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OCU Hosts Symposium for ‘Spiritual Defiance’

by Rod Jones

Oklahoma City University will host a symposium on the book “Spiritual Defiance” by philosophy professor Robin Meyers at 7 p.m. Oct. 29. The event is free to the public and will be held in the Bishop W. Angie Smith Chapel on N.W. 23rd Street between Blackwelder and Kentucky avenues.

The symposium will include responders Amy Oden, professor of early church history and spirituality for the Saint Paul School of Theology at OCU; and Rev. Semaj Vanzant, pastor for the Christ Experience of the United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City.

For more information, contact Rev. Rodney Newman at 405-208-5484 or [email protected].

During his 30-year career as a parish minister and professor, Rev. Meyers has focused on renewing the church as an instrument of social change and personal transformation. In “Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance,” he explores the decline of the church as a community of believers and calls readers back to the church’s roots as a community of resistance. Shifting the conversation about church renewal away from theological purity and marketing strategies that embrace cultural norms, and toward “embodied noncompliance” with the dominant culture, Meyers urges a return to the revolutionary spirit that marked Jesus’s ministry.

The Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the book is “Robin Meyers at his pastoral and prophetic best. Read it, and then for the love of God – RESIST!” Publishers Weekly called it an “explosive call to religious progressives to resist cultural and economic injustice… knowledgeable, engaging, and provocative.”

Meyers is senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church in Oklahoma City and professor of social justice in the Philosophy Department at OCU. He is a peace activist and the best-selling author of six books.


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