Saving God from Religion

October 15, 2019
A radically new way for churches to see God: Look around, not up. If the church is to survive, writes pastor and author Meyers (Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance, 2015, etc.), it must start relating to God in a different way. Believers must focus less on what they believe and more on what they should do. As a map for what the path that he believes the church should follow, the author points to the Sermon on the Mount, which contains every detail Jesus ever taught but says nothing about what one must believe. The sermon focuses entirely on action and the importance of working for justice, which, Meyers points out, is the same gospel that the Hebrew Bible's major prophets preached many years earlier. The author argues that in order to manifest this new approach to religion, we must stop looking for God "up there" and start seeing God as existing on our level, literally in our relationships with others: "Instead of concluding that we are 'a little lower than God, ' we might consider something that is both more frightening and more empowering: that we are the very image of God, and that our treatment of one another is our treatment of God." Meyers is blunt here: If the church doesn't make working for justice its reason for being, it will continue hemorrhaging members until it dies. However, the author is not all doom and gloom. He firmly believes that if churches make justice their primary concern, they will become relevant again and continue to be a source of wisdom and transformation. This may not be a book for all believers, but Meyers believes a significant audience is waiting, which he characterizes as "everyone who is struggling with the old and narrow definitions of God but has yet to see any coherent and comprehensive way to reimagine the Ultimate Mystery." A bold case for seeing God in a whole new way.

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December 1, 2019

Meyers's (philosophy, Oklahoma City Univ.; Saving Jesus from the Church) gifts as a preacher are on full display in this latest work. He has the ability to connect meaningfully such dissimilar topics as John Lennon's song "Imagine" and words from the letters of the Apostle Paul. One has the sense in reading the book that Meyers is as comfortable musing on the hidden nature of the quantum world as he is conveying ever new depths to his richly interpreted Bible stories. The work is illuminated throughout by intriguing metaphors (the luminous web) and by conversations with parishioners. This style of narrative helps diversify or loosen the ideas about God that we've adopted over time. VERDICT More conversational than theological, Meyers reveals a God that is expansive, mysterious, and immediate. This book will appeal to those who enjoy popular, probing works on religion.--Denis Frias, Mississauga Lib. Syst., Ont.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 20, 2020
Meyers (Morning Sun on a White Piano), senior minister of the Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, Okla., makes a plausible case for progressive Christianity in this credible, engaging work of popular theology. He opens with a critique of a distant, hierarchical God that fails to meet modern needs, and draws on personal anecdotes and understandable, if skimpy, discussions of quantum mechanics and chaos theory as he articulates a theology of consequences, in which choices have natural and complex repercussions rather than divine rewards and punishments. He expands this to define sin as acting as if one can control or avoid the effects of one’s choices. Faith, he argues, is trust rather than intellectual assent and is opposed not by doubt but by anxiety. Meyer provocatively applies Old Testament prophets to show that the kind of prayers that are litanies of requests can be more harmful than helpful—creating a relationship with God of expectations and rewards. He closes with two chapters about how all people are interconnected and religion’s purpose is to help people act in certain ways—rather than believe specific doctrines. Traditionalists might balk at his application of theoretical science to Christianity, and hard-core skeptics may want a bit more rigor, but Meyer’s case stands as a promising, contemporary reframing. Progressive Christians looking for a fresh spiritual orientation will be moved by Meyer’s clarity and conviction.