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 off 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

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

The Cobb Institute: Ecology, Education, Planning, Collaboration



THE COBB INSTITUTE

FOR ECOLOGICAL AWARENESS, EDUCATION,

STRATEGIC PLANNING, & COMMUNITY COLLABORATION

We believe planet Earth is best viewed as a living organism and human beings are a part of it. We lament the degraded condition of our common home and the role that human beings have played in causing it. We cherish promoting its healing through education, dialogue, and initiatives that cultivate not only sustainability but also communities of compassion and equity.




DREAM BIGGER WITH US!


“If we want a society in which the sense of belonging is strong, people are concerned for one another, and there is strong commitment to the common good, we need a metaphysics that shows that we are in fact part of larger societies and have no existence apart from our relations to others.” - John Cobb



Community Collaboration
The Cobb Institute is a Think Tank with Legs. We often spark new ideas and encourage others to carry them forward as we support the effort. We are luring, assisting, and nurturing a variety of initiatives in the Claremont area in hopes that they will be a model and that their successes can be replicated elsewhere. But we’re also concerned with our common home, so we ignite efforts to develop the process movement and advance the common good in the United States and around the world by creating new communities and partnering with organizations who have connections countries like China and India. Our successes include:

Global Relationships
  • Claremont Process Nexus
  • Institute for Postmodern Development of China
  • EcoCovenant Academy in India
  • US-China Cooperation Campaign

Local Impacts
  • Sustainability Major at the University of La Verne
  • Economic Forum for Affordable Housing in Pomona
  • CHERP Solar Works
  • Urban Agriculture in Pomona


Educational Development
The Cobb Institute creates classes, hosts discussions, and sponsors workshops to educate people about process thought and ecological civilization. As we inch closer to a planetary crisis point and the need for an urgent change in our understanding of our relationship with the earth, our Learning Lab seeks to transform education to foster personal growth and wisdom. Our successes include:

John Cobb & Friends Gatherings
  • David Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics Emeritus, Oberlin College
  • Rebecca Parker. Former Professor of Theology and President of Starr King School for the Ministry
  • Jeremy Lent, Founder and President of the Liology Institute
  • Sophia Said, Founding Chairperson of the Madina Institute

Courses
  • Whitehead & Jung - Integrating Resources for a Fragmented World
  • The Rebirthing of God - Exploring the Ways in Which “God is Being Reborn”
  • Suffering & Meaning - Understanding from a Process-Relational Perspective
  • Walking With Whitehead - A Careful Reading of Key Passages in Process & Reality

Learning Circles
  • An Awakening Planet - Contemplating the Vision of Teilhard de Chardin

  • Women in Process - A Space for Women Who Want to Explore Their Becomings & Possibilities

Workshops
  • The Process of Gardening - An Introduction to Gardening from a Process-Relational Perspective
  • The Process of Dying - Forgotten Wisdom


Spiritual Integration & The Arts
The Cobb Institute promotes a process-relational approach to personal spirituality and faith communities. Creativity is celebrated and included through poetry, music and visual arts as we feature artists at our weekly gatherings, on our website, and in a new series to feature the art of process. Our successes include:
  • Process & Faith
  • A Multi-faith Network for Relational Spirituality and the Common Good
  • Process & Coffee
  • A Discussion Group About Books That Foster an Integral Spirituality
  • International Poetry Forum
  • An International Conference to Consider the Purpose of Poets in an Age of Ecological Civilization
  • Featured Artists & Novel Becomings Series
  • Spotlighting the Beauty and Multiplicity of Art in All its Forms by Process artists
  •  

Our dream in 2022 is to make a greater impact personally by providing an integrated and wholistic approach to making meaning in our world, locally by creating compassionate communities, and globally by inspiring each community to build an ecological civilization. Dream big with us! The world needs a truly creative transformation toward the common good.



About the Institute

The Cobb Institute, named in honor of our founder John Cobb, promotes a process-relational way of understanding and living in the world. As a philosophical outlook it shares wisdom, emphasizes harmony, and focuses on the common good. We live out this philosophy by working to build an ecological civilization.

With the knowledge that all life is interconnected and in process of becoming, we use education, creativity, and an open view of spirituality to help each other and our communities thrive. This is a bold collaborative view that recognizes our interdependence, and thus emphasizes that we have a responsibility to care not just for our own lives but also for the world we share with everyone and everything else.



Our Mission

The Cobb Institute promotes a process-relational worldview to advance wisdom, harmony, and the common good. It engages in local initiatives and cultivates compassionate communities to bring about an ecological civilization. These aims will be accomplished by fostering creative transformation through educational development, community collaboration, sustainable practices, and spiritual integration.



Our History

Originally named the Claremont Institute for Process Studies, the Cobb Institute was established in the spring of 2019 as a non-profit corporation in the State of California, for the purpose of continuing the mission and legacy of the Center for Process Studies (CPS)—a Faculty Center of Claremont School of Theology (CST), established by John Cobb and David Griffin in 1973)—anticipating the relocation of CST and CPS in the summer of 2019. The Cobb Institute is part of a family of process-relational organizations affiliated with the Center for Process Studies and the International Process Network.

As the Institute engaged in self-assessments and underwent various developments during the latter part of 2019, its leadership determined that the name "Claremont Institute for Process Studies" didn't adequately express its character as an emerging community with a shared interest in a process-relational way of understanding the world, along with a commitment to implementing its values in concrete ways. Because of John Cobb's role as the founder, his bold vision for an alternative future, and the importance of his life's work, in January 2020 the Board decided to change the name of the organization to the Cobb Institute: A Community for Process & Practice. The name change was officially announced at his John Cobb's 95th birthday celebration on February 11, 2020.


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