JAMES W. WHITE LECTURE

THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

Presented

REV. DR. ROBIN MEYERS

Senior Minister, Mayflower Congregational, United Church of Christ, and Professor of Rhetoric, Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma

“Jesus: Galilean Sage or Supernatural Savior”

Sunday Sermon,  November 14, 2010

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“What Kind of Church Would You Find Irresistible?”

Afternoon Workshop with Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers

Part One

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Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Robin Meyers, author, pastor of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, and proponent of a ‘new Christianity,’ will speak at both the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. service Sunday, Nov. 14, at First Congregational Church in downtown Colorado Springs.

Meyers’ lecture is titled “Jesus: Galilean Sage or Supernatural Savior?” It will be drawn from one of many fascinating topics in his most recent book, Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus. He also will lead a 2 p.m. workshop at the church titled “What Kind of Church Would You Find Irresistible?”

Meyers believes that although worshiping and following are not mutually exclusive, they are vitally different, and that the only viable future for the church (and humanity) is to change the axis of the church from salvation to wisdom. Think of it, he says, as "back to the future."

Meyers adds: “An explosion of interdisciplinary biblical research about the early church has produced a strong consensus that Christianity, in the words of Harvey Cox, ‘deteriorated from a movement generated by faith and hope into a religious empire demarcated by prescribed doctrines and ruled by a priestly elite.’

“What got lost in the process was the truly radical nature of the early church,” Meyers says. “[The church] began as an underground movement in which women were elevated to positions of authority, congregations practiced radical hospitality, the wealthy sold their possessions and redistributed their wealth to those in need, and the church was a visible and subversive alternative to the values and obligations of the Roman Empire.”

“In truth, there was nothing orthodox about the early church,” Meyers continues. “Arguments about the nature of the divinity of Jesus or about what happens to us when we die raged from the beginning. But there was a force that held these otherwise diverse communities together — a surpassing loyalty to the risen Christ and to living out ‘The Way of Jesus’ in what they believed was a perishing world.”

In addition to his ministry at Mayflower Congregational Church for the past 20 years, Meyers is a professor of rhetoric and philosophy at Oklahoma City University, a syndicated columnist and an award-winning commentator for National Public Radio. He has appeared on Dateline NBC, PBS NewsHour and ABC World News. He’s also a member of the Jesus Seminar.

Meyers’ presentation was part of the James W. White Lectureship Series at First Congregational Church, November 14, 2010. Both it and the afternoon workshop were free and open to the public.