“What You Say Next Will Change Your World”: Practicing Nonviolent Communication

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Carl Gregg

Each year at the annual Unitarian Universalist General Assembly, one of highlights is always the Ware Lecture, which has been given since 1922. Past Ware Lecturers include Reinhold Niebuhr, Howard Thurman, Saul Alinsky, Kurt Vonnegut, Elaine Pagels, Mary Oliver, Karen Armstrong, and many other luminaries. If you are interested, you can read most of the archived transcripts online on the UUA’s website. In 1966, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a Ware Lecture titled “Don’t Sleep Through the... Read more

Deeds Not Creeds, Behavior Is Believable

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:27 pm By Carl Gregg

Each year the congregation I serve as minister holds an auction. As is customary, I put up for bid, an opportunity to hear me preach on whatever topic the highest bidder is passionate about, or thinks would be particularly important or meaningful for the congregation to hear. This year I was challenged to speak to a very human and common condition…which is the gap between our beliefs and our behaviors. In particular…speak to those beliefs…which, in your estimation, best define... Read more

Can You Be Both a Religious Liberal and a Political Conservative?

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:26 pm By Carl Gregg

Religious Liberals (sometimes called “Religious Progressives”) are open to growing, changing, and evolving based on new evidence, insights, and experiences. In contrast, Religious Conservatives tend to resist changing, growing, and evolving even when new facts come to light. Theological conservatives tend to preserve traditions, current social structures, and long-standing community ties that can be undermined if innovation comes too rapidly. But can you be a religious liberal and a political conservative? Or more provocatively, can you be a Religious Progressive and a Republican? Historically,... Read more

The Future of Islam

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:25 pm By Carl Gregg

In August, I blogged about “Tectonic Shifts in the Global Religious Landscape” on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World World I. One hundred years later we see, in the words of historian Philip Jenkins, that the end of the Ottoman empire in the aftermath of World War I — and with it the “effective end of the Islamic caliphate” — radically affected Islam (26): As a political force, Islam in 1914 was inconceivably weaker than it is... Read more

Jewish Readings of Christian Scripture: Parables as Deeds Not Creeds

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:25 pm By Carl Gregg

Yesterday I posted about “Reading the Same Text Differently with Jews & Christians Read” about the ways Christians have often appropriated Jewish scripture in a way that does not fully appreciate the ways that Jews understand their own texts in very differently. In this post, I am turning the tables to consider Jewish readings of Christian scripture — in particular, Jesus’ parables. The inspiration for this post is a new book, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by Amy-Jill... Read more

Reading the Same Text Differently with Jews & Christians

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:24 pm By Carl Gregg

This post is about the ways Christians have often appropriated Jewish scripture in a way that does not fully appreciate the ways that Jews understand their own texts in very differently. In my next post, I will turn the tables to consider Jewish readings of Christian scripture. Isaiah’s Context (8th-century B.C.E.) Imagine that you are atttending a Jewish Saturday morning services. A young woman, who is becoming a bat mizvah (“a daughter of the covenant”), ascends the steps to the bimah (the... Read more

The Meaning of the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) for Today

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:24 pm By Carl Gregg

Parker Palmer, in his modern spiritual classic A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life relates the classic Daoist tale known as “The Woodcarver”: A master carver, made a bell stand of precious wood. When it was finished, all who saw it were astounded. They said it must be the work of spirits. The Prince of Lu said to the master carver: “What is your secret?” He replied: “I am only a workman: I have no secret. There is... Read more

Eve Was Framed, the Serpent Was Right!

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:23 pm By Carl Gregg

On August 13, 1971, the cover of LIFE Magazine featured an image of two women standing side-by-side. On the right, an classical painted image of a tall naked woman stands head-and-shoulders above a modern woman, who is fully dressed. The figure on the right is clearly the biblical figure of Eve, as she is covered only by a strategically-placed fig leaf and is holding an apple. The modern feminist beside her holds a sign that says, “EVE WAS FRAMED.” Eve was... Read more

The Sacred in Music

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 1:23 pm By Carl Gregg

Poetry and music engage us in ways beyond what can be contained in prose alone. Poetry uses language playfully to gesture beyond the more straightforward meaning of most texts, offering the possibility of breaking open fixed ideas to new possibilities. As Emily Dickinson once mused about the power of poetry: Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With... Read more