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

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Deconstructing "Evangelicalsim"




"Today, some are making an idol out of “evangelicalism.” They are doing that by insisting
that it is a closed system, exclusive of all but themselves and those who think just like them -
always the same (impervious to change and development), absolutely and objectively true
(unbiased, without perspective) and bounded by identifiable boundaries (propositional truths)
impervious to outsiders or new ideas and established by “the received evangelical tradition."

- Roger Olson


I found early on when doing the hard work of Christian deconstruction that after completing its project - such as the one Roger Olson is referencing today - that it is always spiritually healthy to then provide a Christian reconstruction as bridge from the apophatic (what God is not) to the cataphatic (what God is). That it would be spiritually healthy for me to discern both my background and the effects of my background upon my faith - both in the negative and in the positive. To take an "internal inventory" if you will, of my beliefs, and to determine, if possible, where necessary change must come.

More importantly, this task took me by surprise when after over a dozen years of Holy-Spirit burden I became overwhelmed by God and fell into a black pit of despair requiring a personal brokenness for a period of time before then yearning for release. And when delivered by the hand of God, He had formed within me a new purpose, a new mind, a changed heart, and renewed determination measured in passion and insight. It was both a God-thing and a me-thing where God took my mind, heart, will, and spirit, and re-oriented myself towards a gospel filled with Jesus and no longer a form of Jesus as expressed by a hardened religion that had absorbed me without my notice. And yet, this idolatrous form of Christianity needed breaking, and when done, was broken, and I was released into a clearer light of day than I first had possessed in my earlier adult years.

 It was a process which took its time with me (by my count, approximately eleven months). And it was within this personally difficult process or space that the truth of Jack Caputo's statement became true:

"The truth will set you free,
but it does so by turning your life upside down."

- John (Jack) Caputo


However, if I were to tarry too long in this land of loss and positive criticism then I would miss the beauty of Christ in the lands of renewal, reclamation, and reconstruction. That it was my responsibility to also speak of a better form of Christian faith and theology then what it had become these past several decades. And so I have. As best as I could. With what I had. More specifically, I became burdened to speak of a postmodern, post-Christian faith emphasizing some of its newer discoveries over the past several decades. Discoveries such as presenting:


  • a "weak (sic, non-dogmatic) theology" that is more open (and less closed) within the best traditions of the church; or,
  • a faith that allows for the Spirit of God to presage our hearts and minds again in the forms of mystic Christianity (ala Richard Rohr, Stanley Hauerwas, et al) which stands amazed and wordless before the presence of a Holy God; or,
  • recognizing an "anthropological hermeneutic" inadvertently laid upon Scripture which we bring upon the interpretations of God's revelation in the Bible through our self-oriented (existential) needs, wants, prejudices, and bigotries; or even,
  • when discovering a ground-changing philosophical basis other than the Western Analytical tradition I grew up within. An over-used tradition steeped in a "mathematical, syllogistic, formula-based theology" when describing God (systematic theology) or His work (Christian essays). One known as a (Hegelian-based) Continental Philosophy (cf. Postmodern Christianity) which would emphasize God's revealed story as a salvific (meta)narrative wrapped around the nucleus of a Radical Christianity which tore at the idols of modernal Christian religion.


And so then, in today's post, submitted by a true-to-form religious evangelic theologian steeped in church history, Dr. Roger Olson, we can hear again of this newer movement writhing within the deep halls of both evangelical and liberal Christianity. And, of course, I use the descriptive word "liberal" in its best sense of "reconstructing" a Jesus-centric Christian faith - not a biblio-centric, nor a closed dogmatic faith, nor even a sectarian creed-based Christianity. But a faith that leads out with Jesus even as the best bible-centered, weaker dogmatic, and confessional creeds do over the church's long, controversy-filled, history. One that lifts up God's revealed self-incarnation in the flesh, Jesus, as our Sovereign Lord and Savior, who came to save us from our sin and suffering. Who offers real hope in the "lands of the midnight sun" underwhich we turn-and-spin seeking truth-and-knowledge through the grand auspices of love, compassion, forgiveness, and service.

As such, the take-aways from today's discussion is the rebalancing of what an evangelic faith can be with Jesus at its center. To not over-judge a beneficial (evangelical) movement largely taken heist by the idolaters of its faith having crept in and demanded a more sectarian, secular form of its best self. To understand that a postmodern Christianity has come to re-right its 20th century predecessor by emphasizing both the negatives and the positives of its evangelical heritage in the best that it has to offer through its more progressive, liberal forms of revelation. That in the end, this rebalancing act (one which Peter Rollins calls a "magic act") will remove the idolatry we have brought to a godly faith by supplanting it with God Himself rather than with our unrepentant selves. To do this we must declare Jesus by speaking of Him and His resurrection through newer words and ideas which will lead us out of our present darkness. Words and ideas which will perform their necessary work of a postmodern deconstruction and reconstruction. Words hearkening to the old words of the Apostle Paul who declared we must deliver over the "old man" to death in order to allow the Holy Spirit to place within our hearts and minds and souls "the new man in Christ." And this I had proposed to do by the merciful hand of God - and have done to the best of my ability - within the pages of this blogsite. To the glory of God, and to His Son. Amen and amen.

R.E. Slater
May 1, 2016
edited May 10, 2016




* * * * * * * * *



Deconstructing "Evangelicalism"

by Roger Olson
April 29, 2016

Recently I had the privilege of hearing George Marsden speak. Marsden is widely considered the “dean” of evangelical historians. That is, he practically pioneered and led in the study of the history of the evangelical movement. He taught at Calvin College, Duke Divinity School and retired from the University of Notre Dame (where Mark Noll succeeded him). Marsden helped many of us, in our callow years as budding evangelical scholars, distinguish between “evangelicalism” and “fundamentalism.” The lecture I heard, just recently, was about C. S. Lewis and Mere Christianity—a phenomenon that continues to grow in influence and not only among evangelicals.

Hearing Marsden, and meeting him for the first time, reminded me of an essay I wrote a few years ago that never was published. If I posted it here, I have forgotten that. So here it is:

“Deconstructing Evangelicalism”

What is “deconstruction,” anyway? Well, I’ve been reading a lot about that and it turns out it’s not at all what I had been told. It’s not “destruction” but rather has a positive agenda–to expose idols for what they are and help institutions and movements (etc.) improve themselves by becoming more open, more just and more flexible.

A basic presupposition of deconstruction is that all ideologies are idols because they usurp the place of God (for Christian deconstructionists) and/or claim to be what no human system can be–totalizing, monolithic, all-encompassing explanatory schemes that function as God (for secular deconstructionists).

According to Peter Rollins (How [Not] to Speak of God) (depending largely on Christian philosopher Merold Westphal) there are at least two principles of deconstruction: the principle of finitude and the principle of suspicion. These, along with some other possible deconstructive principles, serve as critical tools for exposing idols.

Today, some are making an idol out of “evangelicalism.” They are doing that by insisting that it is a closed system, exclusive of all but themselves and those who think just like them - always the same (impervious to change and development), absolutely and objectively true (unbiased, without perspective) and bounded by identifiable boundaries (propositional truths) impervious to outsiders or new ideas and established by “the received evangelical tradition.”

Of course, few evangelicals would put it this way, but one can easily detect this notion of evangelicalism by reading some of its self-appointed spokesmen.

My intention is not at all to critique authentic evangelicalism, although it is always improvable, but rather my intention is to deconstruct the concept of evangelicalism being promoted by some conservatives.

My first deconstructive move is to demonstrate the aporia of a movement with boundaries. I’ve written about this here before, but it bears repeating. Evangelicalism is a movement and a movement, by definition, cannot have boundaries. Thus, it is simply ridiculous to think of or to talk about evangelical boundaries. Evangelicalism would have to have a magisterium [a centralizing synod-like body] to have boundaries; it has no magisterium. It [the evangelical movement] is a people’s movement stemming from the Reformation, the Pietist renewals, the first and second Great Awakenings, the conservative reaction to liberal theology (early fundamentalism) and dissatisfaction with fundamentalism. Evangelicalism has always been tremendously diverse. All within it have similiar concerns and interests, but the moment you try to put your finger on something that could serve as a boundary (rather than a center of attention and interest) it slips away because someone within the movement has already violated it!

Along the same lines (exposing an aporia of this concept of evangelicalism): evangelicals have always valued the Scripture principle stemming from the Reformation (sola scriptura). They have interpreted it in many different ways, but it stands at the center of the movement (which is a centered set but not a bounded set). Yet, many of those promoting this new, narrow, almost idolatrous notion of evangelicalism seem to violate sola scriptura even as they identify it as a boundary of the movement. They violate it by solidifying tradition and raising it to a level of authority functionally equal with Scripture.

Real affirmation of the Scripture principle manifests in openness to correction of all systems and traditions from Scripture itself. Where that openness is missing sola scriptura is receiving only lip service at best.

Moving on to the deconstructive principle of finitude: Evangelicalism is historically allergic to idolatry of any kind and yet idolatry appears wherever and whenever something finite, human, is elevated to God-like status. Anything treated as immutable, absolute, incorrigible, all comprehensive, completely objective and exclusive of insights from others (beyond God’s own self-revelation) is an idol. No theological system or doctrinal confession or tradition can be any of those things because they are all finite creations of humans. That is not to say they are false; it is only to say they are less than absolute and, if they are to avoid idolatry, must be held open to correction. Thus, to the extent that people treat evangelicalism as a regime of truth incapable of improvement through criticism and correction it is becoming an ideology rather than an expression of the gospel and therefore an idol.

What about the principle of suspicion? Anyone who has been intimately involved in studying and participating in evangelicalism for a long time can easily see that there is tremendous gain to be had in terms of power, prestige and even money by controlling evangelical thought. Some evangelical spokesmen (always self-appointed, of course) jockey for status as pontiff of evangelicalism in public opinion. Such people sometimes change their views in order to gain greater support. Whole groups of evangelicals attempt to throw others out of the movement by marginalizing them, often by misrepresenting their views. (I can prove that has happened to me and I know of others to whom it has happened in the most cynical ways.) Evangelicalism has become respectable and prosperous and worldly in terms of power and prestige and whoever has the ability to convince the movers and shakers of evangelicalism (administrators, publishers, etc.) that he is its true representative wields great power. Evangelicalism began (at least in modern times) as a movement of the margins. In some circles it is in danger of becoming a movement of elites who delight in marginalizing other evangelicals to prove they have the power to do it.

Finally, I will add the principle of obligation to the “other”–the principle of alterity [a state of being different. "Otherness"]. Postmodern deconstructionism elevates obligation to the “other”–the outsider, the outcast, the invisible–as a primary ethical norm. Ideologies are belief systems that create otherness and thrive on exclusion under the guise of providing an all-encompassing explanatory scheme. Evangelical theologian Miroslav Volf writes about “willingness to embrace” the other–a Christian version of postmodern Jewish philospher Levinas’ obligation to the “face” of the other.

In the aftermath of the 20th century–a century of genocidal ideologies–we all need to be careful not to create or embrace or follow new ideologies that exclude and refuse even to hear the voices of those who do not fit in or who disagree. These days conservative evangelicalism is a monologue, a choir singing only in melody without harmony, a movement aiming at conformity.

Not long before he died I corresponded with conservative evangelical theologian (to many the “dean of evangelical theologians”) Carl F. H. Henry about inerrancy and other matters of concern. I mentioned to him that evangelical theologian Donald Bloesch, in his developing Foundations series, denied inerrancy except in the broadest sense possible. Henry dismissed Bloesch as a “mediating theologian” by which he clearly meant “not evangelical in true sense” (as defined, of course, by Henry). Anyone who knew Bloesch knows what a great evangelical spirit he was.

Rather than practicing hospitality through dialogue and consensus-building, today’s conservative evangelicals are too concerned with excluding people. In some cases this lack of value placed on alterity borders on violence. Not physical violence but spiritual abuse which is another kind of violence.

The upshot is that today’s self-appointed (but very loud and influential) establishment evangelicalism is in danger of turning the liberating evangelical movement that is gospel-centered, generous and loving into an ideology and thus [into] an idol. There is the danger of God being effectively pulled down out of transcendence and made into a prisoner of a propositional system (and perhaps even a servant of a political agenda).

The great German pietist Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf often said that whoever puts Christianity into a system kills it. He didn’t mean, of course, that doctrine is bad. He was a great defender of basic Protestant orthodoxy, but he recognized the grave danger of giving too much importance and power to human systems of thought that imprison the Spirit of God who always transcends our humanly constructed houses of authority.


Sermons from Elder D.J. Ward, Lexington, Kentucky



“On Christ Alone” — Elder D.J. Ward


The death of Christ was an accomplishment, and our works cannot add to Christ's death. In this video, Elder D.J. Ward, the late pastor of Main Street Baptist Church in Lexington, K.Y., powerfully reminds us of the sufficiency of Christ's death for all who turn to him in repentance and faith.



"Jesus Paid it All" - Elder DJ Ward




"Because of God's Choice" - In Memory of Elder D.J. Ward




" GOD Is Sovereign" - Elder D.J. Ward