Sunday, October 29, 2006
On the 'recovery' of Christianity II
(Read/listen to Part 1 on Day1, formerly The Protestant Hour).
The Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers is senior minister of Mayflower Congregational (UCC) Church in Oklahoma City and professor of rhetoric in the philosophy department at Oklahoma City University. In today's sermon, Dr. Meyers presents his second of three sermons exploring the role of imagination in faith.
If you listened to the last broadcast, then you know that I am preaching a three-part sermon series on the role of the imagination in becoming a follower of Jesus -- a topic not often discussed from the pulpit.
I said last time that the operative premise of these sermons is that when we are born, we are locked into a kind of prison of self, and that unless we develop the moral imagination, we lack the key to escape from that prison. To imagine the plight of the other is what makes empathy possible, and empathy is what makes compassion possible. To be compassionate is to "feel with" another human being, not simply to "feel sorry" for them.
Now I'd like to take this a step further and examine how the empathic imagination is in fact the primary mode of revelation. It's how we intuit God. It's how we know the truth that sets us free.
Read or listen to the rest of Part 2 here.
--ER
The Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers is senior minister of Mayflower Congregational (UCC) Church in Oklahoma City and professor of rhetoric in the philosophy department at Oklahoma City University. In today's sermon, Dr. Meyers presents his second of three sermons exploring the role of imagination in faith.
If you listened to the last broadcast, then you know that I am preaching a three-part sermon series on the role of the imagination in becoming a follower of Jesus -- a topic not often discussed from the pulpit.
I said last time that the operative premise of these sermons is that when we are born, we are locked into a kind of prison of self, and that unless we develop the moral imagination, we lack the key to escape from that prison. To imagine the plight of the other is what makes empathy possible, and empathy is what makes compassion possible. To be compassionate is to "feel with" another human being, not simply to "feel sorry" for them.
Now I'd like to take this a step further and examine how the empathic imagination is in fact the primary mode of revelation. It's how we intuit God. It's how we know the truth that sets us free.
Read or listen to the rest of Part 2 here.
--ER
