Sunday, June 15, 2025

A Processual Theology Proper, Part 3


Diagram by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

A Processual Theology Proper
PART 3

Sections 7-8

by R. E. Slater & ChatGPT


This post is a continuation of:

and


✦ Section 7: A Manifesto/Collective Declaration
for the Future of Faith

Ten Commitments for a Living, Processual Spirituality

This is not a creed nor do we write of a contract, but of a companion call and guide for all who wish to live in tune with the divine becoming of the universe. This call is for mystics and skeptics, pastors and poets, scientists and seekers - anyone whose heart beats with the rhythm of a cosmos unfinished and yet in the very act of being created by all that is within itself.

🌍 A New Theological Ethic: Ten Declarations

1. We affirm that God is relational, not remote.

God is not a distant monarch but the living presence within and beyond all things.
We encounter God not by escaping the world, but by participating in it.

2. We affirm that God’s power is persuasive, not coercive.

We reject theologies of divine violence or domination.
Love, not control, is the essence of divine strength.

3. We affirm that the future is open.

There is no fixed script. God works through freedom, possibility, and improvisation.
Each moment is sacred, because each moment co-creates the world.

4. We affirm that creation is alive and participatory.

The cosmos is not a dead machine but a network of becoming.
All things—from atoms to galaxies—respond to the divine lure toward value and beauty.

5. We affirm that Jesus reveals divine empathy, not divine wrath.

The cross is not a transaction of punishment, but the deepest expression of solidarity.
Resurrection is the renewal of relationship, not escape from the world.

6. We affirm that salvation is healing and transformation.

We are not rescued from creation, but invited to help renew it.
Redemption is not a moment; it is a movement toward deeper wholeness.

7. We affirm that justice means restoration, not retribution.

God’s justice does not seek to punish but to mend.
Reparative love is stronger than vengeance.

8. We affirm that divine knowledge/revelation is participatory, not totalitarian.

God knows all that is, and offers what could be - but does not impose what must be.
Divine knowledge is but revelation working salvation out.

9. We affirm that theology is provisional, poetic, and evolving.

No doctrine captures all truth.
But faith seeks understanding in humility, creativity, and love.

10. We affirm that hope is grounded in divine companionship.

Hope is not the certainty of outcome,
but the trust that God is with us in every process of becoming.

🕊 The Call Forward
a process poem

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT


We are not the last word,
but we are God's living words -
spoken into time
spoken into action
with freedom,
and trembling joy.
Let us listen, let us feel,
for the divine call in our hearts -
let us respond with courage
and co-create worlds into being,
worlds that sing
justice, tenderness, wonder.


Diagram by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

✨ Liturgical Affirmation
For community or private recitation

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Leader:
We believe not in a God who stands above us,
but in a God who walks with us.

People:
We trust the God who feels, who listens, who responds.

Leader:
We believe not in fixed futures,
but in the divine call to co-create.

People:
We trust the lure of love that whispers in each moment.

Leader:
We believe not in rigid doctrines,
but in unfolding beauty.

People:
We walk the way of becoming,
with courage and grace.

All:
For God is not the end -
but the companion in all new beginnings.


🕊 Benediction: A Blessing for the Becoming

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

May the God who dreams in spectra-color
bless your steps with surprise.

May the God who weeps beside you
fill your pain with presence.

May the God who calls stars by name
speak to the smallest seeds of hope in you.

And may you go forward
not in certainty but in wonder.

Not with every answer
but in deep trust and faith in God.

For the world is not yet finished
And neither are you.

Amen.


✦ Section 8: Afterword:
The God Who Becomes With Us

The Divine Presence in Every Moment of Becoming

This manifesto is not the end of theology. It is a beginning. It is a call to live with God not as an abstraction, but as a companion presence, unfolding with creation, with humanity, in real time.

In classical theology, God is often defined in terms of being: the Supreme Being, perfect and complete.

But in process theology, God is more than a fixed being - God is becoming. Not becoming better, but becoming with, in co-creatorship with creation.

God’s glory is not untouched or unfeeling transcendence. It is relational presence in every process of love, creativity, justice, and renewal.

🌿 Incarnation Reimagined

In Jesus, we do not see a divine exception.
We see a divine expression—of what God has always been doing:

  • Entering the world,

  • Suffering with it,

  • Healing it through love,

  • And rising not above creation, but through it.

Christ reveals a truth that has always been true:

God is the one who journeys with us, who suffers what we suffer, who lures all things toward life.

🌌 God in the Everyday

We need not wait for miracles to find the divine. The divine is everywhere about us making all things miraculous.

And upon each moment - each heartbeat, each breath, each choice - carries the pulse of the divine invitation to co-create in love, beauty and valuative truth.

God is not only in sanctuaries and Scriptures, but in:

  • A word of kindness exchanged in grief,

  • A gesture of resistance in the face of injustice,

  • A shared meal, a newborn’s cry, a dying breath.

God is not the God of thunder, but the God of whisper.
Not the unmoved mover, but the ever-moved presence.

🕊 The God Who Becomes With Us
a process poem

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT


God is not a God of rigid systems -
    or theological battlements.

God is a God of flowing rivers -
    of growing trees,
    of aching hearts,
    of new songs sung at dusk and again at dawn.

This is the God of process—
    Who is not behind us, pushing,
    nor ahead of us, pulling,
    but beside us,
    always becoming with, going with, present with.

We are not called to defend God
    but we are called to co-create with God.

We are not here to master theology
    but we are here to midwife beauty.

We are not saved by belief alone
   but we are saved in our response
    to lure of love again and again and again.

For the future of God is not settled
    it is still becoming... and so are we....


Chart by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT



Return to "A Processual Theology Proper, Part 1," Sections 1-3
or
Return to "A Processual Theology Proper, Part 2," Sections 4-6


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