Robin Meyers and his wife Shawn spent the weekend with us. Robin led a Saturday morning workshop, preached Sunday morning, and led an informal discussion with folks in between services. They both were a delight and I found his ideas fascinating and provocative. That is why I was a bit taken aback, and saddened, when Robin was introduced at our MorningSong service as the person who has received the most hate (e-)mail in the state of Oklahoma.

Why in the world? Here is a professor of Social Justice. Here is a man who took a small, struggling United Church of Christ congregation in Oklahoma City some thirty years ago and helped it transition to the fastest-growing church in its conference and region, all the while exhibiting a great heart for mission. Here is the author of six books on the Church who gave the prestigious Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School in 2014. Here is also a very nice man.

Why then the hate mail? I suppose if he didn’t get any he would not have done very much nor would we have known about him. He would have been like most of us who don’t challenge the status quo, even when the status quo is harmful or alarming. Our culture seems to revile people who speak up, challenge long-held concepts and ideas, and offer alternatives. We don’t like that too much. It’s uncomfortable. It feels wrong. But people like Robin are needed to jar us to think and feel again, and open us to what new things God is doing today. So thank you, Robin, for jarring me back into that once noble and attainable idea, now too easily forgotten, that the church can be the transforming and healing agent our world so desperately needs.