Should MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” Be Added to the New Testament?

January 16, 2012 By Carl Gregg

Bruce Metzger, in his seminal work The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance, writes that, Shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, a group of ministers seriously proposed that King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” be added to the New Testament. All will appreciate that this letter, written in April 1964 after he had been jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for participating in a civil-rights protest, conveys a strong prophetic witness, and interprets God’s... Read more

What Is the Gospel According to You? Three Meanings of “Good News” in Mark 1 (A Progressive Christian Lectionary Commentary for January 22)

January 14, 2012 By Carl Gregg

Note: If you want to skip to the section specifically on Mark 1:14-20, scroll down to parts two and three, but the introduction and part one help set-up these later sections. Introduction We’re familiar with the Gospel According Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are each quite distinct. Many of us are even familiar with the Gospel According to Thomas, Mary, and Q. But what is the Gospel According to You from the vantage point of twenty-first knowledge? What is... Read more

Working from January Cold to Summer Beachbody

January 11, 2012 By Carl Gregg

Last summer I successfully completed my first 2-month Sprint Triathlon training: Swim 750m/.47 mi, Bike 20 km/12.4 mi, Run 5 km/3.1 mi. I used the free training program available here. In the fall, I started a 4-month Olympic Triathlon training (1.5 km/0.93 mi Swim, 40 km/24.8 mi Bike, 10 km/6.2 mi Run), but I lost my momentum as the days shortened and the weather grew colder. However, here in January — on the other side of solstice — as the days slowly lengthen, I can... Read more

Contemplative Listening: A Simple, How-to Guide

January 10, 2012 By Carl Gregg

An alternate title for this post could be ” What To Do If Someone Asks for Counseling and It’s Been a Long Time Since Your Last Pastoral Care Class: Or, How To Help If You’ve Never Had a Counseling Class.” Hint: the contemplative listening how-to guide that anyone can do is at the end if you want to skip to that part. I received two interesting emails yesterday. One was a colleague asking for advice on how to respond to... Read more

Preaching the Didache: What Is Your Canon and Why?

January 9, 2012 By Carl Gregg

The Didache (usually pronounced Did-ah-Kay) is an ancient Christian document written around 50-70 CE and rediscovered in 1873. It is addressed not to radical itinerant peasants like Jesus and his original followers, but to householders as a manual for how “to adapt the way of Jesus to the exigencies of family, of occupation, of home — the very things that Jesus and his wandering apostles had left behind.” This post is the first entry in a new series I will be... Read more

Church Planting at the Intersection of Emergence and Creation Spirituality

January 5, 2012 By Carl Gregg

I recently had the chance to catch up in person with a friend who wants to plant a church at the intersection of the Emergent Church Movement and the Creation Spirituality of Matthew Fox, Thomas Berry, and others. In addition to some of the obvious choices, she asked me to recommend some resources that came to mind, and I’m sharing them here for others who may be interested. Possible Congregational Studies The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism by Andrew Harvey... Read more

Discernment: A Spiritual Practice for Preaching 1 Samuel 3 (A Progressive Christian Lectionary Commentary for January 15, 2012)

January 5, 2012 By Carl Gregg

In this passage, God speaks to Samuel four times. The first three times, Samuel does not know that the voice he hears is the voice of God. He mistakenly assumes that his mentor, Eli, is calling him. As we read in verse seven, “Samuel did not yet know God, and the word of God had not yet been revealed to him.” Eventually, however, Eli realizes what is happening, and equips the young boy Samuel with what he needs to identify... Read more

Will There Be Female Roman Catholic Priests in My Lifetime?

January 2, 2012 By Carl Gregg

My short answer is yes and no. On one hand, yes, there will be female Roman Catholic priests in my lifetime because there already are. As my fellow Patheos blogger Tony Jones has noted, there already are “renegade Roman Catholic priests who just happen to be women.” On the other hand, a recent New York Times article on “Catholic Church Unveils New Home for Ex-Episcopalians” perhaps tips the Vatican’s hand for the foreseeable future: “Since the Vatican’s grant of an exemption from... Read more