Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Friday, July 15, 2011

Things I Have Learned from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

A film publicity image release by Warner Bros. Pictures showing
Daniel Radcliffe in a scene from "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2."



















[SPOILER ALERT]

That J.K. Rowlings writes wonderfully and that her movies were enjoyable good fun;

That J.K. Rowlings has a wonderful imagination;

That movie goer geeks love to dress up for a good movie;

That there will always be evil in the world to stand up against;

That sometimes evil wins but sometimes it can be defeated;

That childhood is a traumatic event for children;

That childhood responds enthusiastically to respect and love, challenge and wrong;

That childhood requires the closeness of friends in order to get through it;

That our darkest days and our most light-filled moments can be found in childhood;

That there are cowards in life, and those with weak wills, who can easily be influenced by fear and uncertainty;

That those seeking world power and domination get killed;

That those lusting for world power and domination are ruthless and always want more;

That those who hate and do bad things harm not only themselves but everyone around them;

That the concept of justice is an untiring theme in the world in which we live in;

That might does not make right;

That survival is the most right thing that can be imagined in times of evil;

That Harry Potter has two very good friends;

That Harry Potter was both severely misunderstood and doubted, but never doubted himself;

That Harry Potter later proved to be a tremendous inspiration to many;

That an eighth book by J.K. Rowlings was mercifully never written because its too hard to wait for it to be published;

That all sagas begin with good, a struggle with evil, and have a big war in the end;

That Disney has played this plot line for 75 years from cartoons to movies and has made a lot of money from it;

That light and darkness, truth and lies, pure hearts and evil spirits are always a constant;

But, personally, I liked J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit & the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) series infinitely better (my excuse? It was read earlier in my youth and I loved the legends and complexities!);

And, that I personally like the ending of the Hobbit and the LOTR infinitely better (though J.K. Rowling's series conclusion was quite acceptable);

And finally, that J.R.R. Tolkien's sagas, like J.K. Rowlings series, were both influenced by Christian themes and large world events (sic, WW2 and world-wide terrorism respectively).

(Oh, and great fictional saga authors use multiple initials in their names, and that their first names always begin with the letter "J" ! ).

- skinhead
[SPOILER ALERT]







J K Rowling: 'Christianity inspired Harry Potter'

by Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
Breaking her silence on the much-debated question as to whether religious themes permeate her books, Rowling confirmed that they echoed her personal struggle with faith.

Speaking in America this week, she was open about the Christian allegories in her latest book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The author said that she had always deflected questions on the issue in the past to avoid disclosing the direction in which the books were heading.

"To me, the religious parallels have always been obvious," Rowling said. "But I never wanted to talk too openly about it because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going."

At the end of her latest and final installment in the series, there are specific references to Christianity and themes of life after death and resurrection.

At one point Harry visits his parents' graves and finds two biblical passages inscribed on their tombstones.

"They are very British books, so on a very practical note, Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones," she said.

"But I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones ...they sum up, they almost epitomise, the whole series." (for more see - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/07/christian-imagery-in-harry-potter-and.html)

However the author, who was brought up an Anglican and is now a member of the Church of Scotland, said she still wrestled with the concept of an afterlife.

"The truth is that, like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes that my faith will return. It's something I struggle with a lot.

"On any given moment if you asked me if I believe in life after death, I think if you polled me regularly through the week, I think I would come down on the side of yes - that I do believe in life after death.

"But it's something I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that's very obvious within the books."

Christians have been divided about the books, with some claiming that their popularity should be exploited to spread the Christian message.

Others, however, have demonised them for what they claim to be occult content, and Pope Benedict XVI described them as "subtle seductions" capable of corrupting young Christians.

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