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, September 7, 2025

SOAP 20/21 - Breaking Cycles (Lk 6.27-35)

 

SOAP 20/21
Breaking Cycles
Luke 6.27-35

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT 5

For the next 21 days, let's commit to feeding yourself spiritually by reading and reflecting on a passage of Scripture each day using the S.O.A.P. method (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer). Keep a brief daily note of what you learn and how you might apply it, and at the end of the 21 days, share your biggest takeaway with someone else. 

Breaking Cycles
Luke 6.27-35
The Hardest Command
Jesus’ words here overturn natural instincts: love enemies, bless haters, give without expecting return. This is not mere moralism but the radical shape of God’s mercy. Luke’s Sermon on the Plain calls disciples into an ethic that resists cycles of violence and retaliation, embodying the generosity of the Father who is kind to the ungrateful and evil.


Luke 6.27-35 (ESV)

27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and to the one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
32 If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

Greek Word Study

  • ἀγαπᾶτε (agapate) – “love” (v. 27). Not affection, but self-giving, unconditional goodwill.
  • εὐλογεῖτε (eulogeite) – “bless” (v. 28). Speak well, confer goodness on others.
  • ὑβριζόντων (hybrizontōn) – “abuse” (v. 28). Insult, mistreat, humiliate.
  • χαρίζεσθε (charizesthe) – “give/grant” (v. 30). Rooted in charis, grace - generosity that mirrors divine grace.
  • οἰκτίρμων (oiktirmōn) – “merciful/compassionate” (v. 36, continuation). Deep empathy; God’s defining trait.


Historical Situation

Luke writes to a diverse Greco-Roman audience where honor and reciprocity defined social ethics: you love those who benefit you, curse those who dishonor you. Jesus’ teaching dismantles this economy of exchange. Instead of vengeance or patronage, disciples are called to mirror the mercy of God, who gives freely even to the ungrateful and unjust without expecting back.


Observation through Three Lenses

1. Traditional (Catholic / Orthodox / Protestant Mainstream)

Tradition hears this as the summit of Christian virtue: the perfection of caritas (charity) modeled after Christ. Patristic interpreters linked it to martyrdom - the willingness to suffer wrong without retaliation. Monastic life, liturgy, and sacraments train believers into this radical charity. Yet in practice, Tradition has often failed here, justifying crusades, inquisitions, or violence and oppression upon Christians and non-Christians alike in the name of God. The command is honored in theology but frequently betrayed in history.

2. Evangelical (Conservative Protestant)

Evangelicals read this as evidence of genuine conversion: only a Spirit-filled disciple can love enemies. It becomes both a radical ethical call and a test of authentic salvation. The focus is often on personal obedience: forgiving offenders, serving the undeserving, living counter-culturally. Yet, in practice, Evangelical communities often mute this command when it clashes with Christian nationalism, self-defense, or culture-war rhetoric within blended or pluralistic federated communities. The ethic becomes aspirational but as well, compromised.

3. Process Theological (Relational, Whiteheadian)

Process theology sees this teaching as the logic of relational love applied to enemies. The enemy is still part of the relational web, still a participant in God’s becoming. To retaliate violently only deepens cycles of destruction; to love, bless, and give without demand disrupts those cycles and opens space for creative transformation.

Love of enemies is not passive submission but the radical act of reimagining relationship, aligning with God’s persuasive power of love rather than the forcible power of coercion which readily marks empire. Here, Jesus unmasks empire attitudes and behaviors (power, retaliation, honor) and replaces it with God’s attitude and behavior of grace, mercy and peace.


Application through Three Lenses

1. Traditional

Am I cultivating virtue through prayer, sacrament, and discipline, so that when hatred or insult comes, I can answer with blessing?

2. Evangelical

Do I live out my faith in tangible obedience, loving even those who mistreat me? This passage challenges me to prove my discipleship not by words but by costly love.

3. Process Theological

Do I allow God’s lure of love to reframe how I respond to hostility? This passage heals by showing that love of enemies is not impossible idealism, but the only path that interrupts cycles of harm and co-creates peace.


Prayer

God of mercy,

Your love extends even to enemies and the ungrateful. Teach us to break free from cycles of retaliation. Give us courage to bless where we are cursed, to give where we are wronged, and to love where we are hated. Let our lives reflect Your mercy, who is kind to all, and whose kingdom is built on love without limits.

Amen


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