Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: HBO Series Watchmen

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

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

HBO Series Watchmen - A Compendium of Everything: Season 1

Let's take a brief break from daily life and consider all we know, have interacted with over our lifetimes, and perhaps even discussed here at Relevancy22. The HBO series Watchmen might be the perfect time to consider where we are, have been, and might be going in the Age of Pluralism, Disruption, and Imagination.

R.E. Slater

November 27, 2019

* * * * * * * * * *

Damon Lindelof has created a new series that is much less complicated than his blockbuster TV show LOST that I enjoyed so very much but promises to be every bit as fun and perplexing. Expect some violence as the 1986 comic series it is based off was quite violent as was the 2009 movie as they seem to be asking the question,

“Does violence beget violence or is it a necessary evil used to survive?”

Context is everything. And for a writer, an artist, or even a film producer, having context that has matured with perspective allows the subject matter to be formed (or re-formed) into a more beneficial mode of discussion for societies struggling with confusion, doubt, and fear. All infamous hallmarks, I might add, under the "golden age" of Trumpism.

Having not read any of the 12-part comic series (completed between 1986-87) but having recently watched the 2009 movie series Watchmen for helpful context, I am finding HBO’s Watchmen series a great understatement to approaching the questions American society has been struggling with. Questions such as whether black lives matter (they do!). Or, whether domestic policing can be racist (they can be!). Or, whether our allegiance to Flag and Country can be rightfully questioned against a nationalised patriotism that doesn't recognise the Constitutional rights of all elements of its society (it must be!). Even so, I suspect Damon Lindelhof of twisting the elements of this most modern and yet oldest of tales to address these politic factors of human justice and individual psyche in a way which might help any constitutionally constructed postmodern society in facing up to failures and opportunities for redressing those failures in constructive fashion.

For myself, I fell into Watchmen without any idea of what it was about, who wrote it, or what it was attempting to say. It was an act of happenstance which caught my attention as it addressed issues such as white supremacy, the struggle of human rights over technocratic democracies moving towards soulless consumerism, to corporate governance over the rightful public governance of government, and so forth. I also had read not long ago of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, murders of the 1920s when noticing that the Watchmen rightfully started with this event based on the actual history of the harm done to 900 black residents of Tulsa of whom 100 were murdered and the other 800 suffering injuries and lost of all property to racist neighbors. When I next discovered Damon Lindelof’s name attached to the series I immediately knew it would be starkly different from the older comic series or the movie by the same name. At that point I was interested and motivated to give it a deeper look as if looking in the mirror of self-reflection asking rightful questions of meaning, purpose and identity.

So here we go, Easter eggs and all. Enjoy!

R.E. Slater

November 27, 2019

Image result for 2009 watchmen poster hd

INTRODUCTION - "The Backstory to the Backstory to the Beginning"

HBO Series Trailer

Before watching HBO’s Watchmen here’s what you should know about the comic...

DC COMICS 1986-87 LIMITED SERIES

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

The History of the Watchmen

Did Dr. Manhattan Create the DC Universe?

THE 2009 WATCHMEN FILM

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(film)

2009 Watchmen Movie based upon 1986 Comic

"The backstory to HBO’s Watchmen Series"

Note: Having recently watched this film I found it immediately

helpful to Lindelof's newer story line. Having first watched the

first six episodes of HBO's new series the movie repeated all

that I already knew but still provided a better foundation than

not having watched it at all. - res

Watchmen (2009) Official Trailer

2009 Watchmen - Ten Years Later

Watchmen Film vs Comic Series -

What’s the Difference?

2019 HBO's WATCHMEN SERIES

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(TV_series)

HBO Watchmen Promo

Trailer

Gizmodo (GZ0) - https://io9.gizmodo.com/damon-lindelof-rooted-watchmens-alternate-history-in-am-1838221427

Wikipedia - Racism in America -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_United_States

The larger context I believe is the struggle we all have with accepting others different from ourselves. In a word, its known as pluralism. Below is a helpful video that I loved providing the contextual framing needed in understanding how pluralism must now become a socio-evolutionary attitude and behavior in human development in order for large civilizations to peacefully live with one another. - res

08 Pluralism & Society

More from Eddie link here

Trolling White America - https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a29565670/watchmen-hbo-backlash-controversy-white-supremacy/

GZ0 - https://io9.gizmodo.com/hbos-watchmen-wants-to-dig-into-the-heart-of-american-r-1838914665

EPISODE 1 - "IT's SUMMER AND WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF ICE"

Oklahoma, “Pore Jud Is Daid”

Watchmen Promo Episode 1

Review of Episode 1 by New York Vulture (VUL1) - https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/watchmen-premiere-recap-season-1-episode-1.html

Review of Episode 1 by Digital Trends (DT1) -

https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/watchmen-episode1-surprises-easter-eggs-clues/

Gizmodo (GZ1) - https://io9.gizmodo.com/watchmens-incredible-soundtrack-is-coming-first-to-viny-1839237242

GZ1 - https://io9.gizmodo.com/cool-costumes-hide-dark-truths-in-the-haunting-new-watc-1838100172

Collider (COL1) - Questions We Have - https://collider.com/watchmen-episode-2-theories/

Wikipedia - Greenwood Tulsa, Oklahoma, a.k.a. "Black Wall Street" -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood_District,_Tulsa

Tulsa's Black Wall Street massacre

The Tulsa Race Massacre; Then and now.

Buzztox1 (BT1)

Breakdown & Easter Eggs Video 1

EPISODE 2 - "MARTIAL FEATS OF COMANCHE HORSEMANSHIP"

Image result for "MARTIAL FEATS OF COMANCHE HORSEMANSHIP" hd painting hd

George Catlin, Comanche Feats of Horsemanship, 1834-1835, oil on canvas,
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.487

Watchmen Promo Episode 2

VUL2 RECAP – https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/watchmen-recap-season-1-episode-2.html

DT2 RECAP - https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/watchmen-episode-2-surprises-easter-eggs-clues-references/

COL2 - Questions We Have - https://collider.com/watchmen-episode-3-theories/

Breakdown & Easter Eggs Video 2

EPISODE 3 - "SHE WAS KILLED BY SPACE JUNK"

Image result for millennium clock watchmen hd

Watchmen Promo Episode 3

VUL3 RECAP – https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/watchmen-season-1-episode-3-recap-she-was-killed-by-space-junk.html

DT3 RECAP – https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/watchmen-episode-3-surprises-easter-eggs-clues-references/

DenofGeek (DOG3) - https://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/284210/hbo-watchmen-laurie-blake-joke-explained

GZ3 - https://io9.gizmodo.com/watchmens-ideas-about-trauma-and-legacy-are-making-the-1839618122

COL3 Questions We Have - https://collider.com/watchmen-episode-4-theories/#doctor-manhattan-toy

COL3 - Where is Adrian Veidt? - https://collider.com/watchmen-where-is-adrian-veidt/

Watchmen Jeremy Irons Interview

Side Note: I found this interview intriguing as Jeremy considered his role as an

actor within the series as well as his career as an actor speaking to the many

masks he has worn personally, professionally, and within himself. I counted

five layers within this complex individual. - res

Breakdown & Easter Eggs Video 3

EPISODE 4 - "IF YOU DON'T LIKE MY STORY, WRITE YOUR OWN"

Watchmen Promo Episode 4

"I'd like to ride storms,

kill sharks in the open sea,

drive out the aggressors,

reconquer ~~the~~ [my] country,

undo the ties of serfdom,

and never bend my back

to be the concubine

of whatever man."

- Lady Triệu

Wikipedia - Lady Triệu

Lady Triệu (Vietnamese: Bà Triệu, Sino-Vietnamese: 趙嫗 Triệu Ẩu; 225–248) was a female warrior in 3rd century Vietnam who managed, for a time, to resist the Chinese state of Eastern Wu during its occupation of Vietnam. She is also called Triệu Thị Trinh, although her actual given name is unknown. She is quoted as saying, "I'd like to ride storms, kill sharks in the open sea, drive out the aggressors, reconquer the country, undo the ties of serfdom, and never bend my back to be the concubine of whatever man."[1][2] She has also been called the Vietnamese Joan of Arc.

VUL4 RECAP – https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/watchmen-recap-season-1-episode-4.html

DT4 RECAP – https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/watchmen-episode-4-surprises-easter-eggs-references-clues/

COL4 - Questions We Have - https://collider.com/watchmen-episode-4-theories/

Breakdown & Easter Eggs Video 4