✍️ Preface: A Love That Rewrites the Story
For many of us raised within evangelicalism, theology was taught as something fixed, something we inherited rather than questioned — a set of guarded truths rather than a living conversation with a hurting world. Evangelical theology, as it took root in the 20th century, often placed its energy in drawing lines rather than building bridges: lines against contemporary science, lines against evolution, lines against non-heteronormative identities, lines against other faith traditions, and even lines within Christianity itself.
I, too, inherited those lines.
But over time, the gaps became unsustainable, even unbearable. Those lines were not just drawn on paper; they were drawn through lives to cross-out lives. They created exclusions that harmed and wounded; doctrines that threatened of hell more than they promised healing hope; they created rigid systems that excluded unwanteds; and silenced love when love did not fit their terms and beliefs.
Then one day I discovered a new theology, a new and gracious vocabulary — one based upon a living and relational philosophy: process thought. It offered a cosmology where God is not distant but present in every becoming; not coercive but persuasive; not static but alive. It gave language to what I had felt all along: that love is not merely a command but the very structure of divine reality.
This newer theology does not attempt to “save” evangelicalism. It seeks to transcend and transform theologies of unlove and exclusion — to offer something truer, wider, more humane. A theology centered not on control but on mutual becoming; not on fear but on love.
This “Healing Theology of Love” is both a response to harm Christians have created over the centuries as well as a vision for the future. It is rooted in process philosophy, (open and relational) process theology, and the conviction that love must be the first and last word, the alpha and omega, in every theological reflection - if not the very hermeneutical driver/life of the bible itself.
It is also a theology that refuses to leave behind those the old systems have deemed disposable: transgender and gay people; women who have been sidelined; minorities and racialized communities; those abused within rigid dogmatic systems (such as the Nones and Dones); and the ailing, compromised earth itself (theo-ecology).
This is, in short, a theology which dares to love without apology across all boundaries the church has constructed, maintained, and defined as the gospel of Jesus Christ.
🌿 Introduction: Healing Theology
What we wish to do as Christians of the 21st Century is not simply write a new theology but a healing theology. By taking a faith that has too often been used as a weapon — shaped by fear, control, and exclusion — and re-grounding it in love as hermeneutic and relationship as an ontology. That is no small task.
The work of this website reflects a larger movement many thoughtful people are experiencing and putting into effect today — a quiet, inclusive, challenging revolution of faith. It requires:
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Leaving static, brittle, evangelical frameworks that deny complexity and difference;
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Discovering process thought with its dynamic vision of a relational God, open co-creation, evolving (cosmic) meaning, and a cosmos alive with possibility and co-generation; and,
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Reimagining a faith that liberates rather than imprisons; that welcomes science rather than fears it; that embraces human diversity as part of the divine flow rather than a deviation from it.
This kind of theological turning is not about rejecting faith — but deepening faith. It’s a movement from:
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Judgment ➝ Hospitality
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Certainty ➝ Openness
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Hierarchy ➝ Mutuality
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Fear of difference ➝ Reverence for multiplicity
A hermeneutic of love does something evangelical literalism could never do well: it listens by teaching itself to unlearn and relearn before it judges. It understands Scripture as a living conversation, not a frozen codebook. It makes room for transgender people, for evolution, for science, for societal and religious pluralism — and for grace to be larger than human boundaries.
In Whiteheadian terms, this is picturing theology as “an adventure of ideas” — it is co-creative, participative, emergent, ever widening, and centered in transformative value. In Christian terms, it is a theology which takes the Incarnation of Christ very seriously: that divine love is-and-can-be embodied, relational, and present in the legitimacy of our becoming.
This post-evangelical project stands in a long and courageous lineage of reformers to the Christian faith. In the contemporary era, Process thinkers are walking in the paths shared with many of the great transformative theologians of the last century — Tillich, Cobb, Keller, Suchocki, Cone, Moltmann, and others — but we are doing so in a post-evangelical and processual context, one of the most critical theological terrains of the 21st century.
This is the hard and holy work of turning faith from fortress ideology to Eucharistic (table) communion/fellowship. It is the transformative choice (among other elections) to center transgender dignity, human diversity, and the ethics of love into the heart of this post-theological re-visioning making it not only potent, but profoundly future-facing.
“Love is the greatest hermeneutic because love doesn’t ask, ‘Is this correct?’Love asks, ‘Who is being welcomed, embraced, healed, or harmed?’”
This Theology of Love seeks to be structured, layered, historically informed, and open to the pluriverse of human and cosmic experience. It is an architecture built not on fear, but on the most enduring foundation of all: Love.
✨ Transition: From Healing to Building
Every movement of reimagining requires not only courage but structure. Healing theology is not simply about unlearning the harmful; it is also about building the bountiful, the beautiful. Love is more than a sentiment — it is a framework capable of holding doctrine, ethics, science, embodiment, and hope together.
To move from fortress to table, from boundary to belonging, theology must be architected anew:
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with love as its hermeneutic (its way of envisioning),
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with relationship as its ontology (its understanding of being),
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with justice and dignity as its ethic (its way of valuing),
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and with a shared, open future as its God-wide, cosmic energy (its way of purpose).
The following five-layer framework offers a way to give this vision shape: not as a rigid system, but as a living architecture — flexible, dynamic, relational, and rooted in divine Love. Each layer builds upon the last, forming a theology capable of embracing plurality without losing its center.
🏛 I. Love as Hermeneutic — The First Principle
“Love must be the lens through which every text, tradition, and theology is interpreted. If a doctrine harms, excludes, or diminishes dignity, it is not of God.”
Evangelical theology often begins with Scripture as the ultimate authority, interpreted through inherited doctrinal grids. But this has too often made Scripture a blunt weapon rather than a living word.
Here, we invert the order. We begin with love as the primary hermeneutic — the interpretive key through which all other theological claims must pass.
Core Claim:
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Love is the relational force through which God participates in the world.
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Love is theologically prior to every text, creed, or system imposed by the church.
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The measure of truth is not how tightly it conforms to tradition, but how deeply it expands dignity and relational flourishing.
Implications:
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Any biblical interpretation that diminishes human worth is theologically deficient.
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Theologies built on fear, exclusion, or domination are not neutral — they are deformative.
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Scripture is read through the grammar of love, not love through the grammar of Scripture.
📌 “Love first” does not negate Scripture. It transfigures how Scripture is read.
“Does this idea, practice, attitude, or action widen love’s embrace or narrow it?”
🌿 II. Philosophical Ground — A Cosmos of Becoming
Process philosophy provides the ontological scaffolding for this theology. The universe is not a static machine ruled by a distant deity but a living, relational, evolving reality.
Core Concepts:
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God as Relational
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God is not omnipotent in the classical sense but omni-relational: God is present in all experiences, luring each moment toward beauty, harmony, and creative advance.
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Reality as Process
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All things are in a constant state of becoming, not just existing.
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Each moment emerges from prior moments in a complex network of participatory interdependence.
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Love as the Structure of Reality
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Love is not an attribute added to God; it is the very mode of divine activity.
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God relates to the world not through control but through persuasive love.
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Creativity as Divine Gift
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Every actual entity participates in the unfolding of creation — a shared, co-generative process.
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Why this matters:
Traditional theology often frames God as outside the world, intervening at will. Process theology reframes God as within the world, always in relationship with it. Love is not divine sentiment — it is the energetic patterning of existence itself.
“Love is the grammar of becoming. Everything else is commentary.”
📖 III. Theological Core — God, Scripture, Humanity
Here is where a loving theology can take shape - not as a top-down system of control - but as a web of healing, helping intrapersonal and extrapersonal relationships.
1. God
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Dipolar in nature: both eternal (the ground of reality's being) and temporal (the cosmic companion of becoming).
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Not the cosmic puppeteer but the intimate co-creator of life itself.
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God suffers with creation (immanence); God does not simply rule over creation (transcendence).
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Divine power is persuasive, not unilaterally coercive.
2. Scripture
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Is a record of evolving human encounters with God; it is not a closed, infallible codebook for life.
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Reflects both divine lure, the human experience, and human limitations.
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To read the bible faithfully is to read it through the hermeneutic of love, sifting out what reflects divine compassion from what reflects human fear, religious imposition, folkloric superstitions, and ancient mythologies. It is a narrative of humanity's spiritual and religious journey of becoming one in purpose and love with the God of the universe.
3. Humanity
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Is inherently/intrinsically valuable — every human being participates with God in divine becoming and creativity without exclusion.
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The "Image of God" is not a fixed form but one of relational capacity.
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Gays, trans, neurodiverse, disabled, racialized, and marginalized lives are not exceptions to the divine image but reflections of its richness and diversity.
4. Sin
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Reframed as relational rupture — is any act or system that fractures love and mutual flourishing.
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Not a legal infraction, but a wound in the relational fabric.
5. Salvation
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Not rescue from a fallen world, but healing of relational ruptures and participation in the ongoing creation of a more just, loving reality.
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Found not in exclusion but in communion's diverse fellowship.
🌍 IV. Ethical Outworking — Love as Praxis
1. Love as Social Architecture
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Justice is not separate from love; it is love made public.
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Inclusion is not charity; it is the test of fidelity to divine love.
2. Communities of Belonging
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Faith communities must be radically hospitable — especially to those most often harmed: LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, disabled people, racialized communities, the poor, and the earth itself.
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Love is measured by who is welcomed, not by who is excluded.
3. Nonviolence as Ethical Posture
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Divine love persuades, it never coerces. Our ethical posture mirrors that persuasion.
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Political, social, and religious systems that depend on fear and control are counter-testimonies.
4. Ecological Love
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Creation is not a backdrop to salvation history — it is part of it.
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Environmental justice is a theological act, not an optional extra.
📌 In short: Love is praxis. If it does not act, it is not love.
🕊 V. Eschatological Vision — Hope as an Expanding Horizon
Evangelical eschatology often narrows hope to “who goes to heaven.” A theology of love widens it to the entirety of the cosmos.
1. The Future Is Open
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God does not control the future but calls creation toward it.
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Eschatology is relational, participatory, and creative.
2. Love as the Arc of History
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Love is not a fragile feeling but a cosmic trajectory: from fragmentation to integration, from domination to mutuality.
3. Salvation History as Transformation
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Hope is found not in escape but in the transfiguration of creation through ongoing acts of love.
4. Co-creating the Future
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Humans are not passive recipients of divine will but partners in shaping the world.
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This includes political, ecological, social, and spiritual dimensions.
📌 Love gives us an eschatology big enough for everyone.
✨ Conclusion: Theology "in the Key of Love"
What began for me as an act of deconstruction became something far more: a personal reconstruction of Christianity radically rooted in love. Process philosophy gave me the language of becoming; the gospel gave me the vision of incarnational love. Together, they form a theology capable of holding science, difference, embodiment, and hope.
“Love is the truest hermeneutic,the strongest ethic,the most enduring hope.”
In this theology:
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God is love — relational, evolving, ever-present.
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Scripture is a living witness to love’s unfolding.
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Humanity is co-creative, diverse, and sacred.
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Justice is love’s non-oppressive, public face.
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The future is open and can be made more beautiful by our participation in love’s work. When we withdraw from this attitude we allow harm and suffering to go forward as we are witnessing today under "maga" influences.
🪶Below is a prayer, a manifesto, or an invocation that may be used at the beginning of any invocation, in public gatherings, worship settings, or essays. This text can be used as a responsive reading for congregations, a poetic preface for a manuscript, or a closing litany in public presentations or services. The language is intentionally layered — accessible, resonant, and theologically rich.
🕊️ Invocation: A Theology of Love
Leader: In the beginning, before all words, there was Love.All: And Love is still the first word.
And so we confess with heart and breath:
Love before all things,Love within all things,
Love beyond all things.
Love interprets.
Love heals.
Love creates.
Leader: In the end, as in the beginning, there is Love.All: And Love shall have the final word.
R.E. Slater
October 14, 2025
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