Yesterday's post showed a solid response to Process Philosophy. Curious readers "dropped in" from around the world. Small in numbers but promising a great beginning. In contrast, where I live in West Michigan there was no response. Perhaps even indifference, which was sad to contemplate. Which I suspect may be due to the lack of suffering we live with here in the Great Lakes States far from the destructive forces of hurricanes and flooding, corrupt government and with an abundance of green earth, fresh water, and ample food supplies. But isn't it curious that without suffering there can never be fundamental questions raised to a present system of capitalism which can so easily blind societies to the needs of those it harms, denigrates, steps on, or uses. As good as capitalism is it has its failures when not imposing upon itself a "generosity" of governance, business, or help to societies at large. Thankfully many capitalists I know in my area are consciously aware of the help they can bring to the school systems, the jails, the non-profits, churches, and colleges. Their generosity of spirit has left indelible marks of goodness, wholeness, and restoration throughout the lives of our community and it shows.
But if I were asked where forward thinking may now be occurring in the world it seems from the perspective of the responses I received to my process post that it is coming from those countries which suffer - and especially those which are non-Western, if not non-American. And yet, this is also where the greatest revival to the Christian faith is coming from: the non-white, non-European churches of God. And it is fascinating to behold as oppressed societies become enlivened by the Spirit of God to rise up against their misfortune to restore benevolent governments enacting merciful judgment, bring healing to war-torn or famished communities, and seek out the good and beautiful in their own way. However hard the experience amazingly humanity continually rises against its worst elements seeking life the way it was meant to be.
No less have I been amazed by the new Christian theologies of tomorrow attempting to sort out the deficiencies of yesterday's old-line beliefs, creeds, and commitments. These past recent decades have found many souls searching for a more open-and-embracing character of the kingdom of God on this earth. At present, under either capitalistic or socialistic forms of government, societal power rises on the behest of militarism or aggressive trade policies of domination. "To the winner goes the spoils," as they say. But it rings hollow in my ears, as it does to many, knowing those spoils came at the expense of lives lost to enslavement, misuse, or aggrieved when obtaining them. In a Process System of Governance and Economy power may now come to reside within a society through postmodern-liberation forms moving away from an old world system of non-process thinking. This is noticeably evidenced in the remaining residual forms of old-line modernity rejuvenated and modelling beggarly neo-modern forms of chaos and anarchy. Known as post-postmodernism, it can be seen in the results found within Post-Truth societies telling lies to their people through propaganda programs supporting corrupt, oppressive forms of government and economy.
In the world of ideas, culture and global co-mutuality, lies the continuing strength of postmodernism as it casts off the evil twins of modernity - one old and the other evolving (this latter form is known as post-postmodernism as mentioned immediately above). And it may be through the capture of the best ideas found in Process Philosophy coupled with the best of the world's religions (broadly described as "Process Religion" or "Process Theology") that humanity may discover new forms of society which might replenish the human spirit in ways never seen before in goodness and love.
Moreover, it should encourage us that the wisdom of the Spirit of God has never left the possession of the kingdom of God to the thieves of this world. Those societies which would bend all resources to their self-serving will. But to the humble and meek of this earth so harmed and oppressed through the centuries from lives which could've been magnified, meaningful, blessed, and giving back blessings to others. Human government has shown itself to be the harshest of taskmasters - one thoroughly distasteful and unblessed by the God who would heal our wounds, bind our hearts, and make whole the sickness of the world which lays upon us all.
It is the desire of God that we do not possess but restore; do not take but give; do not live selfishly but bountifully with one another. That the new society of tomorrow had better first take stock of its ugly past driven by its lust for greed, power, money, and control. To understand the world envisioned by Jesus is the one that embraces the Beatitudes of His gospel, the gracious love held deep within its core, and the merciful justice required to represent all members of society (including the animals and this earth) rather than some.
It is the desire of God that we do not possess but restore; do not take but give; do not live selfishly but bountifully with one another. That the new society of tomorrow had better first take stock of its ugly past driven by its lust for greed, power, money, and control. To understand the world envisioned by Jesus is the one that embraces the Beatitudes of His gospel, the gracious love held deep within its core, and the merciful justice required to represent all members of society (including the animals and this earth) rather than some.
To build a new society must be to build upon something better than what we have seen in either capitalism and socialism's failed structures formed under the ideals of modernism and more recently, neo-modernism. Both systems of economy and governance have collapsed spectacularly in their own separate ways. It is in their failure the world has yet been given another chance to reclaim a better idea of a liberal democracy or shared communistic system which would place the ideals of Jesus' gospel into action within society.
So I think Process Philosophy might help in this area of societal restoration using the tools of peace, harmony, balance, respect, care, and love as its foundation stones. And thus my interest in helping people around the world grasp Process Thought. Learn it. And build upon it into the present day government and community structures within respective economies of societies. It seems to hold within it the Jesus principle of healing, and the God principal of restoration, through partnership with one another and with this earth.
So I think Process Philosophy might help in this area of societal restoration using the tools of peace, harmony, balance, respect, care, and love as its foundation stones. And thus my interest in helping people around the world grasp Process Thought. Learn it. And build upon it into the present day government and community structures within respective economies of societies. It seems to hold within it the Jesus principle of healing, and the God principal of restoration, through partnership with one another and with this earth.
To simply live the best of Process Philosophy as an attitude and way of being with one another by embedding the best of the Christian faith or World Religions into societies destroyed by its very hand neglecting Process Thought. In essence, it is a way to show others how God exists in a very different way than what we have perceived Him to be through our Western societies of dominance, imperialism, individualism, and unwise destruction of the earth. Its a way of living with one another and with this earth as we seek healing within ourselves and back to the land we have destroyed.
I think the quiet environmentalist, Aldo Leopold (of Wisconsin and the US Dept. of Forestry) would be very glad of this renewed effort should it be applied back to the land and into the lives of the people we have harmed. It cannot be stated strongly enough that God's creation, and more sublimely, the earth's care-restoration-healing, is the path back to the caring and healing of ourselves and our sick societies and religions. From "without to within". This is the principle of the "inter/intra" which is fascinating to envision and to watch reclaim the destruction we have brought upon ourselves.
As a Western Christian let me say that the Christian heaven is not the one after death so many patiently wait and hope upon. Rather, the Christian heaven is the one here on this earth. The Christian motto must be: "As to the earth so with one another." We find renewal through learning how to restore the earth. We find restoration through discovering how nature is tightly interlinked within itself. Any other form of Christian heaven is worthless in this life. It simply doesn't matter. As Jesus observed, the afterlife is not where you build God's kingdom but here on this earth. This is what Jesus taught. Not the popular teachings of today that say otherwise.
Nor did Jesus teach a Greek view of eschatology or creation-management in Stoic terms (sic, Stoicism) denying this life to build upon the hope of the next. Nor to deny the body so that the spirit might find spiritual release. These are Greek ideas propagating from its binary systems of thought which are not the Hebrew understanding of creational soul-spirit-body wholeness, oneness, or unity. Unfortunately, it is this Greek-Hellenistic form of philosophy the Christian church picked up on and built into its early Christian doctrines using (Cartesian) dualism as it next seeped into medieval church doctrines speaking to the separation of natural theology from the spiritual, and then into its present day creeds of living for the next life rather than caring for this one.
This kind of Christian faith has been destructive to the world and needs to be replaced for a more humane, eyes-on-the-ground, kind of faith that sees in the present tense both earth and humanity. Thus I find Process Philosophy to be a very good system restating the broad democratic principles of freedom, justice, and liberty in forms that can receive a very different interpretation and outcome than what capitalism and socialism's deficient structures have shown. A new Age of Globalism is dawning and it would be well that we learn how to live bountifully with one another and with this wrecked earth than we have demonstrated over the eons of our existence.
In summary, Truth will out post-truth. Love will dig deeper into the soils of the human breast than fear and oppression. Care of one another will provide a stronger societal justice than mere laws and rules. Vision will build a better civilization than its lack of wisdom. Truly Wisdom cries in the streets of humanity to hear her voice yet none answer (Proverbs 1). Sadly, it may continue to be this way as climate change, human turmoil, economic inequities, and the human Anthropocene Age of ecological destruction march steadily onwards. But we are faced with a better choice. A choice to change using a better form of societal philosophy or religious gospel lest our next efforts at creational restoration be all for nought eventuating in the destruction of our species. It will be the "nuclear test" of the Global Age that we no longer destroy all we possess but learn to give back all we have taken from one another and from this earth. This is the God/Jesus principle of co-mutuality, self-sustenance, peace, and goodwill.
R.S. Slater
September 18, 2017
