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

Monday, May 1, 2023

Pete Enns - Podcasts & Videos for Normal People


Relevancy22 Approved


I'm listing all of Pete Enn's works which can be found on his website and his YouTube video channel. As there is a lot I'm hoping this posting will help in sorting through it to find what you want or may be interested in.

As with my writings here at Relevancy22, Pete has been working through a jumble of theologies sorting out what to keep, what to throw out, or simply update by way of church teachings.

After 2000 years of church history we need to do this every now and again just as you would with your own housekeeping chores preventing mold, bacteria, infections, rats, bugs, and so on. Denominational and Sectarian theologies can become a mess after a while. Not all of it is healthy, helpful, or necessary. It becomes outdated, misunderstood, inappropriately applied nto wrong or harming circumstances, and so on.

For myself, I have been working off a Covenantal Reformed bible foundation towards what I now call Process (Christian) Theology (as vs. Process Religion, which is also cool, but not Christ-centered). To do that, I had to work through unhelpful earlier Reformed philosophies based on Greek Hellenism, Scientific Reductionism-and-Mechanism, Aristotelian forms of Catholic Scholasticism, and various forms of Western/Euro-American Analytical Thought (centered in isolating binary thought, disconnectedness, etc.)

Keeping what I could from the above list I have been actively supplementing these perspectives first by using forms of Continental Philosophy (metanarrativism, phenomenology, existentialism, Jungian archetypes, etc) and lately have been recentering all onto Whitehead's Process Philosophy to form a Christian-based Process Theology.... As an aside, having not been educated in Middle-Eastern, Asian, Oceanic, or Native Tribal Religions and Philosophies I cannot speak to those perspectives but wish to stay open to any process-based elements within them.

Hence, over the recent years I have worked through my Christian past recreate a Process-based Christian Theology of Love. Similarly, Mr. Enns has been doing the same against his own personal background. I've also noticed that Pete is recently becoming (2021??) more familiar with Process-based Christian Theology, like myself, using Whitehead as a basis. 

But decades earlier Pete and I started with the basics of traditional Christianity as interpreted to us by our denominations or bible churches. That is, because of where we were at, we now can know in what directions we must go when testifying of God's love through Jesus Christ and his atoning work. So that after many years of prayer, study, research, ministry, and dialogue we each are being moved by the Spirit of God to speak up in our separate ways that the church might course-correct towards healthier forms of witness and testimony, living and ministrations.

I should also state that it is nearly impossible to make a personal change after so many years of heavy persuasion in our creedal lanes of faith. The task required a lot of epistemic humility coupled with large, large doses of curiosity importantly led by the Holy Spirit, the Giver of such gifts including the gift of spiritual discernment. If not for this latter gift of discernment, I'm afraid both Pete and myself would have gone "astray" many times along the "forking paths" promising answers and solutions as would seem good to the human soul. Thankfully, the Spirit gave to us a healthy dose of discontent measure by spiritual burden and aggravation by what we have been seeing over the years.

And because of Pete's departure from his university "day-job," he has been forced into deconstructing his faith - along with the equally difficult job of reconstructing his faith. I had to do the same as well... which for me became a very dark wilderness for a very long time until the Lord lifted me out of my "imprisonment" with a deep burden to work out my faith as publically as I could with little to no help to measure my thoughts and directions by.

I imagine Pete has gone through the same. For without a period of  suffering and brokenness, new birth and new life really cannot begin. During my time "in soul prison" or "soul wilderness" I prayed not to leave my dark pit until God was ready to delivery me. I feared that if I left my pain and sorrow too soon I would be no good for the Lord's use.

And mind you, this pit was the removal of all I had known or believed. It left me questioning everything. But the most curious thing was that my faith stayed firm as did the Spirit's presence though in a strange way God had left me and placed brass doors between himself and me. I cannot explain this paradox. But it became my new beginning point from which I either stayed or eventually left.

And so, I stayed until, like the Apostle Paul, I was seasoned by the Spirit that I might begin a new, resurrected ministry unlike anything previous I had undertaken. Ditto, I imagine, with Mr. Enns when cast out from the ivory towers into the work-a-day world of lost faith conviction and scraped testimony. Thomas Jay Oord is another name I know of who has had similar experiences as well. To be a teacher is to first become a learner, then a discerner, and finally one with a great burden. Which is why the bible says not to desire its office... it is a difficult office which either binds or frees one's listeners.

In summary, I've listed all I could find from Pete Enn's websites from first to last; from old playlists to new playlists. And from last to first; from old videos to new videos. On a previous post I have also have listed Pete and Jarad's current books in print. Sincerely, I pray their work and ministry be amazingly helpful both now and in the years ahead for all who come with heavy hearts and troubled souls.

Blessings,

R.E. Slater
May 1, 2023





THE BIBLE FOR NORMAL PEOPLE

~  Playlists are current through May 1, 2023  ~





Season 1 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXq_nGjou6qtUDGMDBo-ChPVdKzN0ZcX3


Season 3 - unfound

Season 4 - unfound

Season 5 - unfound




YOUTUBE VIDEOS


~~  Note: Vides are a few minutes long to an hour+  ~~


SEASON 3
IN ORDER OF  NEWEST TO OLDEST






























SEASON 4
IN ORDER OF NEWEST TO OLDEST


52:42NOW PLAYING - The Bible For Normal People- Episode 164:Pete Enns- Where Did Our Bible Come From?

























SEASON 5
IN ORDER OF NEWEST TO OLDEST





























SEASON 6
IN ORDER OF  NEWEST TO OLDEST











~ ~  STAY TUNED... THERE WILL BE MORE TO COME!  ~ ~


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Pete Enns - Books for Normal People


Books for Normal People

These are our most popular books, written for everyday normal people,
and you absolutely need to buy them. Frankly, between us,
we’re surprised you haven’t yet.

Psalms For Normal People

by Joshua T. James

Romans For Normal People

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

Jonah For Normal People

by Jared Byas

Exodus For Normal People

by Pete Enns

Genesis For Normal People

by Pete Enns

Curveball

by Pete Enns

Love Matters More

by Jared Byas

How The Bible Actually Works

by Pete Enns

The Bible Tells Me So

by Pete Enns

The Sin of Certainty

by Pete Enns

Telling God’s Story

by Pete Enns

The Bible and the Believer

by Pete Enns

Invitation to Genesis

by Pete Enns

Telling God’s Story

by Pete Enns

Inspiration and Incarnation

by Pete Enns

The Evolution of Adam

by Pete Enns
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