The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus

by Robin Meyers

A new way to follow Jesus that draws on old ways of following Him The Underground Church proposes that the faithful recapture the spirit of the early church with its emphasis on what Christians do rather than what they believe. Prominent progressive writer, speaker, and minister Robin Meyers proposes that the best way to recapture the spirit of the early Christian church is to recognize that Jesus-following was and must be again subversive in the best sense of the word because the gospel taken seriously turns the world upside down.

No matter how the church may organize itself or worship, the defining characteristic of church of the future will be its Jesus-inspired countercultural witness.

Debunks commonly held beliefs about the early church and offers a vision for the future rooted in the past Proposes that the church of the future must leave doctrinal tribalism behind and seek a unity of mission instead Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said,"Robin Meyers has spoken truth to power, and the church he loves will never be the same."

Genres: Religion, Church, Christianity, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Theology, Christian

282 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Bob Buice · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We have so long defined ourselves by who and what we are not that we have almost forgotten entirely who and what we are— a strange, peculiar, and dangerous people. Welcome to the Underground Church movement— beyond liberal and conservative— back to subversive.” ~ Robin Meyers

The Underground Church, a mythical, somewhat metaphysical, present-day spiritual community, is intended to bring back the ideals and piety of early “Followers of the Way”. Ignoring denominations, going beyond liberal or conservative, reaching across creeds and declared belief systems, focusing on following Jesus, not just worshiping Christ, and with a membership of “doers”, not simply “believers”, such communities will be focused on action rather than simply belief. These communities might well clash with Martin Luther’s concept of “Glaub allein” (faith alone), but tend to agree with some of John Wesley’s teachings. In any case, they certainly will shake present Christian churches to their foundations. Committed to non-violence, this community is completely anti-war, and will freely accept and respect conscientious objectors as much as veterans. Moreover, this community welcomes all refugees and other “strangers”. In fact, this community welcomes everyone, including gays and lesbians, all races and ethnic groups, even atheists and agnostics. It will, to the extent possible, feed and clothe the poor, see that the sick receive treatment, and visit those in prison. It will focus on the positive and never use fear to win converts. Establishing its own economic system, it will lend to those in need at zero interest. It will stick to the conviction that, ”It is more important to be loving than to be right”.

Does this appear to be somewhat idealistic, or in the author’s words, “countercultural and anti-imperial”? In “The Underground Church: Reclaiming the subversive way of Jesus”, The Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers strikes hard at the very core of many present-day Christian churches, as churches of “believers”, but not of “doers”. In Dr.Meyers’ words, “The Underground Church is a movement of the spirit, not an organization that seeks to perpetuate itself, convert disciples to a certain belief system, or make cosmic promises based on human calculations”.

For everyone who might have an interest in the status and potentially the future of his/her church, I strongly recommend this work. It is and interesting and intriguing read. However, be prepared to think, and perhaps, to be slightly shocked.

[Heather Gilmour · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very compelling book that every member of a Christian church needs to read and digest. Meyers is a compelling, engaging, and inspiring writer. I must confess this book affirms my own bias around the need for churches to reclaim the subversive way of love which Jesus professed and lived instead of demanding allegiance to old doctrines and dogmas that have plagued the mission and purpose of the church for centuries. What he proposes will be a challenge to those who have benefited from the power structures in the church. Yet, perhaps there are some adherents in the church whose spirit will resonate with what he is saying. I am one of these. Thanks, Robin, for your insight and your challenge to follow the way of Jesus rather than worshipping him.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invigorating and Challenging

This review contains some of the faults I found with the book, but let the review reader know this: I think Meyers' thesis is correct and I agreed with his suggestions for how that can be accomplished--Christians on both sides of the political aisle (because there are, it seems, only two) would do well abandon the intellectual camps they know, to embrace the dangerous life of faithfulness to Jesus. Unfortunately, the intellectual camps of conservative and liberals are set up as caricatured straw men Meyers argues against. This is not to say they're wrong, but space may have limited him in terms of his abilities to explore nuances. Meyers also advocates for a somewhat utopian version of the Church as a society, which is based around radical trust that Jesus' way is best, whether or not the actions resulting from that trust seem like unattainable pipe dreams. This falls under the classic paradigm of "easier said than done," but I agree with Meyers that something ought to be tried, experimented with, and made adaptable. My final critique is is Meyers' weird use of (problematic) biblical scholarship (e.g. Redaction Criticism) to make his point. It does not seem that his insistence that the Canonical Gospels, Q, and GThomas say more about Church tradition than they do about Jesus has any bearing on his argument, as he often quotes Canonical Gospels (albeit mostly Synoptic, and Mark or Q texts) as portrayals of Jesus in actuality. That is, his practice doesn't follow his theory very closely. Instead, his employment of these things seem more to place him in the chair of "knowing authority" because he has some knowledge about some things.

All this to say, what Meyers puts forward can be agreed to by most thinking Christians, who are able to be critical of their own biases and comforts. Highly recommended reading, if only for the Epilogue.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding examination of the current state of the church and a vision for a new church that is more like the person the church was supposed to emulate.

I have the great privilege to be a member of Mayflower Church where Robin Meyers minsters. This book spells out his vision of what the church should be and what Mayflower is trying to become. We want to be a place where all feel included regardless of their beliefs and/or lifestyles. We have no doctrine, simply a covenant to help each of us to realize all that God wants us to become. I recommend this ebook to all those who feel that the church needs to do more than simply do more than to affirm the status quo.

[Dawn Hutchings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robin Meyers has done it again. When a writer articulates the thoughts that have been rolling around in your brain its difficult not to shout out "Alleluia!". I shall now go back and re-read Meyers' previous offering: "Saving Jesus from the Church". Meyers has an uncanny ability to cut to the heart of the matter. His books are a must for all parish pastors!!!

[Warren Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book for those who believe the church's future is found in rediscovering mission at the core of Jesus' call to the faithful of all stripes. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Meyers' accessible and wise offering.

[Vida · Rating 1 out of 5]

A poorly written rant.

[Barbara Westman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on the internal problems facing the current church that rings true to a lot of the reasons underpinning the decline of church attendance and the rise in premature rejection of Christ. Unfortunately it's mostly a poorly organized rant.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn’t know how much I needed this book! Read it as part of a church wide book club, and appreciated the challenges to modern day people to act more like the community of Jesus and less like a corporate church. If you are comfortable questioning why churches do things, you will love this book.

[Eugenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about Christianity from a humanist perspective--not an evangelical one. Written in an accessible style and full of facts and information about how to have a congregation that lives up to Jesus' teachings and life.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book frustrating. It talks about general concepts of how a church "should be", but gives hardly any examples of how to do that.

[Annmarie Dinan Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it, super inetersting

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have liked all of Robin Meyers books. For me, he has shown a new way to be a Christian.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

My book

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminds me of my own thoughts as to organized religion and how it is different from what Jesus actually taught. It is fairly well done.

[Reforming · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found it pedantic, rather than subversive, but that may be a fault in me.

[Iter Meum · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be honest, as I read my own review here 10 years later in 2025, I find myself rolling my eyes at myself and my still too evangelical influenced views at that point, as I have thankfully grown much more into the timely and necessary views of the author. I have now moved this book onto my favorites shelf.

This book was hard to rate. As to what the author is saying and his eloquence of prose, 5 stars. This is a message the Church needs to hear. As someone who currently lives in a country that continues to directly employ a kind of Constantinian model of Church and state, I see how the Church having an official seat in government harms the very soul and mission of the Church. As a result, we have a Church that looks the other way to an abortion rate of over 3 per woman of child rearing age per year because they don���t want to appear to be out of step with government social policy (which is to ignore family and women���s health all together). Further, they would rather have this than approve contraception or admit that there are a lot of ���friends with benefits��� in their dioceses (who then must resort to abortion for contraception). I have also watched the government look the other way while priests of the Church rounded up thugs and tasked them with brutalizing men and women (and reporters) who attempted an LGBT Pride march in the capital city. I���m a guest here, and despite all this, I do see the vast amount of good the Church does in this country, but the power is corrupting Her and government too often takes advantage of its relationship to the Church in ways that treat Her something like a cheap whore (something of course She most certainly is not). This could be another way of looking at the ���whore of Babylon��� metaphor that that the author discusses toward the end of the book in regards to money. Of course, it is not like this does not happen in the US where both political parties, but particularly the Republican party, has ���had its way��� with the Church paying Her with perceived power and an unofficial seat at the table. Anyway, the author���s point is well taken; it���s ALWAYS a bad thing when the Church becomes part of the government, always.

As much as I was moved by the ideas the author presented, I felt like they were overstated, both in loudness and length. Much of what he is proposing, as necessary as it is, will be hard at best to employ���yet one feels like he is beating the reader over the head with a big stick. I also felt his ���stick��� was a bit rotten. I am only a casual student of Church History and I recognize that most of what I have read is ���official��� Church History, but the author seems to paint a picture of the early Church that seems revisionist. While the early Church was not what we see today in any of the modern or ���ancient��� Churches, it did have a hierarchy (though still rather flat) as can be seen in the writings of Ignatius (around 107 AD). It also had an orthodoxy, again nowhere near as complex as today as can also be seen in writings of the Church fathers. Related to the loudness, he can tend to ramble (like me). A third of this book could have been edited away with nothing being lost. He could at least cut out much of the abrasive liberal conservative talk that is never good for unity no matter how ���fair��� one thinks she/he is being. As a slow reader, when books get like this, I start to get annoyed and ultimately distracted away from the good message the author is trying to communicate. I would imagine many readers ���skim��� large portions of this book and ���roll their eyes��� in others. In this area, I would give the book 2 stars. Bottom-line, this book has a message the Church needs to hear, but listening can from time to time be a bit of a chore.

[Scott Holstad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book even though its idealistic vision is so utopian that its recommendations can surely never be acted upon by most Christians. It's a heartfelt book with a vision -- one of love and caring for all. I like that. Even though he separates himself from the emergent church group, there are some similarities. I've read other Meyers books though, and sometimes he comes across as really ticked off. In this book, he really tries to balance his insights and comments between conservative and liberals in the Christian church, although it does finally lean somewhat to the left. That's fine with me.

In the book, he takes issue with war, calling it a sin many times over. I'm not certain if I buy that since the God I read about in the Old Testament seemed to love war, but maybe he's right -- I'm no expert. He also feels Christians should actually be conscientious objectors, environmentalists, and frankly, socialists. To back this last claim, he cites Acts 4:32-35, which says

"Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostle's feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need."

Interesting. And thought provoking. And quite possibly dead on. Again, I'm no expert. Toward the end of the book, though, Meyers starts making some recommendations of what people in the "Underground Church" should and will do and it's really overly idealistic. For instance, start up church-sponsored interest free banks. Developing private economic systems within the church. Have pre-church communion meals. All of this he marks as Biblical and it might be so, but I can't see conservatives (or even some liberals) as going for any of this. Indeed, the book is an appealing read, but as to its practicality, I would say I don't know of too many -- if any -- churches that would follow through and become an Underground Church. It just isn't going to happen in Protestant (evangelical) America. Which is a bit of a shame and shows you how off evangelicals are in general. When they should be concerned about feeding the poor, they -- with their Republican politicians -- are cutting food stamp programs even now as we speak. It's truly appalling. Another book by Robin Meyers talks about how the right wing in this country is wrong, and it ties conservative politics to evangelicals and I think it's a fair point, and as I grew up a strong Calvinist but have since moved on, I'm continually appalled by the Republicans and religious right's polemics of hatred and greed. Prosperity gospel my ass!

If you get a chance and you're remotely interested, you should read the book. It's a well written, well intended, moderately well thought out book. It just won't be taken seriously by conservatives or most Christians in general, and that's a real shame.

[Andy Zell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus by Robin Meyers is a provocative look at church. The main problem with the church, as Meyers sees it, is that it has been co-opted by Empire (first the Roman Empire under Constantine, today the American church by the government and/or political parties). He outlines ways in which the church should disentangle from Empire and get back to its roots as a countercultural force. Meyers envisions followers of Jesus from all denominations and theological beliefs coming together to live the faith that we profess. To him, faith is not a list of beliefs, but radically embodied trust, or “an orientation toward the mystery of God [… b]ecause we trust in spite of what we cannot know” (118). Another key element for Meyers is that the Underground Church he envisions is nonviolent: we are called to peace and to love our enemies. It’s something that has been lost from many Christian traditions outside of the Quakers, Mennonites, and Amish (and perhaps a few others). He has lots of other ideas about how the church can be true to its roots: by making communion an actual meal that is shared with not only the congregation but also with any who may be hungry and in need, by budgeting as much money for outreach as for keeping the lights on and staff paid, by standing up against injustice wherever it may be, and by taking care of God’s creation and not exploiting it out of greed and selfishness, among many others. I felt convicted by some of his exhortations. I really liked his sense of shared mission in living out unconditional love no matter what church background. For myself, I’ve found a home in the Episcopal church. But just recently my mom was telling me about the wonderful after school program for inner city kids that her evangelical church (the one I grew up in) has been running for close to 15 years. We may not see eye to eye on every bit of theology, but she and her church are showing the love of God to those kids. My only complaint about the book is that I wanted Meyers to provide more depth to some of his historical analyses. I appreciated what he did say about the early church and the time of Constantine, but I wanted more. I thought the idea of church being co-opted by Empire important so I wanted even more analysis. His book read more like extended sermons, though, which makes sense since he is a pastor. He comes from the United Church of Christ, so though he wants to find common ground with Christians of all stripes, it might be harder for those who are more conservative to overlook some of his more liberal statements. But I think it’s worth the effort in trying to find common ground with other Christians if we truly want to love God and our neighbors. [Disclosure: I received the book from the Carol Mann Agency via a Goodreads giveaway in the hopes that I would give it an honest review.]

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Robin Meyers, and this book, like his others, is right in my wheelhouse. It focuses on bridging the divide between "conservatives" and "liberals," while encouraging a return to what Meyers calls "Underground Church." However, while his arguments are strong (I can see him building on thinkers like Brueggemann and Yoder, and meshing with contemporaries like Zahnd), he is a little light on Biblical references for me. He talks a lot about the pacifism of Jesus, for example, but spends surprisingly little word count on Jesus's actual nonviolent teaching and actions. Most importantly, he refers to the early church often but cites Acts rarely.

3 stars, with the caveat that I'm a little behind (this being published several years ago now) and have also read and loved his more recent work-- the later work is much improved!

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good one.

This is a really great combination of history (of the historical Jesus and early church), biblical interpretation (especially of the parable of the leaven), and inspiration on how to better be church. It's challenging -- especially as I think about why the traditions of the church are important. It affirms some of my ideas about being the church in the world, but in a way that challenges me to actually do it.

I'm also curious about who the intended audience is. On the one hand, I think it's anybody/everybody. But there are also some moments that make it seem distinctly pointed at clergy (and future clergy?)

This needs to be one of those books I read often.

[Mitsuru · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title is a little bit provocative, but his message is very thoughtful. I understood the need of transfering the church to more open. I think the changes of the times led the church to ebb and flow repeatedly, but Robin Meyer's messages urge to change from the foundation.

I like his metaphors and beautiful sentences, especially from the bottom clause of page 121 through page 122.

I wonder if the Catholics in the United States will read this book.

[Sarah Kelzenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

With amazing depth and breadth, Robin gradually describes a living movement of the Spirit that is universally embraceable by all of us. The Underground Church is not an organization bent on perpetuating its rules and doctrines. It is a way to live in our present day world, working together with others in a ways that affirm that "it is more important to be loving than to be right." After all, we are the Body of Christ, we are one.

[Philip Garside · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book a couple of years ago. It is chilling to reflect on the warnings Robin gave about the direction some parts of the church were heading in when he wrote the book and compare this to the contemporary political and religious scene in the USA. Christians in all parts of the world need to stay focused on the simple message and example of Jesus - love God, love neighbor, love self.

[Kayle Self · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding. Robin Meyers has a way of clearly stating everything that has always bothered me about the mainstream Christian church and then providing plausible solutions that exceed all expectations. After years of cynicism regarding Christianity, this book makes me want to give it another shot. Sign me up for the Underground Church, where all you need is love.

[Alex Decker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book for what it was: wishful thinking. Some of the areas were pretty far fetched (church run banks?) but the point was that we need to do a better job of reaching out as Christians rather than Baptists, Episcopalians, etc. Mr. Meyers gives us all something to shoot for that no matter what your religion is should be something considered.

[Ellen Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent points but also lots of irrelevant stuff and repetitive. This is the second time I've checked it out of the library. First time only made it thru Chapter 1, but this time halfway. Astounding how Christianity changed over the years but I doubt if we can go back to any original garden of Eden.

[Tommy l. james · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Underground Church is a book every Christian needs to read. Perhaps the greatest challenge Meyers presents is the challenge to the Church who has become way too much like the culture we live in. One thing for sure, the early believers stood in contrast to the culture and in the power and spirit of Christ, they helped change the world for the better.

[Will Holcomb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I think I enjoyed the first part of the book mostly because of the historical perspective with respect to Constantine. It is a book I wish I could get so many people to read but know they never will.

[Steve Hirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clarion call to rouse the churches out of their comfortable sleep in the bed of the dominant culture in hopes that they can become wide-awake witnesses to and practitioners of "The Way" of Jesus. Excellent; challenging; hopeful despite the enormity of the challenge.