Back to the Mystical Core with John Mabry

In this episode, I had the honor of interviewing:

The Reverend Doctor John Mabry. John was ordained to the Old Catholic ministry in 1991. He has served as an associate pastor — and later the solo pastor — of Grace North Church in Berkeley, California since 1993. Grace North Church is a Congregational church that worships in a more-or-less Anglican fashion.

John was consecrated a bishop in 2007 for the Old Catholic Order of Holy Wisdom, he served that community until he retired from the episcopacy in 2012, when he was received into the United Church of Christ as a pastor. He continues to serve Grace North Church, now also received into the UCC, and also serves at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Oakland.

He holds a master's degree in Culture and Creation Spirituality from Holy Names College and a doctorate in Philosophy and Religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he majored in Hinduism and minored in Taoism.

John holds certificates in Anglican Studies, Spiritual Direction, and Spiritual Direction Supervision, and for the past sixteen years has directed the Interfaith Spiritual Direction Certificate Program at the Chaplaincy Institute — an interfaith seminary in Berkeley, CA — where he also teaches comparative theology. He has taught spirituality, Christian mysticism, world religions, and pastoral ministry at various graduate schools in the Bay Area.

John is the author of over thirty books. He also owns and operates The Apocryphile Press, a small publishing house with more than 200 titles by 50 authors around the world. Among many other things, Apocryphile publishes many important books on Old Catholic history, theology, and practice.

John is married to Doctor Lisa Fullam, a veterinarian turned-theologian who currently serves as Professor of Moral Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, CA. They live in Oakland and have three lovely dogs.

In his spare time, John sings in two Bay Area progressive rock bands, Metaphor and Mind Furniture, which between them have released five CDs of original material over the past twenty years.

We talked about several things, including:

• Jurisdictionalism within the Independent Sacramental Movement.
• Christian Mysticism.
• John's Blackfriar novels, "The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory."
• And other subjects, you just need to listen.

Links:

Convergent Streams: The Premier ISM Magazine.

This podcast is produced by The Community of Saint George (The Young Rite).