John Cobb - A Relational Worldview for the Common Good

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I received a mass-mailed letter from Process Theologian Dr. John B. Cobb Jr., which I wish to share to those of you who may be interested in learning more about process philosophy and theology. Not many years ago I discover AN Whitehead and shortly thereafter John B. Cobb, Jr. who took Whitehead's work and applied it more rigorously to Christian and non-Christian religious theology. As a corollary John has expanded his process paradigms and practicum applications into the Natural Sciences, Psychoanalytic, Sociological, and Ecological disciplines. The generations of Whiteheadians since have likewise followed suit.

For myself my main interest was to find a new hermeneutic to update the conservative / progressive evangelicalism I had learn within a Modernal Era setting. As I discovered, the best I could do was to recenter the God I love and worship into the center of my evangelical doctrines, remove their Westernized interpretations of God and Christianity, and replace the bible with Jesus and the Love of God. That was my new hermeneutic. But my new philosophic-theology would be Whiteheadian process thought as an Integral Theory of Everything (WPT-ITOE). It would be applicable in a postmodern, postpostmodern, metamodern, and every succeeding era thereafter. Which is why it is a centering and integral philosophy built organically on relationships, experience, and spiritual (sic, more broadly, panpsychic re scientific cosmologies and process-based metaphysics).

A few years back I took an online class with Dr. Cobb when he was 94 or 95 years of age. I've also have read his published articles and a few books. Likewise with Whitehead. Certainly I wish I could do this more rigorously through a doctoral and post-doctoral program but time, expense, and age are against me. I will depend upon others more expert than myself for information even as I expand and explore Whiteheadian thought through everything I now write or think about as I have done these past many years.

Nonetheless, I consider myself a belated third generation Whiteheadian and early fourth generation protege. In my schemata I loosely associate all second gens to have studies process thought at the University of Chicago in the 1950s before it was closed down and transferred to Claremont University, Pasadina, CA. And that all third gens were contemporaries with John Cobb having learned Whitehead with him or have been trained by him in his professorial years thereafter. And finally, all fourth gens are those who are not trained by John Cobb but are receiving his words and meanings through his mentors and teachers.

Now for many of you, you will be playing catch-up. Bur if you use the Index links I have provided to you on the right hand topic column there will lie within those Indexes hundreds of articles. Too, there will be many, many, many website links to even more progressive treasure troves. I've tried to make learning process thought - and especially process theology, quantum science, and evolution - as simple and practical as I can. That said, I am now longer writing ABC kind of articles but more elaborate and in-depth articles which are building upon past dialogues and discussions.

Too, what I have written, and will be writing, will be avante garde. Some process theologians and scientists are just now beginning to expand and explore what I have plowed ground previously upon. I think of Andrew Davis and Matt Segall re their esotericisms and metaphysical cosmologies... things Im interested in especially as they link to my past Reformed-Conservative-Emergent Evangelical Christianity. Further, for those of you studying Open and Relational Theology I suggest that you more properly understand that direction in terms of an Open and Relational PROCESS Theology. This is where that subject most properly lives and breathes. All other Westernized foundations create hazard, trouble, and death.

Lastly, let us salute and thank John Cobb for his faithful testimony to Christ and for all the work he has provided to humanity over the course of his many long and wise years. He has become one of my heroes in life to whom I will continue to read his past titles and thoughts so that I keep to my source, as I wish to with Whitehead as well, as the years roll by. Thank you John for all the blessings you have provided and been to those of us seeking godly direction and practical application of Jesus' atoning redemption!

R.E. Slater

January 18, 2024

Dear PF22, I am 98, and for that age, my faculties (sight and hearing and even thinking) are quite good. The one about which I do complain is memory. Probably I’m typical for my age. People are very understanding. While I still can, I am reviewing my “legacy.” It is mixed up with the legacies of many others in the process movement. I conclude that my most important contribution is institutional. That is because the institutions to whose existence I have contributed are all acting responsibly in relation to what is happening. I think and hope that none of them give priority to my opinions. They are already out-dated.   The first is the Center for Process Studies. David Griffin gave it extraordinary leadership. Andrew Schwartz succeeded him, during a period when the future of the Center and the Claremont School of Theology, of which it was a part, was uncertain. Despite difficulties, he has helped move process thought from the margin of the American discussion to a role in the mainstream. Although Andrew and the School worked well together, it was clear that a friendly separation would be good for both. That has taken place. And an independent Center is once again acting as the “center.”   From the beginning, many of those most interested in process thought were church folk. For them, we organized Process and Faith. It has worked well for some evangelicals who are unable to swallow all of traditional Christian doctrine, but who understand that there is much in Christianity of great importance for them and for the world. Tripp Fuller has provided a home for such people for many years and Tom Oord has recently offered an alternative. I had nothing to do with establishing either of these organizations, but since I have contributed to the process theology that both find works well for them, I include them in the family. The process theology they embody is Christian, but the Christianity involved appreciates and learns from other spiritual traditions. “Process” seeks to serve these other traditions as well. Process and Faith has served other spiritual traditions as well as Christianity, and an important role of process thought is to provide an inclusive vision that makes positive sense of diverse traditions.   There are a number of very small-scale experiments inspired by process thought. Bonnie Tarwater has established an ecological farm and church near Salem. Sunday afternoon we worship in the barn with the ducks and the goats. She is developing small groups for self-examination and group action.   The Center for Process Studies operates chiefly in the academic world. Another process organization worked with institutions, including educational ones, but also ecological ones and governmental ones. Eugene Shirley organized Pando Populus. When CPS moved north as part of the Claremont School of Theology, Pando was designed to keep an activist process organization alive in Los Angeles County. The County has excellent goals, and Pando is recognized as a major contributor to moving toward them.   American process thought caught the attention of leading Chinese. Zhihe Wang came to Claremont and earned a PhD here. His wife, Mei Wong has joined him. They have organized the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China. Thanks to them, process thought has played a large role in China.   When it was clear that CPS would leave Claremont together with the School of Theology, we organized our local activities under the rubric of the Cobb Institute. It has given major attention to supporting the remarkable efforts of new Hispanic leadership in Pomona to revitalize that city under the new circumstances. But the activities of the Cobb Institute are often based on working together electronically; so, it also evolved quickly into a national and even international organization. The public programs organized especially by Ron Hines every Tuesday morning are an attractive way for outsiders to join our community. Jay McDaniel has been the superb leader of the Institute. He is now taking more responsibility for CPS and is being succeeded in the Cobb Institute by Mary Elizabeth Moore.   For process thinkers feelings are the stuff of which the world is made. Still, action should be guided by thought. Ideas should have an effect, especially with respect to the global problems that became crucial in the twentieth century. In 2015 the Center for Process Studies organized a major conference subtitled “toward an ecological civilization.” We have used that term to name what we see as the most promising direction of activity and policy. Philip Clayton has organized the Institute for Ecological Civilization.   Despite the multiplicity of process organizations, I helped to add one more, a couple of years ago. We call it the Living Earth Movement. Some of us became extremely troubled by the way in which the American goal to control the planet was (in a sense rightly) recognizing China as its greatest obstacle. Some leading Americans seemed open to a nuclear war in response to that threat. Communications were breaking down, and they were being replaced by mutual demonization. The most advanced “chip,” of great importance for breaking new ground in technology, is made chiefly in Taiwan, and the U.S. wants to prevent China from having access. Although it formally recognizes Taiwan as part of China, it armed Taiwan to enable it to fight China, and blocked Chinese access to the chips. The world came close to war. We organized the Living Earth Movement (LEM) to encourage open discussion among nations, especially U.S./China. We believe that there is little hope unless the two greatest economies and most powerful countries cooperate and lead. Charles Betterton is making it possible for the LEM to “move.”   Among American nongovernmental organizations and movements, none are in better position to work with Chinese than the process ones. We process folk are well-regarded in China and have the trust of the Chinese government. But none of the organizations I have mentioned, other than the IPDC, were in position to discuss how we could fulfill the responsibilities inherent in the situation.   A major obstacle to good communication seemed to be the success of American propaganda in portraying China as evil. The Living Earth Movement has written around fifteen short papers, mostly on topics on which China is vilified. They provide a more balanced account, and we are just now getting ready to go public with them. We now want to organize many interactions between Chinese and Americans. Fortunately, Pres. Xi has called for strengthening connections at many levels. Reports on the November Xi/Biden meetings in November in the Bay area suggest that the American government will be less opposed to reducing American hatred of China. The time may have come for us to help implement a possibility that may make a significant contribution to world peace.   We have asked Philip Clayton to take the lead in this project. He is already highly respected in China as well as in the United States. Greatly increasing conversation between Chinese and Americans would be a first step toward China and the United States taking joint responsibility for global leadership in the drastic changes needed for the survival of civilization. We stand ready to do what we can to help.   Finally, I rejoice not only that all of these organizations are engaged in important activities with excellent leadership and genuine sensitivity to the context in which they are acting, but also that they support each other when that is needed. There really is a process community, and I am only one contributor among many. Nevertheless, I claim it as my legacy and am glad that my passing will have little effect.   Meanwhile I wish each and all of you a Christmas and new year of hope and joy. John Cobb   Founder & Director Emeritus Center for Process Studies

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Short Shorts... Christian Sloganeering, Inspiration, Revelation, & Universalism

Short Shorts... Christian Sloganeering,

Inspiration, Revelation, & Universalism

kitcshe - examples of sloganeering

What is Kitsch?

Well, it's NOT the Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch... he's cool.

Art as Kitsch

It seems religious kitsch is everywhere on social media regardless the religion or faith. Here, I ask the question whether it is useful or not? Offensive? Helpful?

I suspect the answer lies in the eyes of the beholder as it would with any display of art...

...and also what the artist wishes to communicate to us about their faith or beliefs.

Some artistic kitsch I like... It may make me laugh, cry, be cynical, or be uplifted by it.

The ones displayed below I generally don't like though I realize they are telling us to be thoughtful of how Christian behavior to be loving, just and wise, and to emissaries of Jesus wherever we go.

On Parenting

In the case of raising and teaching little kids I'd like to see less abject brainwashing and more liberty for them to be directed to ask better questions when trained up in the household of their parents.

Children are innocent souls and if they are allowed, a bit of childhood respite from the wickedness of the world would be nice to be encouraged at all times.

And when approaching the subject of God as they grow older I think sets them up for good or for ill to be worked out the rest of their lives. Hence, a bit of caution to religious parents on the energy of their beliefs. Allow children to breathe a bit. Become themselves a bit. Simply watching you will be instruction enough when the time comes to verbalize wisdom and beliefs.

I love children and always wish to error towards love, patience, broad-mindedness, and good will. We each need wisdom when it comes to children... and with that wisdom we might learn ourselves and share it with those around us.

R.E. Slater

January 18, 20224

Defined

Dictionary

Definitions from Oxford Languages

kitsch /kiCH/ 

as a noun

art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.

• "the lava lamp is an example of sixties kitsch"

as an adjective

considered to be in poor taste but appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.

• "the front room is stuffed with kitsch knickknacks, little glass and gilt ornaments"

• a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition.

KITSCH

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• This article is about the art term. For other uses, see Kitsch (disambiguation).

• "Tacky" redirects here. For other uses, see Adhesive and Tacky (song).

Kitsch (/kɪtʃ/ KITCH; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal taste.

The modern avant garde traditionally opposed kitsch for its melodramatic tendencies, its superficial relationship with the human condition and its naturalistic standards of beauty. In the first half of the 20th century, kitsch was used in reference to mass-produced, pop-cultural products that lacked the conceptual depth of fine art. However, since the emergence of Pop Art in the 1950s, kitsch has taken on newfound highbrow appeal, often wielded in knowingly ironic, humorous or earnest manners.

To brand visual art as "kitsch" is often still pejorative, though not exclusively. Art deemed kitsch may be enjoyed in an entirely positive and sincere manner. For example, it carries the ability to be quaint or "quirky" without being offensive on the surface, as in the Dogs Playing Poker paintings.

Along with visual art, the quality of kitsch can be used to describe works of music, literature or any other creative medium. Kitsch relates to camp, as they both incorporate irony and extravagance.

* * * * * *

Christian Beliefs

 

I had two reactions to the pictures above and below...

First the con... however I read this bit of nonsense it's still crap. If religion isn't true and gets exposed by science than let's put faith to death immediately. But if religion can survive the true truths of the universe than just maybe its metaphysic might be true too. Never be afraid to autopsy your faith. We want a living faith... not one that is dead and fighting for its zombie-self to manipulate and control our agency! - re slater

Now the pro... as people of science-and-faith we are to live in the present, not flee from difficulties... especially as presented by religious zealots defending an idolatrized faith. If prophecy is in any sense alive today as I think it is, we stand up and tell (forthtell, NOT foretell) our generations it's goods and bads, pros and cons, about itself. We don't stand mum and hope to leave disruption. Esp against sin and evil whether birthed by a church gone bad or leaders turned rotten. - re slater

* * * * * *

Bench Pressing with Rance

Subject: Universalism

Ok, warning. A good many of my friends may not want to read this. And I admit I sound pretty self-righteous, but here goes....

Today, I met and talked with a pastor who serves a non-denominational church in Alabama who only a few months ago became a persuaded Christian universalist.

He, like me in a previous life, came from the ‘free grace’ movement (names like Charles Ryrie, Zane Hodges, Bob Wilkin, etc) and in fact his church was part of that movement. We both agreed that, despite its name, it is one of the most narrow and doctrinally legalistic theological groups around. In reality, ‘grace’ is reduced to an abstraction and salvation is reduced to something like a commercial transaction. Unless you get all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted in the ‘faith vs works b.s.,’ you’re probably not saved, according to them.

There are approximately 8.1 billion people living on earth right now. So your chances of ‘going to heaven’ (as they put it) are extremely thin. Billions of people will roast forever according to these wacko beliefs.

From my research there are somewhere between 3.9 and 7.7 million Evangelical Christians in the world. That’s a mere 4-7% of the world’s billions of people who ever end up in heaven. By the time the ‘grace movement’ people get through with their nitpicking, only a fraction of those who identify as Evangelicals will be saved. How crazy is this? Plenty, if you ask me.

Evangelicals believe they are the only religious people on earth who will be saved. In general, Catholics aren’t ’really saved.’ Liberal and progressive mainline Christians arent saved. And certainly those Orthodox and Coptic Christians aren’t either. Muslims, ditto. Hindus, ditto. Buddhists, ditto.

And it gets even more depressing still since most Evangelicals believe in a literal hell. This was one of the main reasons I departed from Evangelicalism. I could no longer tolerate this narrow view of the world informed by a legalistic narrow view of the gospel.

There’s no good news at all in this kind of Christianity. It’s 99% bad news. Who could begin to love a god who is willing to create children made in his own image only to condemn billions of them forever? Not me, thank you very much.

I was schooled in this stuff, brought up in a Southern Baptist context and then trained in fundamentalist colleges as a young man. But relatively speaking, it didn’t take me long to feel increasingly uncomfortable with such nonsense.

My deconstruction began nearly 40 years ago. I haven’t de-converted from Christian faith by any means, but after all these decades my faith looks very different now than it did back then.

As my new pastor friend told me today, ‘everything looks different now. I view people differently. I see God differently. And once I understood universal salvation, I saw it everywhere in the Bible.’

I had to agree.

- Rance, 1.17.2024

Comment 1

I think you hit this spot on Rance. Might I publish it on my site? As always, I'll add a few thoughts too. You're my hero! BTW, I left one church after 27 years as I had become tired of my fellowship's incessant judgmentalism of others-not-like-themselves.

I couldn't evangelize for God, or bring converts into the church, if the church wasn't going to provide them with a nourishing, enriching fellowship as vs some imagined legalistic interpretation as to what they thought was holy or not holy.

To this day connecting divine sovereignty to power and determinism curdles my stomach. Divine sovereignty is always about divine love working with creation towards blessed, redemptive ends. Not power. Not wrath. Not hell. Not Christian inquisitions.

Thx again. - re slater

Reply: Rance - "Of course, brother."

Comment 2

by RRW

Hi Rance. I don't think you sound so much self-righteous as misinformed. I read a lot of people saying things about "Evangelicals" that aren't necessarily and definitely not universally true. I tend to distinguish Evangelical from Fundamentalist, though I recognize considerable overlap in many areas of thought.

My theological education started around Fuller Seminary (progressive? non-denominational Evangelical) and was consolidated at Regent College (also non-denominational, and very ecumenically diverse) as an Anabaptist. I suppose I'm something like a free-will baptist now, but I've always been rather iconoclastic, rejecting every post-biblical human tradition and line of thinking I could identify. I am not dogmatic about much except insofar as I am committed to biblical revelation as exemplified by apostolic teaching as represented by the canonical texts of the Old and New Covenants.

Abandon biblical revelation and you are on your own. If we are all on our own as to what truth is we are no longer thinking and acting as followers of Christ. He is our Lord; what he said as remembered and recorded by those who knew him best must be what we believe or we have departed from faith in him. If we recreate God in our own image however we see fit we are no longer fit for eternal life with him.

Universalism is one of those ways people impose their own thinking on the gospel as received. The words of Jesus are a plain refutation of that belief; eg., separating the sheep from the goats simply can’t be ignored as irrelevant here. And there is a lot more you have to excise from scripture to make the case for God’s eventual inclusion of everyone as members of His family. Someone in the comments mentioned that universalism results in monism, or in other words a deterministic world view. God would have to coercively override the will of those he created with free will by forcing them to accept him as God.

At some point our doctrines, if they are derived from scripture, have to all be correlated and coherent, otherwise they are not reasonable. I think it is not only possible but necessary for Christian teaching to be reasonable and coherent. That doesn’t mean the same as “logical” because a logical system requires more than humans are capable of (too much to explain that here, but ask if you want clarification). I think the Bible provides a coherent structure of beliefs if we mere humans don’t force it into our own distorted ways of thinking, which are then inherently incoherent and contradictory whether we realize it or not. I think that eternal conscious torment (torture!) is not a biblical doctrine. The only reasonable alternative is something like conditional immortality, with the expectation that some form of conscious and appropriate (just!) punishment is what scripture teaches, and then comes the “second death” of annihilation (the cessation of conscious existence) for the unfaithful and unbelieving.

Scripture does not teach that humans are immortal because we are created in the image of God. In fact Genesis teaches that because we have rejected the will and commandments of God we have lost the potential for immortality. The Old Covenant says we lost immortality and the New Covenant says we can regain it through faith in and obedience to Christ. People do not have God’s Spirit dwelling in them by nature; believers in Christ receive new life through the gift of Holy Spirit. Believe the Good News and you will be saved.

Reply by Rance

Richard, I have been very careful to build my faith in ultimate reconciliation for all on the Bible. A good case can be made for it, I assure you. I don’t even know where to start but simply to say it is how one reads scripture. The number of texts that explicitly state it are amazing.

Reply by RWW

Is there not an inherent conflict in proposing that the Covenant can be regained "through faith in and obedience to Christ" and "Believe the Good News and you will be saved?"

Reply by re slater

I no longer can read the bible as a "one-time" revelation. I believe the only kind of communication God provides is one that is daily and constant.

When I read the bible I read how past cultures thought about God... especially the Jewish culture. Jesus did too and had to correct Second Temple Judaism's covenantal legalisms of the day.

I feel much the same way....

God is a God of love... NOT a God of wrath and hate. That's what we do to one another when failing to love one another and creation-around-us again.

Further, Jesus revealed this loving God he called Father not with a sword but with targeted teaching on divine love and Spirit enablement.

Today, Christianity may simply expand the doctrine of inspiration to discover God never stopped talking to our hearts, minds, and souls by study, fellowship, experience, and history. 

If you wish, we might describe these events as General Inspiration as versus Special Inspiration... but when reading the bible it seems to me that all is generally inspiration and never one-on-one audible discussion except in the Christ-event when God became man.

As corollary, this would mean that the Christian commentaries, stories, and bios we read are from people moved perhaps a bit, perhaps a lot, or not at all, by the Spirit of God. To discern whether their words are from God I ask myself if God's love is at the center of the conversation and in their works. If not, they may have some things to say but I then read such beliefs in a different light as more human than divine. Some of which may be really helpful and some of which is complete rubbish.

How people think of God and act out their faith tells us a lot about the God they believe in.

For myself, divine love displays itself in acts which are healthy, healing, and redemptive.

When I read of God by those who push protestations, defensive apologies claiming biblical authority, or are generally off-putting to those around them, I read of people trying to push their idea of God on others. An idea which may be either good or bad. But love must always be the outcome as it must be the beginning and middle of any conversation.

As to the doctrine of hell it is what we do to one another rather than a place a wrathful God puts you in. Always remember, God is not hell nor is fellowship with God through Christ anything but redemption working itself out through us. And for the unbeliever, pagan, or non-Christian (my preferred term) God will always be a God to them as well despite religion or belief.

So why teach hell?

Well, that's the question isn't it... if there is no hell as the bible says there is... or as its Jewish culture in the first century may have believed; ...and certainly in what the early, middle, and late Middle Age church taught after (Catholic?) Dante's description of hell in his Divine Comedy of Hell's Inferno (published c.1321)... then what do we do with hell?

For myself, it is how we act towards one another and to nature around us. It is a description of our relationship with one another individually, familiarly, societally, and globally. Relationships are not places there are esoteric. And the pain and torture of a soul rueing life and troubles aptly describes a soul burning under the sin and evil caused.

The only place I find resolvement is in Jesus Christ's and the hell he took upon himself for us as God's sacrificial Lamb. Who served as our Atonement and Redeemer by the force of his life and death and resurrection. For without the resurrection, says the Apostle Paul, Jesus' death would not be legitimate. But with Jesus' ascension and transfiguration as the first fruits of salvation, we may find in Jesus One who will take our past, forgive it, and begin healing those of us seeking forgiveness and transformation.

Next topic...

As a former fundamentalist and later conservative evangelical I have to call my faith out. I've leaned into my original Baptist roots into Arminianism (free will) and thrown out Calvinism (divine determinacy).

Then expanded the former to incorporate and Open and Relational Theology.

And finally, I've removed the church's Westernized (Greek Hellenism) bias towards doctrine and replaced it with Whitehead's process philosophy and Cobb's process theology.

Why?

• Because I can remove the limitations of Western philosophical theology upon church doctrines and traditions. It also allows me to freely use redactive tools upon the ancient biblical text to expand its godly content and to apply a loving divinity which is never absent of us.

• Which is also why divine inspiration and revelation are important. If kept as a one-time reveal than God has bound us as God has bound God's Self. But I don't think God works this way... an imminent, intimately-near-to-us-never-to-leave-us God is always speaking, revealing, and inspiring. Some get it, many don't. Some get a bit of it while others make a "mash" of it.

• When I read inspiring novels or fiction; see illuminating art pieces, paintings, and sculptures; hear the joy filling within a good rock opera or punk rock piece; or witness architects and landscapers weaving buildings and gardens around light and sound; I behold lively works of divine inspiration such as in the American Constitution with it's Bill of Rights. Public documents which give people liberty, personal rights, freedom, justice, and equality.

• God is present and is presently doing what he can when his creation yearns to speak, be, and breathe atoning redemption and transfiguring healing to all.

Hence, at the center of love is:

• humane and humanitarian forms of social justice;

• intersectional faiths (certainly non-Christian faiths don't have Christ but in Process thought we can emphasize a redemptive center); and generally,

• behave in progressively liberating norms of behavior with one another while abiding to love and covenantal integrity with one another.

Such thoughts never rests easily upon a Westernized conservative evangelicalism as its newer, postmodernal form of progressive evangelicalism can attest. But when uplifting Reformed and Evangelical doctrinnaire into Processual Theology's realms we may liberate bad ideas of God and judgment and recover the good news which is in Jesus anew. This, to me, is invaluable.

Lastly, if God is what evangelicalism says God is - whether Calvinistic or Arminian - than such a God is not worth following. And just like ancient man's ideas are always reforming the primal questions of purpose and destiny, so too those divinely driven burdens ask of God today to reveal a better Christ and more humane faith than in times past or present. Amen

Comment 3

By CM

I think people assume all forms of universal salvation are the same. The ultimate redemption that Brad Jersak, Chris Green and others put forward is one that has been in the historical church family all along. It includes judgement and "hell" but just sees these as penultimate not the final word. Can God's Love really fail? Will Jesus be all in all of will he not?

Reply by Rance - Exactly.