UU Church Today, Spirituality & Theology, Practice & Voice

All Souls hosting the Knippa Lecture featuring Dr. Gregory Mobley.




Dr. Gregory Mobley, an ordained American Baptist minister and author, will be the guest speaker at the 35th annual Knippa Interfaith/Ecumenical Lecture Series LIVE STREAMED from All Souls Unitarian Church, on Sunday, January 30 at 4 p.m. His talk, What the Baptist Minister Learned from the Rabbi: Reflection on Two Decades of Interfaith Dialogue, will be streamed on All Souls’ YouTube and Facebook channels.

Dr. Gregory Mobley

Mobley is Visiting Professor of Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Congregational Settings at Yale Divinity School (YDS). He came to Yale in 2017 after 20 years of teaching Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Andover Newton Theological School (1997-2017) and at Union Theological Seminary in New York (1996-97).

Stirring Stories

Mobley’s primary interest is uncovering to appreciate the meaning-making of the stirring stories under the surface of the over-edited moralistic and priestly layers of the Bible, and he is currently writing a commentary on Judges for the Illuminations series.

Mobley’s teaching interests include Judges, the stories in the Bible and the Bible itself as a story, prophetic literature, Job, and reading the Bible in the light of contemporary sensibilities toward environmental sustainability. Mobley also teaches Baptist Polity. At Andover Newton, Mobley was a co-founder of the CIRCLE interfaith program, and he also teaches courses at YDS on interfaith learning.

The Knippa Lecture Series

The endowed Knippa Lecture series was established in 1988 in recognition of the distinguished ministry of Dr. Clarence Knippa on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his ordination. Dr. Knippa was pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, and the lecture series is part of a long-held tradition, which is housed at the church in honor of him. The purpose of the annual lecture is to foster and promote understanding, respect, and appreciation for the religious and ethical traditions and concerns of others.

The Knippa Lecture is housed at Grace Lutheran Church and All Souls is serving as an alternate host in 2022 to accommodate more participation during the pandemic. 

Online only event will be available on the All Souls Unitarian YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/allsoulschurchdc/featured) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/allsoulstulsa). Additional information about Mobley and the lecture series is available on the Knippa Interfaith/Ecumenical Lecture Series Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/KnippaLecture).


Dr. Gregory Mobley is the author of three books: The Return of the Chaos Monsters—and Other Backstories of the Bible (Eerdmans, 2012), Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East (T & T Clark, 2006), and The Empty Men: The Heroic Tradition in Ancient Israel (Doubleday, 2005). He co-authored with T. J. Wray The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil’s Biblical Roots (Palgrave, 2005) and co-edited the award-winning anthology of essays on interfaith learning, My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interfaith Encounter, Growth, and Transformation (with J. Peace and O. Rose; Orbis, 2012).

Mobley has written articles and book review in journals, such as the Journal of Biblical LiteratureCatholic Biblical QuarterlyInterpretation, and Biblische Notizen, and has contributed to a number of Bible handbooks, including the New Oxford Annotated Bible. He has done archaeological fieldwork in Israel and served as an editorial assistant on the Dead Sea Scrolls project.