blue, 31, Chelsea, 28, and Cass, 15.
“Contemporary Christians have declared war on individual immorality but seem remarkably silent about the evil of systems, especially corporate greed and malfeasance. (p. 176)”
“The most twisted but perennial of American myths is that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. (p. 174)”
“Faith is always supposed to make it harder, not easier, to ignore the plight of our sisters and brothers. (p. 165)”
“...a deep and even paranoid suspicion continues to disparage higher criticism of the Bible, as if someone could publish a paper that would unravel God. (p. 151)”
“If the church is to survive as a place where head and heart are equal partners in faith, then we will need to commit ourselves once again not to the worship of Christ, but to the imitation of Jesus. His invitation was not to believe, but to follow. (p. 145)”
“Condemnation feels good and it is now a staple of religion, politics, and the media (both left and right), but it changes nothing. Compassion, on the other hand, changes everything. (p. 121)”
“...the ongoing suspicion that scientific discoveries or rigorous biblical scholarship will undermine faith is a tacit admission that faith is threatened by knowledge, because it is ultimately constructed on weak or faulty assumptions and, like the proverbial house of cards, needs to be "protected" from collapsing. (p. 21)”
“Indeed, a quick glance around this broken world makes it painfully obvious that we don't need more arguments on behalf of God; we need more people who live as if they are in covenant with Unconditional Love, which is our best definition of God. (p. 21)”
“Anti-intellectualism remains strongly entrenched in many parts of the church, but it is grounded in fear, not in faith. (p. 19)”
“In the beginning, the call of God was not propositional. It was experiential. (p. 10)”
“As long as Christianity is the dominant belief system in America, we cannot afford to be biblically or theologically illiterate, regardless of our personal beliefs. (p. 8)”
“It is easier and much more satisfying to rail against the Right than to suggest that we go back to Genesis 1 and study together. Liberals can be just as intolerant as fundamentalists, and we have arrived at a moment in human history when intolerance and hope are mutually exclusive. (p. 6)”
“Count calories if you like, but go ahead and gorge yourself on books. What have you got to lose but a small mind?”
“Books -- they come home hot in your hands and then by increments they warm your life, like heated bricks in a New England bed.”
“No matter what our age, we ought to never stop eating books, for books are the feast of the imagination.”
“Let your children see you kiss. Let them see you embrace. Let them overhear your teasing, your gentle rebukes, even your well-intentioned jealousy. Domestic courtship reinforces the notion that people are together because they want to be together, not because it is the decent, practical thing to do.”
“Conversation is how values get ordered, how passion is made contagious. If a parent talks about it, it's important. If a child is allowed to join the conversation, then that child becomes more than a table decoration, he has a part to play in the drama that is growing up. If his ideas count, then he counts. Children gain essential access to adulthood by being given a safe place to speak, and by rehearsing their thoughts out loud before the most patient and supportive audience they will ever know.”
“Resolve to talk more and be entertained less.”
“The American home has become the noisiest place of utter silence on earth.”