Registration begins at 9 AM

9:30-10.45: Introductions and First Talk

10:45-11:15: Break

11:15-11:45: Second Talk

11:45-12:30: Lunch

12:30-1:30: Third Talk, Questions and Discussion

Strangers and Sojourners, Outcasts and Outsiders: New Testament Approaches to the Other

The New Testament doesn’t tend to idolize the Church. Instead, it witnesses to the struggles early Christians faced as they attempted to, in a word, “get along” with one another. Churches then were as “messy” as they are today, though the questions and issues we now face may be different. How might the New Testament still provide models and strategies for us to follow and emulate amid our own struggles and conflicts today? How do Paul’s Letters, the Gospels, and even the diverse Catholic Epistles teach us to engage with “outsiders” and with each other? By listening to the wisdom of our earliest “church planters” and pastors with open ears and hearts, we will find much to offer as we seek to lead and to inhabit our churches today.

1. Gentiles, Intruders, and the World: Solidarity and Difference in the Catholic Epistles

Our first talk will introduce us to the inescapable fact that every New Testament text has to come to terms with conflict—and we’ll use a brief survey of the Catholic Epistles (James, 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, and Jude) to illustrate this. Then we’ll focus in to see how these texts, specifically, answer the question(s): “How—and why—do we remain true to one another?”

1. The Weak and the Strong at Corinth and Rome: Paul’s Approach to Conflict and Unity

Our second talk will shift our focus from thinking about “outsiders” to conflict among those who call themselves “brothers and sisters” in Christ. What happens when we don’t get along with one another? What if we disagree about something we think is important? Paul’s advice to the Corinthians and Romans will guide us to a challenging way forward.

1. What to Do with Tax Collectors and Sinners: Matthew and Luke on the “One, Holy” Church

Our final talk will narrow our focus even further to the counsel of Matthew and Luke for growing churches, touching on the questions raised by our earlier talks: How do we relate to “outsiders”? How do we encounter each other amid conflict? Matthew’s counsel and Luke’s parables offer us inspiring visions of a Church seeking to be both “one” and “holy.”

Shane Patrick Gormley, Ph.D.

The Rev. Dr. Shane Patrick Gormley is an adjunct professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, and at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin; he is also a priest of the Episcopal Church. Fr. Gormley grew up at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Scotia, NY and was ordained in the Diocese of Albany in 2012. He attended seminary at Nashotah House before continuing his graduate studies at Princeton Theological Seminary (Th.M.) and Loyola University Chicago (Ph.D.). His Ph.D. is in New Testament studies and his dissertation (To This You Were Called: Rereading First Peter on Discipleship, Suffering, and Social Identity) was awarded Loyola’s 2024 Humanities Dissertation of the Year and is currently under revision for publication; it investigates First Peter’s distinctive emphasis on suffering in light of ancient ideas about education and asks how First Peter’s vision for discipleship in the first century is (and is not) applicable to Christian discipleship today. Fr. Gormley also remains active in parish ministry in a variety of capacities—recently as the long-term interim Priest in Charge of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Chicago then as an assisting priest at St. John’s in Chicago. Shane and his family—his spouse Leslie, their son Anders, and their two dogs—live in North Minneapolis.