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 from 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, January 11, 2013

James Grier Website, Audio Sermons & Lectures (updated)




TEACHINGS ON ETHICS AND
BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

by Dr. James Grier



Personal Reflections on
Conservative Evangelicalism

by R.E. Slater


The audiocasts here provided are testament to my past education in the Regular Baptist denomination first marked by it's dispensational fundamentalism, and later, by a conservative evangelicalism refined in the fires of Covenantal Reformed teachings rejecting the Baptist plank of Arminianism and replacing it with Calvinism as its pejorative systematic. Dr. Grier was an excellent speaker and capable communicator who reaffirmed this common approach by many my Christian tribe. To know where Christianity stood in the 1970s and 1990s is to listen again to its many reflections on God, Scripture, and Christ's Atonement.

However, I created Relevancy22 as further personal testament to Spirit-led divine inspiration  I received years ago urging me to expand my inherited discipleship in the Westernized Christian faith both i) progressively and, ii) as a way to find a biblical hermeneutic which might allow me to do this. After many years I have found that I cannot find a biblical interpretation any better than the "Love of God" as the central theme of Scriptures as shown to us in Jesus, as both divine Son of God and Lord of Lords Immanuel who has come to bring salvation to all.

I have sadly noticed over many years of observation that where the re-engaged biblical center of God's love runs astray is in those sincere or zealous Christians who follow God and translate His divine loving acts for divine wrath, judgment and hell if rejected - such as John Calvin had done in his Dogmatics (c.1536 - 1559). Similarly, when reading the biblical Gospels, Jesus spoke specifically to the religious Jewish leaders of his day as to their human perversion and idolatry of God which they were reinforcing through accumulated ungodly religious laws and sacraments over the centuries.

Hence, if I err as a follower of Jesus, it will be in speaking to God's love through-and-through-and-through all previously held Christian beliefs, dogmas, doctrines, creeds and confessions; and across as wide a range as I can ecologically, civilly, economically, politically, and socially. Like the many Venerable Bedes of our past common centuries who spoke to the Spirit-command of mercy, grace, forgiveness and Christian Humanism; or today, to that same subject of Christian Humanitarianism and Social Justice; so I urge all Jesus followers to speak God's love into all areas of life regardless of the abuses taught by the church into these same areas demanding grace.

And yes, James Grier does reiterate these same centuries-old pervasive church doctrines of sin and judgment as common to the fundamental and evangelic forms of Christianity I was raised in. He will argue these persuasively, regularly, and with vigor. All to which I will disavow, and in the same spirit of alacrity, speak persuasively, with vigor, and in regularity, as testament to God's enriching, infilling, healing love. Thus and thus, Relevancy22's shouts to a new message of God's love and against the sin that overcomes us in our self-righteous and sanctimonious Christian spirits.

An "Eco, Civil, and Socio, Christ-filled Humanitarianism" is far better for the world than any Christian ideologies urging:

i) civilly-exclusionary-dominionism; or,

ii) religiously-reinforcing-kingdom-reconstruction dogmas; or,

iii) any forms of Christian-White-Supremacist-fascist crusades held against civil democracies wishing to expand the legal rights of their polyplural, multiracial, and multicultural communities.

Better, to replace these zealous, agitating, unloving, church beliefs with a Christ-filled, God-filled love, centered in people of all kinds, than to exclude, berate, chastise, and belittle those who live differently to the unChristian ideals none of us can live up to... nor should we. I know of no better Gospel (Good News) of God than love, welcome, embrace, and resistance to both human and religious evil. God is a God of love, not a God of evil.

R.E. Slater


* * * * * * *


INTRODUCTION TO DR. GRIER
Dr. James Murray Grier (1932-2013) joined the staff of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary in 1982, having earned degrees from Baptist Bible College and Seminary, Grace Theological Seminary, and Westminster Theological Seminary.
Dr, Grier served as Executive Vice President and Academic Dean for 16 years. In addition, he also held the position of Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Theology until 2012.
As we recall his contributions and consider his legacy, we invite you to engage selected resources from his work and ministry.

 

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PLEASE NOTE:
The site and links below may no longer be operative but are kept as an indication of some of the additional sermons and lectures Dr. James Grier had developed over a lifetime of speaking and engagement in evangelical thought.

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Unfortunately Cornerstone College & Seminary (formerly Grand Rapids Baptist College & Graduate Theological Seminary) has pulled Dr. Grier's sermons and lectures making the extensive lists below inoperative. Searching the Internet has provided no additional websites nor resources except the two highlighted links below. Dr. Grier was a powerful speaker and it is with a heavy sense of loss that I share this news with those of you who remember Jim.
Having no contact with the family I cannot be sure if any of Dr. Grier's sermons and lectures were ever kept or had been made available besides the Cornerstone Library. When next I am out by Cornerstone I will stop in and ask of the library where Dr. Grier's series has gone.
With apologies, R.E. Slater

Dr. James Grier on SermonAudio

Maranatha Bible Church - Revelation 5


ALL LINKS BELOW ARE NO LONGER OPERATIVE PER MY NOTE IMMEDIATELY ABOVE. IF THEY CAN BE FOUND PLEASE NOTIFY ME IN THE COMMENTS SECTION SO DR. GRIER'S VOICE MIGHT BE RESTORED. THANK YOU.
- RES
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PLEASE NOTE:
The site and links below may no longer be operative but are kept as an indication of some of the additional sermons and lectures Dr. James Grier had developed over a lifetime of speaking and engagement in evangelical thought.

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CONFERENCE SESSIONS

Creation (MARBC 2009) 
Death, Dying & Euthanasia (Critical Session) 
Genetic & Stem Cell Research (Critical Session)
Reproductive Technologies (Critical Session) 


TEACHING SERIES 















ADDITIONAL SERMONS 



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PLEASE NOTE:
The site and links below may no longer be operative but are kept as an indication of some of the additional sermons and lectures Dr. James Grier had developed over a lifetime of speaking and engagement in evangelical thought.

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SERMONS BY DR. JAMES GRIER


~ the links below may no longer be operative ~


Reproductive Freedom Contrasted with a Biblical Theology of Family
The Dawn of the Age of the Spirit – Morning Service, West Cannon Baptist
Church: God’s Temple/Presence- Evening Service, West Cannon Baptist
A Legacy of Grace (at Grace Community Church 75th Anniversary)
The Triumph of the Servant – Isaiah 52:13-53:12 (at Metropolitan Tabernacle)
The Local Church as a Body of Believers in Christ – 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 (at Ridley Hall Evangelical Church)
The Gospel: A Funeral Homily for Dan Cummings
God’s Glory and Presence – Installation Service
The Corruption of Man - Genesis 3
Corruption of Society – Genesis 4
Triumph of Grace – Isaiah 6
Behold My Servant! – Isaiah 42:1-9
The Servant Triumphant – Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Jesus and the Spirit: Baptism & Temptation - Matthew 3 & 4
The Baptism of the Son of God – Matthew 3
The Testing of the Son of God – Matthew 4
Theology of Prayer: Part 1 – Matthew 6
Theology of Prayer: Part 2 – Matthew 6
Jesus’ Sermon on Missions – Matthew 10
Come Unto Me – Matthew 11
Mine Eyes Have Seen – Luke 2, Christmas Sermon
The Unspeakable Gift – Luke 2, Christmas Sermon
The Advent – Luke 2
Your Heavenly Father Will Give… – Luke 11:1-13
Gathering Riches for God – Luke 12:13-21
The Great Banquet – Luke 14
The Father of Two Lost Sons – Luke 15
Lost and Found – Luke 15
The Return of the Glory/Presence – Acts 2
The Impossible Possibility – Acts 2
From Glory to Glory – 2 Corinthians 3:18
I Timothy 4:6-16 – Ordination Sermon
The Word Above All Words – Hebrews 1:1-4
The Death of Death in the Death of Christ - Hebrews 2:1-18
What Have We Come To? Hebrews 12
The Church: God’s Temple/Presence pt. 1 – I Peter 2:4-10
The Church: God’s Temple/Presence pt. 2
The Investiture of the Lamb: Revelation 5
Hallelujah to the Triumphant Christ: Revelation 19
I Make All Things New – Rev. 21
We Shall See His Face – Revelation 22


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PLEASE NOTE:
The site and links below may no longer be operative but are kept as an indication of some of the additional sermons and lectures Dr. James Grier had developed over a lifetime of speaking and engagement in evangelical thought.

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LECTURES BY DR. JAMES GRIER

~ the links below may no longer be operative ~


The Trinity – Part 2: London Reformed Baptist Theological Seminary
The Trinity – Part 3: London Reformed Baptist Theological Seminary
Islam’s Global Challenge to the Gospel
Myths & Misconceptions Concerning Homosexual Behavior & Genetics
The Biblical Basis for Heterosexual Behavior: An Evaluation of Homosexuality
Growing Old in God - Biblical and Ethical Considerations
Growing Old in God – Practical and Personal Reflections
Spiritual Responses to Dementia
Ministry in a Postmodern Context: Our Times and Culture
Ministry in Postmodern Context: Alternative Responses
The Ground of Certainty: Part 1
The Ground of Certainty: Part 2
Bio-Ethics: Do the Ends Justify the Genes
Bio-Ethics: Reproductive Technologies
Bio-Ethics: Death, Dying & Euthanasia
Missional Ministry in a Postmodern Context
What Do You Know for Sure?
The God Who Is


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PLEASE NOTE:
The site and links below may no longer be operative but are kept as an indication of some of the additional sermons and lectures Dr. James Grier had developed over a lifetime of speaking and engagement in evangelical thought.

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THURSDAY EVENING BIBLE CLASS

Delivered at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary 
by James M. Grier



~ the links below may no longer be operative ~


Jonah Retold:
Adventures in Cross-cultural Listening


10 Words 


Biblical Theology of Prayer


The Reformation Cry 


Ancient Light for Modern Times 


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1 comment:

  1. R.E. SlaterApril 17, 2025 at 4:02 AM

    Unfortunately the new, maga-fied/Trumpified Cornerstone College & Seminary (formerly Grand Rapids Baptist College & Graduate Theological Seminary) has pulled Dr. Grier's sermons and lectures making the extensive lists below inoperative. Searching the Internet has provided no additional websites nor resources except the two highlighted links below. Dr. Grier was a powerful speaker and it is with a deep sense of loss that I share this news with those of you who remember Jim.
    Having no contact with the family I cannot be sure if any of Dr. Grier's sermons and lectures were ever kept or had been made available besides the Cornerstone Library. When next I am out by Cornerstone I will stop in and ask of the library where Dr. Grier's series has gone.
    With apologies, R.E. Slater

    Dr. James Grier on SermonAudio

    Maranatha Bible Church - Revelation 5

    ReplyDelete

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