About the Author: Rev. Robin R. Meyers

Dr. Robin Meyers is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, the Distinguished Professor of Social Justice at Oklahoma City University, the best selling author of seven books, an award-winning columnist for the Oklahoma Gazette, and an award-winning commentator for National Public Radio. He has been the Senior Minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC church of Oklahoma City since 1985, the fastest growing UCC church in the Kansas Oklahoma conference. Dr. Meyers was born in Oklahoma City and grew up in Wichita, Kansas. After graduating from Wichita State University (75) he received his M. Div. from the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University (79) and his Doctor of Ministry degree from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey (81), and his PhD from the Communication Department at the University of Oklahoma (91). His dissertation was on the concept of self-persuasion in preaching, and was published as a textbook for preachers. Dr. Meyers is the author of seven books: With Ears to Hear: Preaching as Self-Persuasion (Pilgrim Press, 1993); Morning Sun on a White Piano: Simple Pleasures and the Sacramental Life (Doubleday, 1998); 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 you Faith, your Flag, and your Future (Wiley, 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 (Wiley, 2012), and forthcoming from Yale University Press, Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance. Set for release in the spring of 2015, it expands on his 2013-2014 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale. Dr. Meyers is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a frequent speaker and preacher on the merits of progressive Christianity, and was twice a finalist for the pulpit of the Riverside Church in New York City. He has given the Earl Lectures in Berkeley, was awarded the Angie Debo Civil Libertarian 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 Dr. Meyers’ efforts to save her life. Most recently, Dr. Meyers gave the Robinson/Spong Lecture at the Gladstone Library in North Wales. He is married to Shawn Meyers, an Oklahoma City artist and university professor, and they are the parents of three children, Blue Austin (36), Chelsea Elizabeth (33), and Cass Isaac (21), and the exceedingly proud grandparents of Iris Blue (4), and Hazel Elizabeth (6 months). (Updated May 2015)