Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: Index

Index to Process Christianity

A Study of Biblical & Systematic Theologies

in Contemporary Societal Context

Christian systematic theology will often touch on some or all of the following topics: God, trinitarianism, revelation, creation and divine providence, theodicy, theological anthropology, Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology, Israelology, Bibliology, hermeneutics, sacrament, pneumatology, Christian life, Heaven, and interfaith statements on other religions.

Traditionally, systematic (major) themes of the bible speak to God, His revealed works of creation, provision, judgment, deliverance, covenants, and promises. Further, the bible tells what happens to mankind in the light of God's nature, righteousness, faithfulness, mercy, and love.

One might also imagine the bible in terms of spiritual themes:

Spirituality as a belief in God (a higher power or religion)
Spirituality as a channel that helps
Spirituality as a source
Spirituality expressed through actions such as praying, meditating, and attending church
God is present and giving
Spirituality as one's essence

Lastly, biblical studies may be exegetical, thematic or topical, and necessarily conversant with contemporary society. To these ends, the bible may be explained through church traditions and worship, in terms of denominational doctrine, or terms of (lately) evangelical, progressive, or liberal observations, and lastly in terms of social works of helps and assistance.

Progressive Christianity takes all of the above to express belief and faith in the newer terms of process philosophy and theology which embraces more easily science and reason than have the more traditional biblical approaches which generally eschew extra-biblical sources as informing the literary reading of an ancient cultus.

As example, Process Christianity can be right at home in Lutheran, Reformed, Orthodox, or Catholic teachings but can better integrate the postmodern worlds of polypluralism, social justice, equality of humanitarian rights, post-capital and post-communist economics doctrinnaires, and political philosophies.

Process Christianity embraces Process Thought to assist in replacing earlier outmoded philosophies which have informed the church's classic theologies through the centuries with more current philosophies which are less restricting or confining of God and creation.

Moreover, Process Christianity may also intersect well with the liberal theologies of feminism, gay and transgender studies, ecological societies, peace movements, and religious interfaith movements. As example, Judaism, Islam, even Buddhism, may all participate around various forms of process theology to expand conversations while delimiting more controversial topics of faith and belief.

Lastly, Process Christianity carries with it it's own Natural Theology which provides a complimentary witness to the bible while resonating well with the quantum physics of chaos; the teleological themes of spacetime, purpose, meaning, and divine immanence; even the holistic processual processes of lively contemporaneous evolutionary development of life as expressed in evolutionary terms of the sciences, creation, human civilization, languages, and the phenomenological / existential structures of the human mind.

In all things Processual Process Christianity is a higher-order of integrating philosophy then previous thought expressions found in earlier ancient Semitic, Platonic, Neo-Platonic, Aristotelian, Thomastic, or Modern philosophies have been able to express regarding who we are, what must we do, what purposes may we live for, or what might be the end of all things?

R.E. Slater

June 16, 2021

BBL1303 1.1: Introduction to Systematic Theology