Spring Lecture Series

Saturday, March 14, 2020 

Robin Meyers has decided that, in light of rapidly-changing recommendations on the response to Coronavirus, he must cancel his plans to speak at Mountain Top Lectures on Saturday, March 14. We are sorry for the short notice of cancellation of the event but we hope to reschedule Dr. Meyers for a future date. To request a refund or credit toward future lectures, or with any questions, please reply to any Mountain Top Lectures email you have received.

Dr. Robin Meyers

Robin Meyers is the Senior Minister of the Mayflower Congregational UCC Church in Oklahoma City

             SAVING GOD FROM RELIGION: 
A Minister's Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age 

HOAG AUDITORIUM
University of North Georgia

10:00 am - SPIRITUAL DEFIANCE

Based on his Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School, and on three poems by Anna Kamienska, Dr. Meyers combines all three Beecher Lectures into a single, 50-minute presentation.  Drawn from the book published by Yale University Press, Spiritual Defiance:  Building a Beloved Community of Resistance, this lecture focuses on three areas that demand resistance by faith communities:  Ego, Orthodoxy, and Empire. 

1:00 pm - QUANTUM PHYSICS AND THE FUTURE OF GOD

In this lecture, especially geared toward those who long for the reunion of science and religion, Dr. Meyers explores the impact of recent scientific discoveries about the nature of the universe on our understanding of God.  Instead of our traditional Newtonian view of a “clockwork” universe, where the whole is merely the sum of the parts, quantum physics and complexity theory (especially something called quantum entanglement) has challenged long-held views on the nature of reality itself—even as it has validated the essential and timeless message of religious mystics.  What Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” may hold intriguing new models for understanding the ultimate mystery we call God.

3:00 pm - SAVING GOD FROM RELIGION

Based on the title of his latest book, described as a "revelatory manifesto on how we can reclaim faith from abstract doctrines and rigid morals to find God in the joys and ambiguities of everyday life," Dr. Meyers reflects on a lifetime spent in parish ministry and the struggles that people across the theological and political spectrum experience when someone says the word "God."  Is he an Old Man in the Sky, "up there" as famously depicted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?  Or is God a transcendent mystery at the heart of creation itself, connecting everything to everything else in a Luminous Web of moral consequences?  Perhaps God is not pulling strings, but God is the String.  Perhaps God doesn't do anything, but without God nothing gets done?  Richard Rohr calls it "powerful."  Marianne Borg called it "elegant."  Brian McLaren calls it a "baptism into a deeper, freer, wider faith."  John Dominic Crossan calls it a "transcendent vision."