Listed below is information about our Fall 2012 Luncheon Lectures, next weekend event with Robin Meyers, and the ongoing Foundation Gathering Groups.

Click on an event title below for more information.

LUNCHEON LECTURE SERIES – Spring 2012

Luncheons are held the second Wednesday of each month at The Forest Club, 9950 Memorial Drive, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Cost is $25.00 per Event.

TOPIC = “Drug Abuse is a Problem – Prohibition is Not the Answer”

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, the NAACP, the Global Commission on Drugs and Democracy, and numerous other respectable institutions and individuals have called the forty-year War on Drugs a failure. That war’s three-pronged approach of Eradication, Interdiction, and Incarceration have done little to reduce either supply or demand, but much to increase violence, corruption, and gross injustice. No one denies the serious harms caused by abuse of some drugs, including alcohol, but there is growing recognition that prohibition is not the answer. The Bible, as well as the teachings and experiences of other religious traditions, provides suggestions for reducing the harms of drug use without insisting upon “zero tolerance” in a “drug-free America.” Our speaker is Dr. William Martin, the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Emeritus Professor of Religion and Public Policy in the Department of Sociology at Rice. In his retirement, he serves as the Chavanne Senior Fellow for Religion and Public Policy at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

February 8th

Luncheon Lecture $25.00 USD

TOPIC = “Rumors of Angels and The Poetry of Awe”

This is not about angels but rather about those elements embedded in the world of our human lives that elicit in us a sense of transcendence. So much religiosity assumes there is a God and that such a being regularly dips her/his finger into our lives causing bane and blessing. In reality, the reverse is true Out of our experience we gain hints, and from those ‘rumors,’ we build our theology. Our speaker is Dr. Bob Tucker, Executive Director of the Foundation for Contemporary Theology.

March 14th

Luncheon Lecture $25.00 USD

TOPIC = “A Good Heart is the Best Religion: The Buddhist Way”

Is Buddhism a religion, a philosophy, a way of life, or a science? As His Holiness the Dalai Lama would say, it all depends on how you approach it. And that is true not just about Buddhism. Whatever your approach in life — theologian, philosopher, scientist, teacher, business person, artist or construction worker, what is important is to cultivate a good heart. We will thus, also have an experiential component on meditation as a way to cultivate a good heart. Our speaker is Dr. Alejandro Chaoul, Assistant Professor at the John P. McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Palliative Care and Rehabilitation Services at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

April 11th

Luncheon Lecture $25.00 USD

TOPIC = “After the Christian Century: The Outlook Following the Triumph of Post-Christianity in the Post-American Era”

This is a look at the major issues facing Christians at a time when the assumed preeminence of the role of both Christianity and America in the world is being challenged. Our speaker is Dr. John Stroup, Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University.

May 9th

Luncheon Lecture $25.00 USD

UPCOMING WEEKEND EVENTS

Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers has been a parish minister and a professor of rhetoric for three decades. He sees no conflict between critical thinking and faith, and
none between science and religion. In six books, countless lectures, workshops, and sermon broadcasts that reach a national audience, Dr. Meyers has challenged the very premise upon which orthodox Christianity is built. It is not, and was never meant to be, a set of creeds and doctrines demanding total agreement. Rather it was a radical way of being in the world that reversed the paradigm of Empire and replaced it with the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. Dr. Meyers will give four presentations that focus on both his last book, “Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus” (Harper One, 2010), and his newest book, “The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus” (Jossey Bass, February 21 release).

THE LECTURES

Lecture 1 – “Jesus: Galilean Sage or Supernatural Savior? Or How I Became a
Heretic with Help from the Bible”

How did a Galilean sage who gathered peasant disciples and announced the arrival of the Kingdom of God through an open table and free healing become an unacceptable threat to the Roman Empire? How did the early church continue that ministry and then gradually shift the emphasis from Jesus as a teacher of
righteousness to Jesus as a supernatural savior? How has the word “faith” become synonymous with a belief system, instead of with a trans-rational trust in the power of unconditional love? How did Christianity evolve from the religion of Jesus to a religion about Jesus, and how is “following” actually made more
difficult by “worshiping”?

Lecture 2 – “The Risks and Rewards of Fearless Preaching”

What has happened to prophetic preaching in our time? How has the church become a defender of the status quo, when it was born as a threat to the status quo? What should be the relationship between the best in contemporary scholarship and what is shared with the people in the pews? Why do so many ministers avoid controversy and keep what they learned in seminary a secret? How has the decline in prophetic preaching made the church irrelevant to so many young people?

Lecture 3 – “The Underground Church: Beyond Liberal and Conservative and Back to Subversive”

When was the last time anyone in America considered going to church to be a dangerous or subversive activity? Why is it that Christians are never on anyone’s “No Fly List?” If we are going to recover the spirit of early Christianity, then shouldn’t we be honest about what that might cost us? If we are serious about returning to our roots, then shouldn’t we plan to be “uprooted” from the dominate culture and labeled a threat to our Empire? What would a truly subversive church look like? What would we do? How would we become an “underground” movement again?

Lecture 4 – Workshop: “What Kind of Church Would You Find Irresistible?”

Bishop Spong has identified the “Church Alumni Association” as the largest demographic group in American Christianity. Why have so many thoughtful people left the church? What are their principal complaints and what (if anything) would bring them back? In this interactive workshop, participants will be given the chance to design a church that they would find irresistible. What would we “believe”? How and where would we worship? What would we be “up to” in the world? This will be a time for conversation and a lively and uncensored given-and-take about the future of Christianity.

THE SCHEDULE

Friday, Februray 24

7:00 – 7:30 pm Registration
7:30 – 9:00 Welcome, Introductions

Lecture 1:

Saturday, February 25

8:30 – 9:00 am Registration
9:00 – 10:20 Lecture 2:
10:20 – 10:40 Break
10:40 – 12:00 Lecture 3:

Lunch Break

1:00 – 2:30 pm Lecture 4:

Robin Meyers

All Sessions $75.00 USD Friday Night ONLY $45.00 USD Saturday ONLY $60.00 USD

Dr. Fiorenza is the Krister Stendahll Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. She has done pioneering work in biblical interpretation and feminist theology. She has received six honorary doctorates. Her iconic book is In Memory of Her.

FOUNDATION GATHERING GROUPS

Members of our weekly Gathering groups continue to help us on our journeys by studying our scholars, presenting new ideas and sharing insights gleaned from their own journeys. They are a safe place to share probings through inquiry, doubting and wondering, which are an essential part of what the Foundation offers. Information is listed below. Call 713-668-2345 for more information on the basis of study.

Click here for more information about these discussion groups.