Ten Beliefs Separating Evangelicals from Process Theology

Ten Beliefs Separating Evangelicals

from Process Theology

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Benediction: Christ is not the end of the road, but the invitation to the divine journey. The Bible is not the lockbox of certainty, but the map of love. God is not behind us in the heavens, but beside us in becoming. Amen.

 

Rethinking evangelicalism's God processually comes with the removal of traditionalism's Greek Platonic doctrines and aligning with how creation actually works processually from God to world, from processes to salvation. - re slater

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Today I would like to share ten beliefs which separate evangelicals from adopting Process Theology. Now relizedly, a biblical literalist can adopt parts-and-pieces of process theology into their fundamental/evangelical heritage... as a current worshipper in evangelical churches I hear it all the time. But because of reading the bible literally a process theology is limited and deformed in its character and must be released from literalism if it is to soar.

Recently I have written a number of articles against biblical literalism to prepare for this discussion. These may be found and read here:

Index - How to Read the Bible Processually

How Biblical Literalism Adversely Affects Doctrine and Dogma

Below I will expand how to read the bible in a non-literal manner by:

i) using modern and postmodern critical-historical research tools and,

ii) by learning Whitehead's process philosophy from which process theology derives;

iii) if done, i and ii will be an asset to any contemporary Christian faith and not a detriment.

II

Now, because of mine own experience of leaving my deeply ingrained fundamental/evangelical Baptist heritage-and-faith which was steeped in dispensational, Calvinistic dogma, the following two mantras will also help the new process traveller along their existential faith journey:

#1 - First Learn to unlearn in order to relearn...

This means each biblical literalist must be willing to deconstruct their personal beliefs before reconstructing the same. This path of self-undoing took me a little over 17-36 months before I attempted any kind of faith reconstruction. I simply was content to travel through a "non-faith" period in my life - but not in God, but in my former beliefs. As an aside, this deconstructive period can be found in the early years of this blogsite after God released me to speak again (see the calendar section on the right hand column).

Further, when rebuilding my Christian faith, I was fortunate to have been Spirit-led towards Process-based thinking which I knew nothing of at the time and which took nearly six years to fully grasp. The odd thing was, that because of my earlier wilderness journey of lostness, that when God released me from that black night of my soul I knew exactly where I was going even though I didn't know how to get there or what to look for. Even today this Spirit-vision rest strongly upon my soul as I write.

#2 - Be willing to be led by uncertainty and doubt

By allowing one's mind and heart to be led by uncertainty and doubt it opens up paths of curiosity which lead away from closed-ended thinking. I found this to be a plus and really not that hard to do because I had learn this habit through my education in literature, science, and the arts.

Quotes

• "Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophical thought has done its best, the wonder remains." - A.N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World.

• For Whitehead (1861-1947), the enduring presence of mystery — not the achievement of certainty — is the hallmark of true inquiry.

• “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.” - by Theologian Paul Tillich (1886–1965), The Dynamics of Faith.

• Tillich makes a powerful claim that faith includes doubt as part of its living structure.

• “Let your questions lead you. Trust that uncertainty is not the absence of truth, but the beginning of wisdom.” - paraphrase of Whitehead, Tillich, and Rilke.

• Translated: "To be faithful in a process world is to walk with doubt, not away from it."

• “To live with wisdom in a world that is always becoming, is to walk not by certainty, but by the lure of what might yet be. Let uncertainty guide you, for only in its shadow does truth unfold.” - A.N. Whitehead, process philosopher

• Whitehead's statement reflects his several metaphysical themes:
• Reality is in process (becoming),
• Truth is not fixed but lured into novelty,
• Faithfulness means responding to uncertainty creatively.

• “Faith in a living God is not certainty of the past, but trust in the creative advance. Be led, not by what is proven, but by what is possible.” - R.E. Slater

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📜 Proposed Structure: Ten Beliefs Separating Evangelicals from Process Theology

1. God’s Power Redefined – The rejection of omnipotence

2. The Rejection of Classical Theism – No unmoved mover, no immutable God

3. Scripture as Process, Not Propositional Truth – Evolving revelation vs. inerrancy

4. Sin, Sovereignty, and Free Will – Moral responsibility in a non-coercive cosmos

5. The Cross Reimagined – No penal substitutionary atonement

6. God’s Foreknowledge and the Future – Open theism goes further

7. Miracles and the Supernatural – Persuasion over intervention

8. Salvation as Relational Becoming – No “once saved always saved”

9. Biblical Authority Challenged – The Bible as human-divine process, not final word

10. Jesus as Christic Lure – Reframing Christ’s nature and cosmic role

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Option 1: What is the Heart of the Conflict?

Beginning with #1: “God’s Power Redefined.” Evangelicals often react strongly against the idea that God is not omnipotent in the classical sense. But in process theology, God is a God of love - not a God of control. This enrages power-centric theologies such as Calvinistic-centered evangelical doctrine.

Option 2: Compare Cultural/Theological Differences

• What Process Theology is,

• What Evangelical Theology emphasizes,

• And why their worldviews fundamentally collide.

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Let's start with Option 2 first as a metaphysical/ontological framing for Option 1....

Let's also remember that process theology is a direct derivative and inheritor of A.N. Whitehead's process philosophy whereas evangelical theology is a eclectic mishmash of Westernized philosophies.

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⚔️ Why Evangelicals Struggle with Process Theology: A Framing Overview

1. 🌐 Two Worldviews in Conflict

• Evangelicalism lives within a closed, propositional, and authority-centered worldview rooted in:

  • Greek metaphysics (immutability, omnipotence, timelessness)

  • Reformation theology (sola scriptura, total depravity, penal substitution)

  • American modernity (certainty, control, individualism)

• Process theology, however, is open, evolving, and relational, rooted in:

  • Whitehead’s cosmology of becoming

  • Scripture as story and unfolding revelation

  • Love, freedom, and relational interdependence

At their core, one prioritizes certainty, the other complexity.

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2. 📖 Two Views of the Bible

• Evangelicals view the Bible as inerrant, final, and propositional truth—God's perfect word to man.

• Process theology views the Bible as a sacred journey of becoming, revealing the evolving human attempt to understand and relate to the divine.

To evangelicals, process thought seems like scriptural relativism. To process thinkers, evangelicalism often looks like bibliolatry.

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3. 🤖 Two Understandings of God

• Evangelicals believe in a God who is unchanging, omnipotent, and omniscient, acting unilaterally in history.

• Process theology believes God is changing with the world, deeply affected by creation, unable (and unwilling) to override free will.

Thus, evangelicals seek a controlling God who ensures final victory. Process thinkers seek a co-creating God who invites loving participation.

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4. ⚖️ Two Ethical Frameworks

• Evangelical ethics are often absolutist: fixed moral codes revealed by divine authority.

• Process ethics are contextual and responsive: grounded in relationship, compassion, and evolving moral insight.

Hence the suspicion: Process theology seems “soft on sin” and “lacking truth.” But process ethics instead ask, “What does love require here and now?”

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5. 🧬 Two Theological Temperaments

Evangelicalism	Process Theology
Certainty	Openness
Final truth	Unfolding wisdom
Authority (Bible, God, tradition)	Persuasion (God, community, experience)
Power	Love
Control	Freedom
Salvation from	Salvation for
Closed heaven/hell outcomes	Open-ended relational futures

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💥 The Result?

Evangelicals often experience process theology as:

• A threat to divine authority

• A betrayal of biblical truth

• A theology of weakness

• A collapse of certainty and moral structure

Process theologians experience evangelicalism as:

• Morally rigid

• Theologically brittle

• Emotionally stunted

• Out of sync with science, reason, and love

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🔁 Reflection: The Clash Between Literal Evangelicalism and Process Theology

🔍 At Root: Different Metaphysical Commitments

The central divergence is not just theological but metaphysical.

• Evangelicals (whether they know it or not) inherit a substance-based metaphysics from Plato, Aristotle, and later Augustine and Aquinas. God is a “perfect being” who is unchanging, self-sufficient, and complete. Power is control. Reality is static and hierarchical. History is a stage on which God enacts an eternal plan.

• Process theology is grounded in relational metaphysics: reality is dynamic, interdependent, and co-creative. God is not a supreme substance but the ultimate companion in becoming—a being whose power is expressed through love, lure, and persuasion, not coercion.

Evangelicals are often unaware that their theology is deeply shaped by ancient Greek philosophy. But process theology is fully aware of its philosophical commitments—and is willing to revise theological tradition in light of better metaphysical insights.

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⚡️ The Real Trigger: Loss of Certainty

More than any single doctrine, what evangelicals fear most in process theology is the erosion of epistemic certainty.

• Evangelical theology seeks firm foundations: a perfect Bible, a perfect God, a final salvation, and a timeless moral code.

• Process theology removes these anchors: the Bible becomes a conversation, God evolves with us, salvation is never finished, and ethics require discernment.

This is experienced as destabilizing, even dangerous. In effect:

• Evangelicalism is addicted to certainty.

• Process theology embraces ambiguity and growth.

This isn’t just theological; it’s psychological. Certainty offers safety. But growth requires risk.

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🛑 Why Redefining God’s Power Is Unforgivable (to Evangelicals)

When process theology says:

“God does not control. God loves.”

Evangelicals hear:

“God is powerless. God won’t help you. God won’t judge evil. God might fail.”

They equate omnipotence with trustworthiness, so anything less feels like a betrayal. But process theology insists that love is greater than power, and that divine power is not about domination but faithful companionship in suffering and possibility.

This is deeply uncomfortable for those raised on a God who "smites the wicked" and "answers prayer by changing events."

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🧠 What’s Often Missed by Evangelicals

1. Theodicy Reframed

Evangelicals struggle to explain suffering:

• “God allowed it for a reason,” or

• “We can’t know why bad things happen.”

Process theology instead says:

• “God suffers with you. God did not cause this. But God is working through every moment to bring beauty from pain.”

That’s not weakness. That’s relational fidelity.

2. Jesus as Model, Not Exception

Process thinkers see Jesus not just as divine, but as the human expression of divine love at its fullest. He doesn’t override nature—he lives in radical relationality with it.

• Evangelicals often require Jesus to be ontologically exceptional (e.g. “fully God, fully man” as metaphysical absolutes).

• Process theology emphasizes the ethical and relational path of Jesus as the invitation extended to all.

This shift from metaphysical supremacy to ethical exemplar changes everything about discipleship, salvation, and divine presence.

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🔄 From Control to Co-Creation: A Summary Table

Category	Evangelical View	Process View
God’s Power	Omnipotent, controlling	Persuasive, non-coercive
Divine Action	Intervenes, overrides nature	Lures creation through possibility
The Bible	Inerrant, propositional truth	Sacred unfolding of communal wisdom
Salvation	Transactional (penal/forensic)	Transformational (relational/participatory)
Sin	Legal offense against God	Relational rupture and disharmony
Ethics	Fixed divine commands	Contextual discernment through love
History	Linear fulfillment of God’s plan	Open-ended co-creation with divine guidance
Jesus	God in human form to satisfy wrath	Human embodiment of divine relationality

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🧬 Missing Element to Acknowledge: Spiritual Experience

Many evangelicals have genuine spiritual encounters—deep prayer lives, transformative worship, personal senses of God's presence.

• Process theology must not dismiss these but re-interpret them as real encounters with a relational God, not supernatural suspensions of reality.

• In fact, it’s often these very experiences—of comfort, connection, insight, or mystery—that later lead evangelicals to question coercive theologies and find their way into process thought.

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Let's now proceed to Option 1 and discuss the list of ten beliefs separating evangelicals from process theology beginning with the most provocative and emotionally charged friction point....

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🔥 Sacred Belief #1: Process Theology Redefines God's Power

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

Evangelicals often insist that God is omnipotent—all-powerful in the most literal and coercive sense. In their framework:

• God can do whatever He wants,

• God causes all things, even suffering (or at least allows it for divine reasons),

• God's sovereignty implies absolute control over the universe.

The idea that God doesn’t have unilateral power strikes evangelicals as:

• Heretical,

• Weak,

• Emotionally unsatisfying (especially in suffering),

• And a denial of Scripture’s "plain teaching."

They fear a “powerless” God who cannot “save,” “intervene,” or “win” in the end.

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✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology challenges classical omnipotence with a deeply relational vision of divine power:

“God does not control, God persuades.”

• God’s power is non-coercive: God influences all things moment by moment, offering possibilities (“initial aims”), but never forcing outcomes.

• God is omnipresent and loving, but not the cause of evil or suffering.

• Power is redefined as relational, persuasive, patient, and above all, love-based—not domination-based.

This is power-with, not power-over.

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⚔️ Why the Clash?

• Evangelicals equate sovereignty with control; process theology equates sovereignty with relational faithfulness.

• Evangelicals often rely on a God who steps in and fixes things. Process theologians trust a God who works through all things—without breaking the integrity of creation’s freedom.

• To evangelicals, this sounds like weakness. But to process thinkers, this is divine love at its most mature.

“The power of God is the worship which [God] inspires.” - Whitehead

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🔥 Sacred Belief #2: Process Theology Rejects Classical Theism

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

Evangelicals are deeply invested in Classical Theism, which teaches:

• God is immutable (unchanging),

• Impassible (cannot suffer),

• Timeless (exists outside of time),

• Omnipotent (can do anything),

• And omniscient (knows all things, past, present, future, without change).

To evangelicals, these are not just philosophical claims—they are doctrinal pillars safeguarding God’s perfection, majesty, and trustworthiness. Any theology that softens, questions, or redefines these attributes feels like an attack on God's very nature.

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✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology offers a complete reimagining of God, rooted in Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysical vision of becoming, relationality, and interdependence.

Process theology says:

• God is not immutable, but the most supremely affected being in the universe—God grows in relational depth.

• God is not impassible, but feels with creation and suffers in love.

• God is not outside of time, but is the temporal companion of all becoming.

• God does not know the future as already decided, because the future is not yet real—even for God.

• God is omniscient in knowing all that can be known—but the open future cannot be known because it does not yet exist.

Process theology redefines God as dynamic, responsive, co-creative, and lovingly invested in each moment.

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🧠 Why This Is So Threatening to Evangelicals

Because the God of Classical Theism is the guarantee of:

• Absolute truth (unchanging),

• Ultimate authority (cannot be questioned),

• Final judgment (fixed justice),

• And perfect control (nothing surprises God).

The God of process theology instead:

• Learns,

• Responds,

• Suffers,

• Changes,

• And co-evolves with creation.

To evangelicals, that sounds like heresy, or at best, a demotion of God.

But to process theologians, this is the only God worth worshipping—a God who is intimately present, vulnerably involved, and relationally faithful.

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🌀 Let’s Zoom In on Two Attributes

1. 📦 Immutability vs. Relational Change

• Evangelicals: God cannot change because change implies imperfection.

• Process: If God cannot change, then God cannot truly love, for love requires responsiveness.

To love is to be moved by another.

2. 🧊 Impassibility vs. Divine Suffering

• Evangelicals: God cannot suffer—He is “above” emotion or change.

• Process: If God cannot suffer, then God cannot enter into our pain. But a God who cannot suffer is incapable of compassion.

As Jurgen Moltmann (no process theologian, but sympathetic) wrote:

“A God who cannot suffer is poorer than any man.”

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🧬 Process Theology's View of God (Whitehead's Dipolarity)

Whitehead described God as having two "natures":

1. Primordial Nature – The eternal vision of all possibilities (the lure toward harmony, beauty, novelty).

2. Consequent Nature – God's evolving, emotional, and relational response to the actual world.

In this view, God is both eternal and evolving. Not static, but faithfully dynamic.

This dipolarity allows process theology to affirm a kind of divine constancy (God is always loving) while rejecting static absolutes (God is not “always in control”).

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🔁 Biblical Tensions Ignored by Classical Theism

Process theology points to stories evangelicals often overlook:

• God changes His mind (Exodus 32:14; Jonah 3:10)

• God weeps (John 11:35)

• God wrestles (Genesis 32)

• God regrets (1 Samuel 15:11)

• Jesus cries, pleads, is surprised, and feels forsaken

These stories are troublesome for classical theism but central to process theology. They show a God of pathos, not a remote cosmic ruler.

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📘 Summary Comparison

Attribute	Classical Theism	Process Theology
Immutability	God never changes	God always changes in love
Timelessness	God exists outside of time	God experiences time with the world
Omnipotence	God controls all outcomes	God influences all outcomes through love
Omniscience	God knows the fixed future	God knows all possibilities
Impassibility	God cannot suffer	God deeply suffers and rejoices
Relation to world	Independent of creation	Co-evolving with creation

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Let's now proceed to Scripture as Process, Not as Propositional Truth...

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🔥Sacred Belief #3: Process Theology Treats Scripture as Evolving, Not Inerrant

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

Evangelicals are anchored to a doctrine of inerrancy—that the Bible is the perfect, final, and verbally inspired Word of God.

For many evangelicals, the Bible is:

• God’s literal speech,

• A divine constitution for life and doctrine,

• The unchanging standard of truth and authority.

To suggest that the Bible evolves, contains contradiction, reflects human limitation, or expresses cultural biases is seen not just as wrong, but as dangerous, even blasphemous.

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✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology sees Scripture as a dynamic, dialogical, and evolving human-divine process.

The Bible is not a dropped-from-heaven manual,
but a living record of how ancient communities experienced, misunderstood, loved, struggled with, and grew toward God.

Key convictions:

• Revelation is ongoing, not completed.

• The Bible reflects growth in human moral consciousness—it contains both regressive and progressive understandings of God.

• Scripture is sacred, not because it’s perfect, but because it honestly tells the evolving story of divine-human encounter.

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📉 Why This Is So Threatening to Evangelicals

Evangelicals fear:

• Moral relativism—“If you can dismiss parts of Scripture, where does it end?”

• Doctrinal erosion—“If the Bible evolves, what truths can we trust?”

• Loss of authority—“If the Bible is human, not divine, who gets to say what’s true?”

Their framework is rooted in a high control epistemology: if the Bible isn’t completely reliable, everything falls apart.

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🔁 The Process Approach to Scripture

Instead of biblical inerrancy, process theology affirms biblical hospitality:

• It welcomes diverse voices, tensions, and contradictions.

• It refuses to harmonize or erase difficult texts.

• It seeks the trajectory of love, justice, and compassion that runs through the text, even when obscured.

Process thinkers often read the Bible as a conversation across time:

• The voice of the prophets challenges the voice of kings.

• The teachings of Jesus contrast with tribalist vengeance in Deuteronomy.

• The Sermon on the Mount reframes the eye-for-an-eye logic of earlier eras.

The goal is not to flatten the Bible into a monologue, but to hear the evolving voice of divine lure within the polyphony.

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📜 The Bible as a Story of Consciousness in Process

In process terms, Scripture charts an evolution of God-concepts, from:

• God as tribal warrior → God as cosmic love,

• Law as purity code → Law as love of neighbor,

• Sacrifice as appeasement → Sacrifice as self-giving service.

Jesus, then, is not the final punctuation mark, but the clearest relational manifestation of divine love thus far—a relational crescendo, not a doctrinal period.

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✍️ Examples that Trouble Evangelicals but Are Embraced by Process Thinkers

1. Genocide texts (Joshua): Evangelicals often defend these as divinely justified. Process theology says, “This is how ancient people imagined God—through the lens of war.”

2. Women and slavery: Evangelicals twist Paul’s words into social policy. Process theology reads these as cultural products needing to evolve.

3. Psalm 137:9: “Happy is the one who dashes your babies against the rocks.” Evangelicals ignore or sanitize it. Process theologians see it as raw human rage, not divine command.

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🧬 Summary: Bible as Living Process

Evangelical View	Process View
Inerrant and infallible	Evolving and contextual
God's final word	God's dialogical, ongoing word
Static moral authority	Trajectory toward deeper moral insight
Harmonized and unified	Multivocal, tension-filled
Propositional truth	Narrative, relational, poetic wisdom
Obeyed as-is	Discerning through love and justice

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💡 Process Hermeneutics in a Nutshell:

“If a passage leads you to love more deeply, it is divine.
If a passage leads you to hate, fear, or exclude—it is not God’s final word.”  

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🔥Sacred Belief #4: Process Theology Redefines Sin, Sovereignty, and Free Will

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

Evangelicals are anchored in a framework of moral absolutism, divine control, and legal accountability. To them:

• Sin is rebellion against God’s will.

• Sovereignty means God rules over all, including human choices.

• Free will exists only within God’s foreordained plan—human responsibility, yet divine control.

In this worldview:

• Sin must be punished (eternally).

• God remains sovereign even when evil occurs—because He “allowed it” for His glory.

• Salvation is God’s act alone; human choice plays a minimal or preordained role.

Any theology that suggests otherwise is condemned as man-centered, soft on sin, or defiant toward God’s authority.

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✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology reframes the entire moral and theological structure:

➤ Sin is not lawbreaking, but relational rupture.

• Sin breaks harmony within the web of life.

• Sin disrupts the flow of divine lure toward beauty, compassion, and love.

• Sin is not offense against God’s ego—but resistance to the divine call toward flourishing in community.

➤ Sovereignty is not control, but faithful relational presence.

• God does not override free will or force outcomes.

• Divine power is expressed through persuasion, not manipulation.

• God lures all creatures toward their best possible becoming, even amid resistance.

➤ Free will is not a theological puzzle but a foundational condition of relational existence.

• God gives all entities (from subatomic particles to persons) the freedom to respond to divine possibilities.

• This makes the universe an open-ended adventure, not a closed script.

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🧨 Why This Threatens Evangelicals

Process theology:

• Undermines the evangelical vision of a just God who punishes sin.

• Removes divine control from the equation, which feels unsafe.

• Elevates human response and participation—seen as works-based or God-diminishing.

Evangelicals often believe that without God’s absolute sovereignty, the universe devolves into chaos or relativism. Process theology instead argues that:

Love is the only sovereignty worthy of God.

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💡 Key Contrasts

Concept	Evangelicalism	Process Theology
Sin	Breaking divine law	Disrupting relational harmony
Sovereignty	Absolute control over all things	Faithful love-involvement in all things
Free Will	Limited by God's predestination	Necessary for co-creative existence
God & Evil	God allows evil for greater purposes	God never wills evil, but works through it
Human Agency	Subordinate to divine plan	Co-creative partners with God
Redemption	Legal atonement and forgiveness	Transformational healing and reconnection

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🧬 A Process View of Human Responsibility

Process theology takes human freedom very seriously—not as an obstacle to divine sovereignty, but as a condition of divine love.

• We are not automatons.

• God does not override us but invites us—constantly.

• We are responsible for our choices because they affect the whole web of becoming.

This makes ethics relational and salvation participatory. Not because we save ourselves, but because:

God’s lure must be met with our response.

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✍️ A Real-World Illustration: Suffering and Blame

• An evangelical might say: “Your suffering is part of God’s plan. Trust Him.”

• A process theologian might say: “Your suffering was not God’s will. But God suffers with you, and invites your healing and resilience toward new life.”

That’s not moral laxity. That’s a more loving accountability—not based in fear, but in the call to mutual becoming.

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📜 Biblical Echoes of Process Thought

• Genesis 4: “Sin is crouching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Responsibility)

• Micah 6:8: “Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.” (Co-walking, not domination)

• Luke 15 (Prodigal Son): The father does not punish but waits in love. The son returns, not because of fear, but because of relationship.

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Now we turn to what is often the central scandal for evangelicals when confronting process theology:

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🔥Sacred Belief #5: Process Theology Reimagines the Cross

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

At the core of evangelical theology is a specific theory of atonement: Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA).

In this view:

• God’s justice demands punishment for sin.

• Jesus, though sinless, takes our punishment in our place.

• The cross satisfies God’s wrath and maintains divine justice.

• Belief in this transaction is the only path to salvation.

This legal framework defines the evangelical gospel itself. Without it, they believe:

• There is no justice,

• No forgiveness,

• No meaning to the cross,

• No salvation.

To suggest otherwise is to deny the very heart of the gospel—as they see it.

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✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology rejects penal substitution outright—on theological, ethical, and metaphysical grounds.

🧨 Ethical Challenge:

A loving God does not require violence to forgive.

• PSA makes God seem more like an abusive parent than a loving Father.

• Forgiveness that demands blood is not grace, it’s appeasement.

🧠 Metaphysical Challenge:

If God is already present in all things, then the cross is not a divine transaction but a relational event—where God experiences the depths of human suffering from within and transforms it.

💗 The Process View of the Cross:

• Jesus on the cross is the ultimate expression of divine love—not a payment, but a revelation of God's love.

• The cross reveals God’s willingness to suffer with creation, not to punish in place of creation.

• Resurrection is not “victory over death” in a triumphalist sense, but a renewed invitation to life, community, and hope.

As process theologian Marjorie Suchocki writes:

“God does not need the cross. We do.”

The cross is not a requirement for divine forgiveness, but a catalyst for human transformation.

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🧬 Reimagining Atonement: From Transaction to Transformation

Atonement View	Evangelical (PSA)	Process Theology
Sin	Offense against God’s law	Break in relational harmony
Justice	Requires punishment	Requires healing and reconnection
Cross	Payment for sin to appease God	Revelation of divine love in suffering
God’s Role	Wrathful judge satisfied by Jesus	Suffering co-lover who enters death with us
Jesus’ Death	Substitutionary sacrifice	Nonviolent witness to divine solidarity
Salvation	Legal pardon through belief	Relational transformation through trust

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💥 Why Evangelicals React So Strongly

Without PSA:

• The entire gospel presentation collapses (as they understand it).

• Evangelical altar calls, mission efforts, and doctrines of hell lose their framework.

• Jesus becomes a model rather than a savior—which they equate with liberalism, moralism, or heresy.

Yet process theology says:

Jesus is more than savior—he is the lived expression of God’s love, luring us to become love too.

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📖 Biblical Foundations for a Process View

• Luke 23:34 – “Father, forgive them…” (No wrath, only mercy)

• Romans 5:8 – “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Unconditional love, not conditional transaction)

• 1 John 4:10 – “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son…” (Love initiates, not wrath)

• Hebrews 2:14 – Christ partook of death “to destroy the one who has the power of death…” (Not to satisfy God, but to overcome death itself)

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✍️ A Process Interpretation:

The cross is where God says: 

“I will go with you into your worst suffering. I will not rescue you by force, but I will never abandon you.”

This is not atonement through violence—but through presence, love, and solidarity.

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Next is the most conceptually difficult but profoundly liberating ideas in process theology:

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🔥Sacred Belief #6: Process Theology Rejects a Settled Future and Redefines Divine Foreknowledge

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

Evangelicals believe God:

• Knows the future exhaustively, down to the tiniest detail,

• Controls history toward a preordained outcome,

• Cannot be surprised, ever,

• And that prophecy proves God's omniscience and sovereignty.

This view reassures them that:

• God has a plan,

• Everything (good or evil) happens for a reason,

• The future is already written in heaven—even if it's hidden from us.

To evangelicals, the idea that God does not know the future fully is not just incorrect—it is deeply offensive and deeply frightening.

---

✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

In process theology, the future does not yet exist—not even for God.

“God knows all that can be known, but the future is open because it is not-yet-real.”

This has two profound implications:

1. God's knowledge is perfect, but does not include the unformed future.

2. God is not the cosmic puppet-master, but the divine improviser—always present, always luring, always adapting.

---

🌱 Why This Is Liberating (but Unacceptable to Evangelicals)

Evangelicals:

• Find comfort in a settled future.

• Believe God’s trustworthiness depends on foreknowledge.

• Fear that openness means God might fail or be caught off guard.

But process theology insists:

A God who controls the future cannot relate with you in the present.
But a God who shares the risk of becoming with you—that God is trustworthy in love.

---

🌀 God as the Great Risk-Taker

In process theology:

• God gives creation genuine freedom—and with it, genuine risk.

• The future is co-authored by God and the world.

• Every moment is an unfolding creative advance—not a reenactment of a prewritten script.

This makes God not a chess master, but a cosmic jazz musician—playing with us, responding, composing beauty from the surprises and dissonances of life.

---

🧠 Philosophical & Biblical Foundations

❗ Logical Challenge to Foreknowledge:

If God already knows every detail of the future, then:

• Human freedom is an illusion,

• Evil is part of the divine plan,

• And love becomes coercion.

Process theology asks:

What kind of “freedom” is it if your every move was already known before you were born?

📖 Scriptural Echoes of Divine Openness:

• Genesis 22 – “Now I know you fear God…” (God learns)

• Exodus 32 – God changes His mind after Moses pleads.

• Jonah 3:10 – God repents of His planned destruction.

• Luke 13:34 – Jesus weeps over Jerusalem’s unmade choice.

These passages only make sense if the future is not fixed.

---

🧬 God’s Knowledge in Process Terms

Aspect of Knowledge	Evangelical View	Process View
Past	Fully known	Fully known
Present	Fully engaged	Fully engaged
Future	Fully known in detail	Known as possibilities, not actualities
God's relation to time	Outside of time	Within time, moment by moment
Change and surprise	Impossible	Integral to divine relationality
Divine responsiveness	Pre-planned interventions	Dynamic participation and adaptation

---

🔁 The Deep Beauty of Divine Openness

“God is not the guarantee of outcomes,
but the faithful companion through them.”

Instead of asking, “Why didn’t God stop this?”
Process theology asks, “How is God with us now—and how can we respond in love?”

This is a God who says:

“I do not control you, but I will never leave you.”

---

We now come a flashpoint for many evangelicals, where the imagination of divine power meets the laws of nature:

---

Interpreting miracles and supernaturalism through
process-based divine synchronicity

🔥Sacred Belief #7: Process Theology Reinterprets Miracles and the Supernatural

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

For evangelicals, miracles are non-negotiable signs of God's supernatural power. These include:

• Creation ex nihilo (out of nothing),

• The global flood,

• Parting of the Red Sea,

• Virgin birth,

• Bodily resurrection,

• Physical healing,

• Speaking in tongues and supernatural gifts.

To evangelical doctrine:

• Miracles prove God’s sovereignty and glory,

• Validates the authority of Scripture,

• Confirms that God intervenes in history,

• And shows that faith can override natural law.

But to suggest that miracles didn’t literally happen or that divine power never overrides nature is viewed as:

• Faithless,

• Liberal,

• Humanistic,

• Or even demonic.

---

✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology does not deny the miraculous, but redefines it. Rather than being violations of nature’s laws, miracles are:

Extraordinary manifestations of divine persuasion and relational convergence—not interruptions, but harmonizations.

Key points:

• God never coercively intervenes to override natural processes.

• Instead, God works within the structure of possibility, gently luring reality toward greater beauty, healing, or novelty.

• A “miracle” is not a suspension of natural law, but the deepest realization of relational potential—a moment when love, will, and circumstance align beyond expectation.

---

💥 Why This Feels Like Heresy to Evangelicals

Evangelicals believe:

• If God can’t override nature, then God isn’t all-powerful.

• If miracles didn’t literally happen, then the Bible isn’t true.

• If we reinterpret miracles, we undermine the gospel itself.

But process theology asks:

“Why would a loving God need to violate nature if nature is already God’s cooperative partner?”

It shifts the emphasis from shock and awe to sacred synergy.

---

🧠 Miracles in Process Thought: From Coercion to Creativity

Let’s reframe several key miracle motifs:

Biblical Miracle	Evangelical View	Process Theology View
Creation ex nihilo	God made everything out of nothing instantly	The cosmos eternally emerges through divine lure toward order
Red Sea parted	God suspends physics	A natural event + trust + timing = liberation in synergy
Healing miracles	Divine override of illness	Persuasive empowerment + faith + deep responsiveness
Virgin birth	Biological miracle	Mythic-symbolic expression of divine calling
Resurrection	Literal reanimation of dead body	Cosmic-symbolic triumph of divine love over death’s finality
Prayer interventions	God changes events	God offers new possibilities through influence, not override

---

🧬 Miracles Reimagined: Not Magic, but Meaning

Process theology sees miracles as:

• Moments of radical alignment—where God, world, and will harmonize.

• Acts of becoming—where something new and beautiful emerges.

• Symbols of relational transformation—not divine dominance.

God is not a magician breaking nature’s rules, but a cosmic artist working through them.

---

✍️ A Process Definition of Miracle:

A miracle is what happens when love, openness, and divine lure converge in a way that surprises us—and reveals the beauty of becoming.

---

📖 Biblical Echoes of a Process View

• Mark 6:5 – “Jesus could do no mighty work there… because of their unbelief.”
  → Even Jesus worked within the limits of response and receptivity.

• 1 Kings 19 – God is not in the wind or fire, but in the still small voice—persuasion, not force.

• Philippians 2:13 – “God is at work in you, both to will and to work…”
  → God works with, not over, the will.

---

🎯 Why This Matters

In process theology:

• We are not waiting for God to suspend nature,
  but learning to cooperate with God to expand what is possible within it.

This fosters a spirituality of participation, not passivity.

For further reference: Index - Processual Divine Coherence

lists many articles related to miracles and supernaturalism

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We now move into the heart of what it means to be “saved”—a doctrine that process theology radically reimagines and that evangelicals often guard with intense emotional and theological vigilance:

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🔥Sacred Belief #8: Process Theology Reframes Salvation as Relational Becoming

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

For evangelicals, salvation is:

• A one-time event: accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior,

• A legal transaction: justification by faith, not works,

• A guarantee of heaven: once saved, always saved,

• A rescue from hell: divine forgiveness saving us from eternal punishment,

• And a requirement for eternal life: without this, you’re lost forever.

The evangelical formula is:

"Believe in Jesus, confess your sin, accept the substitutionary atonement—and you are saved."

Any attempt to redefine salvation as ongoing, relational, or developmental is seen as:

• Works-based,

• Theologically liberal,

• Weak on sin,

• Or compromising “the gospel.”

---

✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology views salvation not as a single moment of rescue, but as a lifelong, cosmic process of relational transformation.

“Salvation is the journey of becoming more fully integrated with God, self, others, and the world.”

Key convictions:

• Salvation is not a ticket to heaven, but a participation in love’s becoming.

• God saves not by overriding sin, but by luring us toward healing, beauty, and wholeness.

• Salvation is not positional, it’s relational—measured in love, not legal status.

---

🧠 Evangelical vs. Process Frameworks of Salvation

Concept	Evangelical View	Process Theology View
Sin	Legal offense against a holy God	Rupture in relational harmony
Salvation	Judicial pardon by faith	Transformational journey into deeper love
Method	Accept Jesus, trust his substitutionary death	Respond to God’s lure toward healing and justice
Timeframe	One-time event, then secured	Ongoing process of becoming
Assurance	Once saved, always saved	Constantly nurtured through co-creative love
Heaven and Hell	Fixed destinations	Evolving states of being-in-God
Human Role	Passive recipient of grace	Active participant in divine transformation

---

🔥 Why This Feels So Dangerous to Evangelicals

To the evangelical mind, process theology:

• Weakens the urgency of conversion,

• Removes the finality of salvation (and thus the certainty of heaven),

• Downplays the severity of hell,

• And turns the gospel of grace into a humanistic journey of self-improvement.

But process theology insists:

Grace is not about divine favoritism, but about divine fidelity—and salvation is about becoming what love calls us to be.

---

🌀 Salvation as Relational Process

For process theology, salvation is:

• Relational – always enacted in community.

• Participatory – we are co-creators of our healing and wholeness.

• Contextual – different for each person, never a formula.

• Cosmic – not just about souls, but about the healing of all creation.

The “kingdom of God” is not a place we go, but a field of becoming we enter—moment by moment, decision by decision.

---

📖 Biblical Passages That Support Process Views

• Philippians 2:12-13 – “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling… for it is God who works in you.”

• Luke 17:21 – “The kingdom of God is within (or among) you.”

• Romans 8:22-23 – Creation groans with us for redemption.

• 2 Corinthians 3:18 – “We are being transformed from glory to glory…”

---

✍️ A Process Reframing of the Gospel:

You are not saved from God’s wrath -

Rather, you are saved by God’s love.

Salvation is not a destination,

It is your becoming -

together with God,

in beauty,

justice,

and compassion.

---

Now we arrive at one of the deepest roots of evangelical certainty—and perhaps the most emotionally and institutionally protected pillar of all:

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🔥Sacred Belief #9: Process Theology Challenges Biblical Authority

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

For evangelicals, the Bible is the Word of God—perfect, final, infallible, and authoritative in every area of life.

They believe:

• Scripture was directly inspired by God—word-for-word.

• The Bible is historically accurate, morally binding, and doctrinally unified.

• All truth is measured by Scripture alone (sola scriptura).

• “The Bible says it—I believe it—that settles it.”

Any suggestion that the Bible:

• Contains errors,

• Is shaped by human culture,

• Evolves across time,

• Or reflects conflicting views of God
  is seen as a direct threat to the faith itself.

Evangelicalism rises and falls on a perfect Bible.

---

✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology loves the Bible—but sees it as a dynamic, evolving, human-divine conversation.

“The Bible is not the last word. It is a record of humanity’s evolving encounter with the divine, full of insight, struggle, error, and inspiration.”

Core process convictions:

• The Bible is sacred, not because it is perfect, but because it reveals the journey of becoming.

• Scripture reflects growth in moral and theological awareness—sometimes more clearly, sometimes less.

• The authority of Scripture is relational and contextual, not absolute and propositional.

• The Spirit continues to speak beyond and through the text.

---

💥 Why This Is Threatening to Evangelicals

To evangelicals, this undermines:

• Biblical inerrancy, which is their ground of truth.

• The authority of doctrine, which flows from “the plain reading” of the text.

• The certainty of salvation, prophecy, and morality—because without an inerrant Bible, “everything becomes subjective.”

But process theology argues:

God’s authority does not reside in a text, but in a living, persuasive Spirit that inspires, not commands.

---

🧠 Process Theology and the Bible

Rather than asking:

“What does the Bible say, finally and forever?”
Process theology asks:
“What is the trajectory of love, justice, and becoming across this sacred collection?”

It affirms:

• That God is revealed more clearly in some texts than others,

• That the canon is a polyphony, not a monologue,

• That Jesus is the interpretive center, not a verse.

The Bible becomes a map, not a fortress.

---

📖 Examples of Evangelical Conflict with Process Readings

Biblical Text	Evangelical Approach	Process Approach
Canaanite genocide (Joshua)	God commanded it; therefore it was just	Ancient misunderstanding of God’s will
Paul on women (1 Tim 2)	Timeless doctrine on gender roles	Culturally limited, not binding for today
Revelation	Literal end-times prophecy	Symbolic spiritual struggle against empire
Psalm 137:9	Ignored or justified	Expression of grief and rage—not divine voice
Levitical purity codes	Morally binding or dismissed selectively	Ancient ritual boundaries, not timeless ethics

---

🧬 Process Theology’s View of Scriptural Authority

Concept	Evangelicalism	Process Theology
Origin	Dictated by God	Inspired through community and history
Nature	Inerrant, infallible	Evolving, multivocal, dialogical
Authority	Absolute, timeless	Relational, contextual, love-centered
Interpretation	Literal/historical	Narrative, symbolic, critically engaged
Jesus’ Role	Confirms authority of Scripture	Reframes and transforms Scripture

---

✍️ A Process Reframing of Biblical Authority:

The Bible is not a cage of divine control,
but a canvas of human response to the divine voice.
Its authority is not in what it locks down,
but in the love it invites us to co-create.

---

Let’s now conclude our list with the most radical and hopeful reframing of all:

---

🔥 Sacred Belief #10: Process Theology Reimagines Jesus as the Christic Lure

🚫 What Evangelicals Hate:

For evangelicals, Jesus Christ is:

• God in human flesh—fully divine, fully human,

• The exclusive path to salvation (“no one comes to the Father but by me”),

• The sinless sacrifice who died in our place,

• The final revelation of God,

• And the coming judge who will separate the saved from the damned.

Evangelicals view any attempt to reinterpret Jesus outside of:

• Trinitarian orthodoxy,

• Penal substitutionary atonement,

• Literal virgin birth and bodily resurrection,

• or exclusive salvation through his name,
  as false gospel, heresy, and soul-endangering rebellion.

They need Jesus to be ontologically exceptional and theologically final.

---

✅ What Process Theology Proposes:

Process theology affirms the deep spiritual and cosmic significance of Jesus—but not in evangelical terms.

Jesus is not the exception to the human condition.
He is the exemplar of divine-human harmony.

Jesus is the clearest embodiment of God’s lure toward love, justice, beauty, and transformation. He is understood as a fully human individual who responded authentically to God's call, demonstrating the potential for all humans to be transformed by God's influence.

Key process affirmations:

• Jesus reveals what God is like, not because of metaphysical uniqueness, but because of his relational perfection—he responded fully and freely to God's persuasive call.

• The “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name—it is the cosmic principle of divine presence in the world, which Jesus incarnated most fully.

• Salvation does not come through Jesus’ death, but through our participation in the same divine flow of love that animated him.

---

🧨 Why Evangelicals React So Strongly

To evangelicals, this:

• Undermines the uniqueness of Christ,

• Turns Christianity into a generic spirituality,

• Replaces “faith in Jesus” with “being like Jesus,”

• And opens the door to pluralism, universalism, or panentheism.

They interpret it as a denial of the gospel—and of Jesus’ cosmic authority.

But process theology responds:

If Jesus is the full expression of divine love,
then to follow him is to embody that love—not to idolize his uniqueness.

---

🧬 The Christic Lure

In process theology:

• The “Christic Lure” is the call toward wholeness, compassion, and divine harmony in every moment.

• Jesus responded to this lure perfectly—not magically, but relationally.

• This lure continues today, in every heart, every culture, every moment of becoming.

Christ is thus:

• A cosmic principle (as in Teilhard de Chardin),

• A divine lure toward love (as in Cobb, Keller, and Whitehead),

• A transformative presence that can be embodied by all—not only by Jesus of Nazareth.

---

🧠 Summary Comparison

Category	Evangelical View	Process Theology View
Jesus	Ontologically unique God-man	Relational exemplar of divine responsiveness
Christ	Title of divine identity	Cosmic lure of divine love, incarnated in Jesus
Salvation	Only through belief in Jesus’ atoning death	Through participation in the same divine love he embodied
Death & Resurrection	Paid penalty and secured afterlife	Revealed God’s nonviolent solidarity with the world
Role in History	Final revelation and eschatological judge	Ongoing lure toward transformation, not condemnation

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📖 Biblical Passages That Point Toward This Vision

• John 1:9 – “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” (Light for all—universal lure.)

• Philippians 2 – Christ “emptied himself” and took on the form of a servant. (Relational humility, not dominion.)

• John 14:12 – “You will do even greater things than these…” (The Christic energy is shared, not hoarded.)

• Colossians 1:17 – “In him all things hold together.” (Christ as cosmic coherence.)

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✍️ A Process Benediction on the Christic Lure:

Christ is not the gatekeeper.
Christ is the invitation.
Not the stopper of time, but the pulse of divine becoming.
In Jesus, we glimpse the face of possibility.
In following, we become Christ-bearers ourselves.

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Here is the summary conclusion to our exploration:

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✝️ Conclusion: Ten Beliefs Separating Evangelicals from Process Theology

A Metamodern Reframing of God, Scripture, and Salvation

---

Here are ten beliefs that typically separate Evangelicals and Process Theology:

Evangelical Theology

1. God's Nature: Evangelicals generally adhere to classical Christian views of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, who exists as a Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).
2. God's Power: God is understood as sovereign and having ultimate control over all things, including the power to intervene in human affairs.
3. God's Immutability: God's character and nature are considered unchanging and dependable.
4. Creation: The world is seen as created "ex nihilo" (out of nothing) by a powerful God.
5. The Bible: The Bible is considered the inspired and authoritative Word of God, and its teachings are seen as binding and sufficient for guiding life.
6. Humanity: Humans are seen as created in God's image but inherently sinful, needing salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
7. Salvation: Salvation is primarily understood as a result of accepting Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross and is considered a transformative event, often described as being "born again".
8. Future: Evangelicals typically emphasize God's preordained plan and hold various views on the end times, including the return of Christ and a final judgment.
9. Relationality: While acknowledging a relationship with God, the emphasis is often on God's sovereignty and authority over humanity.
10. Problem of Evil: Evil and suffering are often understood within the context of God's sovereign will and the need for human freedom and responsibility.

Process Theology

1. God's Nature: Process theology proposes a "dipolar" God with a primordial (unchanging) nature encompassing possibilities and a consequent (changing) nature that is dependent on and influenced by the world.
2. God's Power: God's power is viewed as persuasive rather than coercive, with God influencing but not forcing the decisions of individuals.
3. God's Mutability: God's consequent nature changes and is affected by the ongoing processes of the world.
4. Creation: Creation is seen as an ongoing process of "co-creation" between God and self-determining entities, rather than a one-time act of creation ex nihilo.
5. The Bible: While affirming that God speaks through scripture, process theologians may be open to different interpretations and emphasize its role in promoting relationality and growth rather than as a strict rulebook.
6. Humanity: Humans are seen as integral parts of the interconnected universe, with an intrinsic value and the potential for greater complexity and creativity.
7. Salvation: Salvation in is seen as a relational process of accepting God's "lure" towards redemption and participating in that transformative becoming  in salvific relationship with God, creation and others.
8. Future: The future is viewed as open and indeterminate, with God influencing but not predetermining events, allowing for genuine freedom and creativity within the world.
9. Relationality: Process theology emphasizes God's deep interconnectedness with and responsiveness to the world and its creatures, portraying God as a "fellow-sufferer who understands".
10. Problem of Evil: Evil and suffering are understood as inherent possibilities within a universe characterized by freedom and creativity, rather than being directly willed by God.

🔟 Summary of the Tensions

#	Evangelicals Value…	Process Theology Reimagines as…
1	God as Omnipotent Ruler	God as Persuasive, Loving Companion
2	Immutable, Timeless, Impassible God	God as Evolving, Relational, and Deeply Affected
3	Inerrant Bible as Final Word	Scripture as Evolving, Human-Divine Journey
4	Sin as Legal Rebellion	Sin as Relational Rupture
5	Cross as Penal Substitution	Cross as Divine Solidarity and Transformative Love
6	Future as Foreknown and Settled	Future as Open, Co-Created with God
7	Miracles as Violations of Nature	Miracles as Deep Harmonies within Relational Possibility
8	Salvation as a Transaction	Salvation as Ongoing Relational Becoming
9	Bible as Absolute Authority	Bible as Sacred Conversation toward Greater Love
10	Jesus as Ontological Exception	Jesus as Christic Lure—the Embodied Invitation to Love

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🌀 Why Evangelicals Resist Process Theology

At heart, evangelicalism is a certainty-based system—rooted in authority, control, and finality. Process theology proposes a relational system—rooted in vulnerability, freedom, and co-creation.

Evangelicals fear:

• Loss of truth,

• Loss of order,

• Loss of control.

Process theology invites:

• Growth into deeper truth,

• Emergent order within loving freedom,

• Divine partnership instead of domination.

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🕊️ Why Process Theology Offers Hope

In a world shaken by violence, ecological crisis, moral complexity, and spiritual fatigue, process theology says:

• God is still speaking—not commanding, but inviting.

• The future is not doomed—it is open.

• Salvation is not behind us—it is unfolding.

• Love is not one option—it is the very structure of reality.

The gospel becomes not a transaction, but a transformative journey toward harmony—with self, others, creation, and the divine.

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✍️ Final Meditation

From Fear to Freedom
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Christ is not the end of the road,

but the invitation to the divine journey.

The Bible is not the lockbox of certainty,

but the map of love.

God is not behind us in the heavens,

but beside us in becoming.

Amen.

Evangelicalism built its altars and temples

    on fear of a failing world -
then locked God high in a throne room
    made of Imperial power and control.

But God's love does not control nor coerce -
    it becomes, persuades, lures.
Process Christianity walks out all manmade temples,
    into the wild oat fields of worldly relationships.

And like Wisdom, Process cries out to all
    who will listen it's high, clear, clarion calls -
“God is with us! God is still becoming!
    God is still loving! Will you walk with Me?”

R.E. Slater
June 23, 2025

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all rights reserved