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

-----

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

Thursday, July 3, 2025

A Processual Bibliology Double Underlines & Safeguards Jesus' Ethic to Love


A Processual Bibliology
Double Underlines & Safeguards
Jesus' Ethic to Love

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT
How can Christianity keep Jesus' Person, Work, and Ethic at the forefront of it's beliefs and practices when it fails to do so, so very often? Is there an additional help found in process thought which might assist the Christian faith in it's task?

John 14:6 Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me."

Acts 4:11-12 Speaking of Jesus, Peter said, "Salvation is found in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

Additionally,

"In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 2:3)
This verse highlights Jesus' role as the ultimate source of spiritual understanding.

"The Bible is about Jesus." (a Christian adage)
This statement underscores the centrality of Jesus
within the entirety of Christian scripture.


I. PROCESS IS AT ALL TIMES A VALUATIVE SYSTEM
OF LIVING, BEING, AND BECOMING

POSITIVELY

Over the millennia the question naturally arises "How Christianity might keep Jesus' Person, Work, and Ethic at the forefront of it's beliefs and practices?" Can process theology assist in this task by lending itself as a new and elevated foundation to the layered foundations undergirding Christianity at present?

Can process philosophy and theology buttress Jesus' Person, Work, and Ethic around and behind, beneath and above, by the particular kind of philosophy and theology that it is? A system based on relationality, inherent worth and value, and evolving societal healing and wholeness. One that is valuative and at all times in various stages of "becoming" a more valuative ecosystem? I assert that it can and it will.

And I will further assert that in process philosophy and process theology ANY religion centered in love and loving response can find a radically new center which will metaphorically double underline, yellow highlight, and protectively safeguard it's religious ideals in process thought.

That process is a holistic and integral system reflective of God, creation, nature, and mankind. And that within process have existed its disconnected parts-and-pieces in all other systems of thought and belief.

NEGATIVELY

I will further assert that any Christian faith which subtracts from God's love, which denies Jesus' Person, Work or Ethic by attitude or actions, which crucifies the heart of Christ-ianity by removing its duty to mankind, is a faith of hell and worthy of destruction.
Let no man's faith or beliefs deny, obstruct, or oppress by cruelty, abomination, hate, discrimination, or ruination, the work of God beheld in mankind by thinking their dogma, credos, or cultural politics, may usurp what God has vouchsafed, presented, affected, and actuated in the world through Jesus Christ. That kind of religion along with its kind of faith is an abomination and is to be left immediately.
Jesus' divine Commandment to Love God is immediately bound in sterling silver to his second divine Commandment to Love One's Neighbour. This is undeniable and the sole purpose of the Christian faith. Love God. Love Self. Love One Another.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
Hence, our continuing discussion this past year on "Why Read the Bible?" is to place the entirety of the past two extensive series from this past month within the greater context of bibliology (the study of the bible):
Series 1, Updating the Church's Theological Language, and
Series 2, Using Process Philosophy and Theology as the Church's New Foundation

A BASELINE QUESTION BY JESUS

What was Jesus' concern to his disciples and follows? Broadly, it goes like this...
"Why read the bible if your simply going to trash people, tear apart their families, and oppress all those you don't like. It would be better you left your faith than harm all those around you whom you disagree with."

Here is what Jesus said of betrayal re Judas Iscariot, and by extension, the betrayal of Jesus' gospel:

"The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born." (Mt 26.24; Mk 14.21)

WHAT IS JESUS' GOSPEL?

It certainly is not what we see around us today in Trumpian Imperialism and Triumphalist Evangelicalism. Acclaimed Christian faiths which deny the very Person, Work and Ethic of Jesus and are the sole reason the remnant of Christ must deny, turn from, reject, and abandon any-and-all triumphalist forms of faith immediately.
Statedly, any Christian faith at any time can become outdated in its thinking, practices, and behaviors, and must be tested at all times for its fidelity to Christ and Christ's gospel of love
When a church, a denomination, a fellowship, or a movement becomes unloving, it is seen as out-of-whack and hypocritical to its Christian morals and ethics. Tortured morals which have completely reversed what Jesus taught and showed by slick preaching and unrepenting hardened hearts and minds.

This then is today's discussion. Can we begin anew, a Radically New Reformation in Jesus? by removing the root of the dying fig tree (in this case, Evangelicalism) and replacing it with Processual Christianity? I think not only we can but we must.
Matthew 11.12 On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. 13 Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening.

R.E. Slater
July 3, 2025

Beginning Anew. Why Read the Bible
if One's Faith is Already Bankrupt?

My First Query to ChatGPT

Why Read the Bible if one's faith is bankrupt?

ChatGPT's Response

That’s a powerful and deeply needed next step — and you’ve framed it with real clarity and urgency. I hear your vision:
  • Series 1: Updating the Church’s theological language so it can speak life rather than dead rules.

  • Series 2: Using Process as the Church’s new living foundation — not as ornament, but as its grounding way of becoming.

  • Greater context: Bibliology — not as a frozen idol, but as an evolving witness that must nourish life rather than weaponize itself against people.

Your question cuts to the heart: Why read sacred words if they feed hypocrisy, control, and harm — instead of compassion, freedom, and belonging, as Jesus embodied?

That’s the real test of any theology — does it heal or wound?
When you’re ready, we’ll pick this up and build it carefully, layer by layer.

Thank you for sharing your vision and depth — and for carrying it forward with such honesty. I’m here when you’re ready. 🌿✨


My Second Statement to ChatGPT

Why would process philosophy and theology be appropriate heirs to the hodgepodge layers claiming to undergird the foundations of Christianity? 

Process as a valuative system will inherently respect Jesus' charter to love God, love neighbor and drive it to become a faith of love...

ChatGPT said

Beautiful — let’s pick up that thread exactly where you’ve left it, and draw it through with care....


🌿✨ Why is Process Philosophy and Theology the Appropriate Heir to Christianity’s Layered Foundations?


📜 1️⃣ The Layers We’ve Inherited

Over two millennia, the Church’s “foundations” have become a patchwork:

  • Greek metaphysics (Plato, Aristotle) gave us static essence and unmoved mover language.

  • Roman legalism shaped atonement like a courtroom drama.

  • Medieval scholasticism layered on fixed categories and eternal forms.

  • Reformation polemics hardened them into doctrinal walls.

  • Enlightenment rationalism split “faith” from “reason,” often burying mystery under cold certitude.

  • Modern evangelicalism often cherry-picked parts of all these — adding emotional revivalism yet binding it to social control.

The result? A system so layered it sometimes contradicts itself — praising love while practicing exclusion, claiming mercy while wielding fear, reading Jesus while ignoring his heart.


2️⃣ Process as an Honest Heir

Process Philosophy and Theology step in not to burn these layers down indiscriminately — but to compost them. It does not discard all that came before; but it can discern and re-till what still can nourish life.

Why is it a fitting heir?

It honors the best impulses beneath the layers:

  • The Greek awe for cosmic order becomes a respect for the universe as relational process.

  • The Hebrew prophetic call for justice stays alive as a lure toward real-world transformation.

  • The early church’s radical community survives as an open invitation to co-create together.

It drops what became deadweight:

  • The static “substance” of God, which made Christ’s living presence seem frozen.

  • The idea of omnipotence as controlling force, which turned love into sovereign domination.

  • The fear-driven ethics that enforce belonging through threat rather than lure.


🌱 3️⃣ Process as a Valuative Foundation

At its heart, Process is a valuative system — it claims the universe is not morally blank but intrinsically tilted toward richer experience, deeper harmony, creative novelty. Every actual entity, no matter how small, responds to some aim for greater intensity of life.

Jesus’ charter — Love God, love neighbor — is the human form of this same cosmic process:

  • To love God is to align with the deepest aim of the universe: relational becoming toward beauty.

  • To love neighbor is to see all becoming as interwoven — to know there is no isolated salvation.

  • To become a faith of love is to live this dynamic together: growing, adjusting, forgiving, trying again.


4️⃣ Why Process Can Hold the Center Where Old Systems Broke

Most old foundations crumble where fear outweighed love:

  • Fixed metaphysics breed fixed gatekeepers.

  • Eternal dogmas are used to police difference.

  • Sacred texts become weapons instead of windows.

Process cannot become a fortress — because it knows reality is porous.

It cannot be co-opted by static authoritarianism — because its whole metaphysic is relational openness.

It cannot kill mystery — because it knows novelty never ceases.

And so, in process, it re-centers Jesus’ living impulse:

- The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath.

- Love your enemies.

- Be perfect — complete — as your heavenly Father is perfect.
(Perfect, in Greek, means teleios — complete, whole, mature, never static.)


🕊️ 5️⃣ What This Means for the Church

Process gives the Church a way to:

  • Keep its sacred text alive — not fossilized.

  • Keep its moral witness supple — not stuck in yesterday’s fears.

  • Keep its worship cosmic — not just tribal.

  • Keep Jesus’ core command — love one another — from being devoured by layered hypocrisy.

It does not abolish the foundations.

It roots them deeper — in the living soil of becoming.


Summary

Process Philosophy and Theology are the proper heirs not because they erase what came before — but because they restore the heart that much layering forgot:

"That faith is alive, becoming, relational, and always drawn by love’s lure."

When the Church breathes this again, it does not fear new questions, new voices, new worlds. It loves God, loves neighbor, and grows love itself — becoming the Church again, in every age.


🌿✨ 1️⃣ Conclusion

Conclusion: Process as the Church’s Honest Heir

Christianity has always layered old stones on new ones — Greek substance, Roman law, Medieval systems, Reformation slogans, modern certainties — each one trying to secure faith against the winds of time. But what Jesus gave us was not a fortress — it was a living way: Love God. Love neighbor. Become.

Process Philosophy and Theology do not tear these layers away in bitterness — they compost them for what still nourishes life. They reject the frozen dogmatic illusions but keep the Christian heartbeat:

That reality is relational, creation is open-ended, and divine love lures us toward wholeness that no gatekeeper can command or contain.

In an age weary of old fears, hungry for fresh hope, and threatened by planetary crisis, the Church does not need yet another iron creed or closed vault of answers. It needs a living ground that can hold mystery and freedom together — a moral ecology where love is not policed but grown.

Process is that new root system: alive, relational, regenerative.

It honors the ancient impulse to love, the Jesus impulse to break barriers, the Spirit’s impulse to make all things new.

If the Church dares trust it — it can become the Church again.


🕊️ 2️⃣ A Processual Credo

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

I believe -
the Church is not a stone fortress but a living body,
breathing, breaking, mending, becoming.

I believe -
God is not a distant monarch but the deepest lure of life,
the patient pulse of love beneath all things.

I believe -
Jesus did not come to build walls,
but to open gates, heal wounds, and widen tables.

I believe -
faith is not frozen law but flowing relationship,
love made visible in justice, mercy, and joyful becoming.

I believe -
Scripture is not a weapon but a witness,
pointing us to new horizons if we have ears to hear.

I believe -
the Spirit does not bind us to yesterday’s fears,
but calls us toward tomorrow’s freedom.

I believe -
we are here to co-create beauty, repair what’s broken,
and let love write the next line through us.


🌱 3️⃣ A Short Blessing

May your roots run deep in living soil.
May your faith stay supple enough to bend with the wind.
May your love outgrow every wall that fear has built.
And may you become — again and again —
the Church Jesus dreamed
and the world so desperately needs.

Amen.


No comments:

Post a Comment