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, December 3, 2023

Building Ecological Civilizations in Response to MAGA's Oppressive Kingdoms



Building Ecological Civilizations in
Response to MAGA's Oppressive Kingdoms

by R.E. Slater


6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 [And] of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. - Isa 9.6-7


31Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. 33Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. 34A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. - John 13.31-35
* * * * * * * *


Across this series we've looked at how:

1 - To read the bible in its historical era by questioning its religious beliefs then and now:
2 - That MAGA is always an unhealthy Christian response for any nation to entertain:
3 - That France's many revolutions from monarchy to democracy was difficult to form:
4 - That the MAGA Church has oppressed all people over the millennias since Jesus:
5 - That the kind of God we chose is the kind of Society we get:
6 - And finally, today, the best cross-sect for a strengthening of democracy and for oppressed people around the world, is the national and international (global) pursuit towards building ecological civilizations:

* * * * * * * *


Firstlydemocracies born from the imperfections of monarchal kingdoms were  once perceived to be led by rulers place unto their throne by divine consent. But with Protestantism's Reformational rise helped by an era of European Enlightenment, the Royal Catholic Papacy died out to the newer strains of Constitutional democratic republics ruled by elected societal officers (also thought to be blessed by God) as humanity's preferred form of governance over earlier, imperfect kingdom forms.
  • That the bible's display of failed monarchy's and kingdom empires were no blessing to the people living under unaccountable throneship's to the people. That all thrones rather than being divine were consequently very human in the aftermaths of their very human and non-divined legacies.
  • That Israel's kingdoms likewise failed under the auspices of ruling kings begun by Saul, David, and Solomon, and concluded in a litany of evils and sins. That the bible's supposed "divine model" as projected by today's MAGA church is no more divine then as now... that all lead to forms of oppression and irresponsibility when separated from being accountable to the citizens and members of their realms.
  • That MAGA's stubborn belief that a "Theocratic Kingdom" is the best governance model is shown to be fatally flawed throughout its bible origination concept. That truly open democracies concentrating on social blending, equality, justice, and resource sharing are the better forms of governance. And that the standard for today's open democracies has become the common basis for addressing man-caused ecological collapses in his destruction of the earth.
To sum up, the whole inappropriate and antiquated biblical idea of "theocratic kingdoms" as best have shown themselves to be "variant models of oppression". And that other forms of governance via trial-and-error forms of economies from capitalism to socialism and back again, have also showed their failures.

That generally, for a society to form cooperative communes of locality interlinked to other local, regional, national, and globally interlinked communities of locality is a really, really, really difficult operational mode to obtain.

And finally, that a common harm to humanity - that of ecological disaster - is the most appropriate cause of response in pursuing open economies of resource sharing whether capitalist or socialist.

That the reality of building ecological civilizations of difference is the most common form of re-synching humanity across divisional lines of suspicion, pride and hate.

Hence, today's democracies are harmfully moving away from ecological societies when experimenting with various forms of hardline, rightwing authoritarianism bespeaking discrimination and oppression of migrants, minorities, women, gender, sexes, and civil disempowerment.

But by committing to the renewal of compassionate societal equality, cooperation, and unity, will give today's Gen X, Y, Z, and it's progeny the greatest futures when based upon (Whiteheadian) process forms of ecological civilization principles and behaviors.


* * * * * * * *


MAGA's New Words of Oppression are 
Unacknowledged in their Socio-Political 
Campaigns of Subversive Disinformation


Watching late 1700s France move between King's Fascist rights and People's Republic brought to mind the difficulty of becoming, and maintaining, a full fledged democracy. To some degree, the United States has achieved this rare distinction. But to another degree is still has a long ways to go. At present, we're falling into a half and half state of anocracy... part democratic and part autocracy.

In Russia, Putin is guilty on both counts of revanchism and irredentism ... put together Putin has acted as a despot chargeable for a power land grab of genocidal proportions.

Wikipedia Excerpt:
Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and is often motivated by economic or geopolitical factors. Extreme revanchist ideologues often represent a hawkish stance, suggesting that their desired objectives can be achieved through the positive outcome of another war. It is linked with "irredentism", the conception that a part of the cultural and ethnic nation remains "unredeemed" outside the borders of its appropriate nation-state.

"...Ethnic homogeneity within a state makes Irredentism more likely. Discrimination against the ethnic group in the neighboring territory is another contributing factor. A closely related explanation argues that national identities based primarily on ethnicity, culture, and history increase irredentist tendencies. Another approach is to explain irredentism as an attempt to increase power and wealth. In this regard, it is argued that irredentist claims are more likely if the neighboring territory is relatively rich. Many explanations also focus on the regime type and hold that democracies are less likely to engage in irredentism while anocracies are particularly open to it.

Cobbled together Putin's ethnic land cleansing of Ukrainians from their home land is an attempted to join old Tsarist Russian back together in the imagined glory days of wealth and power (using other people's wealth and power, of course).

To justify his imperious mania Putin "persuaded" the Russian Orthodox Christian church to support his nefarious "conservative reformist" designs so that Moscow's perceive so-called heretical (liberal) Christian opponents might end:
  • (1) Ukraine's Eastern Orthodox Christian church located in Kiev, which is coupled together with...
  • (2) Its Eastern Orthodox Turkish Twin residing in the old Ottomon/Turkish Empire in Istanbul, Turkey.
Hence, Putin imposed his religious view that the Easter Orthodox Church is the heretical spin off from Russia's own Russian Orthodox Church. This, he thought, would provide adequate disinformation for his evil actions.

In summary, America's MAGA components see in Putin their model for a new imperial Kingdom in America... one that supports the evangelical Chruch as it sees itself and intends for itself to rule oppressively over all the elites, liberals, and religious in the way they wish to rule.

MAGA's theocratic kingdom... or church-based kingdom... is a farce and an evil to the land it wishes to rule over so as to usher in their imagined "Kingdom of God." A Kingdom I'm told, which has come in Christ and to his disciples to witness and minister, caretake and shepherd in love. But to which the MAGA Christian faithful believe are their to inherit to inforce all kinds of religious restrictions, jots and tittles upon their vanquished via MAGA-sponsored and unConstitutional Republicanism.

And so, we back where we started in Napoleon's day when the people threw off Louis XVI's reign, and with it, the papacy of the ruling church, to flounder in the muds and slimes of how to build an open society of difference and resource sharing.

America did the same with it's Royalists groups in its Colonies so that after an eight year rule it could build upon the Bill of Rights and Independence Constitution. Yet in its enactment if failed to remove slavery and nearly a hundred years later fought a bloody insurrection against non-Constitutionalists refusing to enact the Bill of Rights of another fully into America's economy.

Quoting Scripture and God these Christian erudites taught tyranny and rule over "inferior" races. Which lands us here today at the doorstep of Trumpian MAGA'gots imposing their religious ideations and rule upon an open democracy by acts of blashphemy and anathema in the eyes of God and man.

Proving once again that "Democracies" are less likely than "anocrisies" to exploit homogenous ethnic regions but yet, to the unenlightened religious troglodytes of America's white conservative churches, a "theocratic kingdom of God" is noised about by evil hands and sinful hearts.

R.E. Slater
Dec 3, 2023


Ahem, One last...

Do not think we, and the world, are any less guilty of the abomination going on under the rule of Israeli MAGA'gots in their hardline stances against Hamas and Hezebolla which conflagration has caught the innocents of the land of Canaan in Palestine and Israel in deeply grievous actions of loss and death. The world either learns to love one another and share with one another as we can or we will die the ugly deaths of our own destruction as illustrated by the book of Revelation in the bible. It's message is not of God's evil but man's own evil which God comes to save by redeeming actions (rather than the popular Christian opinions of divine vengeance and retribution). One way or another, earth and sky, seas and wind, will rise upon us to decimate and destroy as harshly as we did it's own biotic communities. The wisdom here is to see one-and-all, man and earth, as surviving participants with one another that each in its own way thrives and nourishes the other.

Sing to the Lord a New Song!
(Psalm 149:1-9; Isaiah 42:10-17)

1{A Psalm.} O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.

2The LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.

3He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

4Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

5Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.

6With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.

7Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

8Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together

9Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.

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