Robin Meyers

Robin Rex Meyers is an American Mainline Protestant minister, peace activist, philosopher and author of seven books on Liberal and Progressive Christian theology in Western society and the Christian left. He has been a syndicated columnist and a commentator for National Public Radio and was the Senior Minister of the Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City from 1985 to 2020. He is a Distinguished Professor of Social Justice in the Philosophy Department at Oklahoma City University, where he has taught since 1991. Meyers is currently the Teaching Pastor of First Congregational Church of Norman UCC in Norman, Oklahoma, and Distinguished Professor of Social Justice Tenured at Oklahoma City University.

Early life and education Robin Meyers was born in Oklahoma City, and was raised in Wichita, Kansas. His father later left the Church of Christ to become pastor at Plymouth Congregationalist Church in Wichita from 1970 to 1983. He told the Congregation:

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Wichita State University (1975), Meyers received a Masters of Divinity from the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University (1979), a Doctor of Ministry from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey (1981), and a doctorate in rhetoric (persuasion and preaching) from the University of Oklahoma (1991). He travels and lectures monthly in the United States on Progressive Christianity, has lectured in North Wales (Gladstone's Library) and toured Australia and New Zealand as the Common Dreams Lecturer in 2016. He has been a finalist for the pulpit of The Riverside Church on two occasions, the Earl Preacher at the Earl Lectures in Berkeley in 2000, and winner of the Angie Debo Civil Libertarian of the Year Award from the ACLU.

Meyers has appeared on Dateline NBC, the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and ABC World News. These lectures form the basis of his second most recent book, Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance.

Meyers credits the late American New Testament scholar, theologian and author Marcus Borg as a major theological influence, as well as his seminary Preaching Professor and mentor Fred Craddock. He is married to Shawn Meyers, an Oklahoma City artist; they are parents to three adult children and have two grandchildren. He calls on modern Christianity to return to the core beliefs and practices of the early Church before the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great converted to Christianity; by focusing on orthopraxy (faithful practice) and social justice rather than orthodoxy (right belief). Meyers describes his approach to Christianity as "non-literal, non-dogmatic, and profoundly subversive". and endorsed by South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. He spoke on Allen's behalf at an Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board clemency hearing and was one of her nominated witnesses at the execution. He cites the New Testament story of the evangelist Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8: 26–40 as "the most powerful story in the Bible to argue in favor of full inclusion of all people regardless of sexual orientation into the full sacramental hospitality of the Church" because it contradicts the Old Testament law in Deuteronomy 23:1 that rendered a eunuch an outcast. Meyers also contends that the Prophet Isaiah, whom the eunuch was reading while meeting Philip, "is on record as saying even eunuchs will be welcomed into the reign of God because God's love is unconditional ... it is for everyone who is on the outside looking in". Meyers told the congregation that "love is a gender-less thing". and spoke publicly against a Florida church's plans to burn copies of the Quran on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Broader Church

Meyers eschews evangelical Christianity's emphasis on salvation and does not think that Christians need to believe in conventional marks of the Church, including Jesus' physical resurrection, ascension into heaven, virgin birth or position as the son of God. Rather, he believes that religious leaders should address social issues such as greed, saying that "money is the last taboo in church". He links this issue to social justice and perceptions of inequality in the judicial system, in that "we'll send an African-American teenager off to the slammer who robs a 7-Eleven, but we won't do anything to a banker who helped cause the collapse of the entire banking system".

Two of Meyers' former seminary professors responded to the 2009 publication of Saving Jesus from the Church. The first, the former Dean of the Seminary Dr Joe R. Jones, wrote a "decidedly personal and theological" post on his personal blog about Meyers, admitting in the conclusion its "ad hominem" nature and that they must not ever have connected theologically even though he had been invited to preach in Meyers' church in 2002. He lamented Meyers' work, speculating that it might be driven subconsciously by reaction against a fundamentalist upbringing, which led him out of theological agreement with Jones' lectures and systematic theology ("There being no real evidence that Robin ever did hear my lectures or read the Grammar") and contrasted their supposed preferred theological sources by name, albeit without noting those referenced in the book's citations. The second former seminary professor, the late Dr. Fred Craddock, emeritus professor at Emory University, was cited by Meyers as his primary mentor and is quoted and thanked in the book. Craddock endorsed Meyer's writing with the words "The time is right for this book and this book is right for the time." Meyer's book was also endorsed by church scholar Diana Butler Bass and Archbishop Desmond Tutu who wrote the following:

Politics, Peace and the Environment

Shortly after George W. Bush was re-elected as US president in November 2004, Meyers became known via the Internet for an anti-war speech he delivered at an Oklahoma University peace rally at which he told the crowd: "This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt".

The Bush re-election has been cited as a defining moment in motivating authors such as Meyers to articulate approaches to faith that differ from those of the Religious Right. In this respect Meyers has been read or reviewed alongside writers including Jim Wallis, David Kuo

Meyers' support of environmental issues has been seen as part of a wider movement within American Christianity that now includes some members of the traditionally-conservative evangelical branch of the church.

Books With Ears to Hear: Preaching as Self-Persuasion (Pilgrim Press, 1993); (Wipf & Stock Pub, 2007). Morning Sun on a White Piano: Simple Pleasures and the Sacramental Life (Doubleday, 1998); (Galilee Trade; Reprint edition 2000). The Virtue in the Vice: Finding Seven Lively Virtues in the Seven Deadly Sins (HCI, 2004). Why the Christian Right is Wrong: A Minister's Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, and Your Future (Jossey Bass, 2006). Saving Jesus From The Church: How To Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus (Harper One, 2009). The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus (Jossey Bass, 2012). Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance (Yale University Press, 2015); I . "Saving God from Religion: A Minister's Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age" (Convergent Penguin Random House, 2020).