Tuesday, July 1, 2025

The Bankruptcy of Evangelical Theology, Part 4


The Bankruptcy of Evangelical Theology

Conclusion to
Rewriting God: Updating Theological Language
Part 4

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

God is love.
God, who is in process with the world,
is drawing all things deeper into life.

Introduction

In itself, I had learned a lot of good and helpful things from fundamental and evangelical theology. But I also had learned too many unhelpful boundary markers and apologetical defenses in my evangelical faith. A faith which has sadly blossomed into deep suspicion and identity crisis in the 21st Century.

Earlier, I had stated my feelings of betrayal by my former faith in my last article, Rewriting God: Updating Theological Language, Part 2, having said the following:
...In hindsight, having left before Trumpian evangelicalism had become a thing (me: 2009/11 v trumpisim: 2015/16), I am glad I left my former faith's once bannered halls of propositional truths claimed as timeless and everlasting... whose outcome has been shown in the spiritual bankruptcy of trumpian supremacy... and not in the love of an everlasting God founded in the observable witness, works, and love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and, in Jesus' own terms of himself, the Son of Man, remade in God's image.

Ten years later, in 2025, evangelical trumpism has evidently not repented of the evil it is doing to the oppressed and unloved in America - nor of the harm and evil it is doing across the world in Ukraine (Putin's kind of Christian Orthodoxy) - nor has it repented of the destruction Israel has done to the Palestinian people across the Gaza region - nor in America's trade wars with the world evoked in mistrust, suspicion, one-sided accusations and indictments.

This kind of Christianity is the kind to flee from, shun, be rid of, burn up, and cast away. It is hateful, unhelpful, unattractive, and isolating. This is not how Jesus lived in the world and it is not how the gospel of Christ is to reach out into the world. It is of the devil, dressed in sheep's clothing, and altogether heinous.

Statedly, it seems that evangelicals have been paying lip service to God over the decades and not dedicating in their hearts truly to God nor to Jesus as they said they were. Their prayer and repentance rally in Washington D.C. in 2015 was a lie enunciated before the world by their words and actions in trumpian hate.

Sadly, the evangelical religion of most of my life has betrayed it's real self as bigoted, discriminatory, and bent on returning to the imperial religion of its day - even if it means following the devil himself with his many corrupt and lawless trumpian minions. To all this I say, Good Riddance.
I then proceeded to show how process theology rethinks the deep and rich history of the Christian church over the many millennia hoping to show that with a new philosophical and theological foundation provided by process philosophy and theology, that a better form of Jesus Christianity could be enunciated. One that is more embracing of mankind and re-centered in love; that with such a processually-based faith founded in Christ-centeredness it might not become the catastrophe that fundamental/evangelical theology has become.

The Incarnational-Redemptive Model in Jesus

Explanatory link found here

Here's the $64 dollar question: Not whether the New Testament in Jesus is true (I believe it is) but what does it mean. Evangelicalism had gotten itself wrapped up in defending the truthfulness of the bible (sic, infallible, inerrant, etc) rather than exploring what Jesus and his disciples were saying.

Instead of investigating how God's incarnational-redemptive enactment was meaningful to the world, evangelicalism got caught up in uplifting the exaltation-kingdom theologies of Judaism's political-religious crisis in it's displacement by Rome. Translated, evangelical's have forgotten both Jesus and Jesus' gospel and have poured themselves into their own story of what political-religious freedom looks like to themselves. In short, it looks ugly, bigoted, abrasive, discriminatory, oppressive, fascist, and unlike Jesus' incarnational-redemptive story.


Let's Revisit "God's Plan for the Ages"

Despite the incorrect evangelical assessment found here, process theology restores God's Plan for the Ages which the evangelical tradition has abandoned for it's own political-religious earthly kingdom under trumpism.

And what is that plan? I asked ChatGPT and got this:

📜 1️⃣ God’s Plan for the Ages — Traditional / Non-Processual Language

In traditional Christian theology (especially classical theism and covenantal or dispensational frameworks), God’s plan for the ages is often described like this:

  • God, as an all-powerful, sovereign being, created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing) according to a predetermined divine will.

  • History unfolds according to God’s fixed, eternal decree. God stands outside of time, perfectly foreknowing all events from beginning to end.

  • Humanity’s fall into sin brought separation from God, but God planned redemption through the incarnation, atoning death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

  • The culmination of this plan is a final consummation: the return of Christ, the judgment of the righteous and the wicked, the destruction of evil, and the eternal state of heaven and hell.

  • The plan is linear and final — it moves from creation, through fall, to redemption, to ultimate fulfillment according to God’s unchanging purpose.

🔄 2️⃣ God’s Plan for the Ages — Processual / Process Theology Language

In process theology, God’s plan for the ages is better described as a divine hope or intention rather than a fixed blueprint:

  • God and the world are co-eternal and co-creative; reality is an unfolding process rather than a static creation from nothing.

  • God does not unilaterally predetermine all things but lures all creation forward toward greater beauty, love, and harmony.

  • Every moment holds new possibilities. God knows all that is actual and possible, but the future is genuinely open — even for God.

  • The incarnation is the perfect expression of divine aim: Christ reveals what it means to live fully responsive to God’s lure.

  • History’s fulfillment is not a final, pre-scripted event but an ongoing transformation of all things toward deeper relational richness, with God experiencing and weaving each moment’s value into the divine life.

  • Judgment and salvation are not fixed states but relational consequences and creative healing, continuously offered and evolving.

✨ Key Contrast

  • Non-Processual: A single, timeless, unchanging plan executed by an unchanging God.

  • Processual: A living, responsive, relational aim that invites all creation to co-create the future with God.

My Query

In response, I next asked ChatGPT the following, "Could your assessment be describe as an incarnational-redemptive lure in process?

ChatGPT said

That’s an excellent and fitting way to say it — yes!

Your phrase “incarnational-redemptive lure” captures the heart of how process theology reframes God’s plan for the ages. Let’s break it down a bit to confirm this is accurate:

✅ Incarnational

In process thought, the incarnation is not a singular insertion of God into history, but the clearest historical expression of God’s ever-present aim (lure) embodied in a fully responsive human life. Jesus becomes the model of what it means to align perfectly with God’s lure — the divine aim for relational love, healing, and transformation.

✅ Redemptive

Redemption in process is not a once-for-all legal transaction but an ongoing creative process. God is always working to heal brokenness, integrate all experience (good and tragic) into deeper relational beauty, and draw creation into more intense harmony. The “redemptive” aspect is not just backward-looking (rescue) but forward-moving (renewal).

✅ Lure

“Lure” is Whitehead’s key word: God does not coerce but calls, persuades, invites. This lure is constant, moment by moment, shaping possibilities and gently guiding creation toward richer value.

✅ Together: Incarnational-Redemptive Lure

So yes — in process theology, God’s plan for the ages can truly be described as an incarnational-redemptive lure:

  • Incarnational: The divine aim embodied in the world, especially in Jesus but also in creation itself.

  • Redemptive: Always working to heal and transform brokenness.

  • Lure: Persuasive, non-coercive, relational call toward greater wholeness.

Put simply:

Process theology’s “plan” is not a blueprint but an open-ended incarnational-redemptive lure, forever inviting the world into deeper life with God.

Conclusion

Myself to ChatGPT

So if we are to rethink theology for a Processual Age, what might that be?

ChatGPT

Absolutely — here’s a concluding, integrative statement that ties together all the spirit and substance of our last several discussions about rethinking theology for a Processual Age, especially around your insight of an incarnational-redemptive lure:

✨ A Conclusion: Rethinking Theology for a Processual Age

To rethink theology for a Processual Age is to move from certainties frozen in static metaphysics to a living faith that breathes, listens, and moves. It means letting go of the idea of God as an all-controlling architect and embracing God as the relational lure of love — forever incarnating into the world’s unfolding story.

In this vision, creation is not a finished product but a co-creative adventure. The Incarnation is not only an event in first-century Palestine but the deepest sign that God’s way is persuasion, companionship, and redemptive participation in every moment of becoming.

Salvation is not rescue from the world but healing within it — the drawing forth of hidden possibilities that restore, renew, and transform. Hell is not a final prison but the tragic reality of wasted possibilities when creatures resist the lure toward wholeness. Heaven is not static reward but creative fulfillment — the ever-new integration of all value into the divine life.

Scripture becomes not a static verdict but a sacred record of humanity’s dynamic wrestling with God’s call across time. Doctrine shifts from fortress walls to living grammar, reshaped by experience, science, and the unfolding story of relational becoming.

At the heart of this rethinking is trust: trust that God’s power is the humble power of persuasion; trust that freedom is real; trust that our choices matter in shaping what comes to be; trust that no suffering is lost but held in the tender memory of God; trust that divine love endlessly weaves our yes and our no into a future where even loss may find new life.

In a Processual Age, theology becomes a verb: a practice of listening, responding, co-creating.

It becomes the shared work of poets, prophets, scientists, pastors, and all who dare to imagine a world more beautiful than what we see now.

If the question is, What is God’s plan for the ages?

The answer is: the incarnational-redemptive lure — God with us, God ahead of us, God within us, forever calling us into deeper life together.

My final query

Please provide a processual summary conclusion re incarnation-redemptive and rethinking theology...

ChatGPT said

Wonderful — here’s a concise, stand-alone Processual Summary Conclusion that draws your core idea — the incarnational-redemptive lure — into a final vision for rethinking theology for a Processual Age:

🌿 A Processual Summary Conclusion

In a Processual Age, we dare to confess that God is not distant and unchanging, but deeply present — an incarnational-redemptive lure, calling all things forward into richer life.

Incarnation is not a single past event but the pattern of divine love ever taking form in the world: in Jesus as the clearest sign, but also in every moment when love, beauty, and justice are born anew through the agency of mankind.

Redemption is not a legal transaction once settled for all time but an unending work of healing and transformation. God gathers every sorrow, every possibility, every choice — weaving them into a future more whole than the present.

In this vision, theology itself becomes a living practice: not frozen doctrines, but a relational grammar, open to surprise, faithful to love’s deepest aim. It listens for the divine lure in science and art, in lament and wonder, in the cries of creation longing for renewal.

God’s “plan” is NOT a blueprint imposed by force — it is the invitation to become, to co-create with the Spirit who draws all things toward creative fulfillment. It is the trust that every act of love, every word of hope, every step toward justice, is a thread in the ongoing Incarnation of God’s heart in the world.

To rethink theology in a Processual Age is to join this flow: to be drawn, to respond, to create — and to processually become, along with our Creating-Redeeming God, a living part of the world’s deeper life.


✨ A Processual Prayer of Agency:
For the Incarnational-Redemptive Lure of God
to the Incarnating Redeeming Followers of God


The Lure of Love
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT


God is love.
God, who is in process with the world,
is drawing all things deeper into the life of God.
This God, who is ever and always,
is our Incarnating-Redeeming lure of love.

"O God of Love,
Who is ever becoming with the world,
ever luring all things into deeper life,
who is the God with us,
ahead of us,
within us,
forever calling us
into deeper life together.

"We open ourselves to your alluring presence.
Where we cling to what is fixed -
unfasten us with your patient persuasion.
Where we fear what is changing -
steady us with your faithful constancy.

"We pray O' God that you may
Incarnate yourself among us once again -
    in the courage to heal what is broken,
    in the hope to revive what we have wasted,
    in the beauty that stirs within us what is asleep.

"Redeem us O' Lord -
    not by force but by invitation;
    weave our choices, our griefs, our small faiths
    into your larger story of becoming.

"Teach us O' Lord to see:
    heaven, not as reward but as creative fulfillment,
    hell, not as your wrath but as possibility refused,
    and salvation, as the healing we share in together,
    moment by moment, in this ever-unfolding now.

"May our words, our prayers, our daily acts
be verbs of love —
    co-creating, co-suffering, co-dreaming
    with you, the living lure and heart of all things.

"Draw us deeper, Loving God,
    into life with you,
    into life with each other,
    into living lessons of life to the world -
and in our becoming,
be  still,
be wondering,
be love."

Amen.


R.E. Slater
July 1, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved


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Rewriting God: Updating Theological Language, Part 3

 


Rewriting God:
Updating Theological Language
PART 3

From Essence to Event:
Rethinking Theology in a Processual Age

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT


In producing parts 1 and 2, I had considered several general and academic titles showing the extensiveness of the subject matter at hand that could be written about. They are:


New Theological Language
  • Rewriting God: The Case for Updating Theological Language (this was Part 1)
  • Beyond Substance: Process Theology and the Renewal of Christian Doctrine
  • Process and Presence: A Contemporary Language for God
  • Becoming Divine: The Evolution of Theological Metaphysics
  • God in Process: Moving Beyond Hellenistic Ontologies
  • Relational Reality: Rethinking Doctrine through Process Thought (today's Part 2)
  • From Static to Dynamic: A New Vocabulary for God
  • Process over Plato: Reforming the Language of the Church
  • Theology in Motion: Updating the Language of God, Christ, and Creation
Redescribing the Trinity
  • The Trinity in Motion: A Processual Reimagining of Divine Relationality
  • Christology Expressed in Processual Terms
  • Incarnating Process: Jesus Beyond Essence and Experiencing Becoming
  • Doctrinal Language Focus
  • Old Words, New Worlds: Translating Doctrine for a Relational Cross & Cosmos
  • The Failure of Substance: Why Theology Needs a New Metaphysic
  • Semantic Resurrection: Redeeming Doctrinal Language through Process
Creative & Poetic Genre Titles
  • The Grammar of God: Speaking the Divine in a Changing World
  • Theology on the Move: Language, Love, and Becoming
  • A Lexicon of Living Faith: From Static Terms to Dynamic Truths
  • Verbs of God: A Process Lexicon for a Relational Theology (this was an earlier article)
  • Words in the Wind: Rethinking Doctrines for a World in Process

Consequently, each theological category is a story in itself reflecting the expansiveness of 21st century postmodern/metamodern theological language.

Now let's proceed to a general outline of these categories showing the possibilities for reimagining God, Scripture, Jesus, and Church along with doctrinal terms like Trinity, Incarnation, Divinity, Atonement, Salvation, Redemption, and even Eschatology.

Because of modern societies complexities and the great age of historic, academic scholarship, theology no longer is a straight path as it seemed to be in the church's early years. Rather, theology has become an eclectic hodgepodge of constructions, suppositions, ideations, reformulations, denominationalisms, sectarian thought, and applications.

When leaving evangelical theology I was not content to journey forward in my Christian faith as a past-evangelical... I needed a new theology that was more open to academic scholarship, more progressive, and more freeing. And one that led out by doubt and uncertainty so that other avenues could be explored, investigated, and/or developed. This I finally found in process theology though I knew nothing of it when I started.

And in hindsight, having left before Trumpian evangelicalism had become a thing (me: 2009/11 v trumpisim: 2015/16), I am glad I left my former faith's once bannered halls of propositional truths claimed as timeless and everlasting... whose outcome has been shown in the spiritual bankruptcy of trumpian supremacy... and not in the love of an everlasting God founded in the observable witness, works, and love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and, in Jesus' own terms of himself, the Son of Man, remade in God's image.

Ten years later, in 2025, evangelical trumpism has evidently not repented of the evil it is doing to the oppressed and unloved in America - nor of the harm and evil it is doing across the world in Ukraine (Putin's kind of Christian Orthodoxy) - nor has it repented of the destruction Israel has done to the Palestinian people across the Gaza region - nor in America's trade wars with the world evoked in mistrust, suspicion, one-sided accusations and indictments.

This kind of Christianity is the kind to flee from, shun, be rid of, burn up, and cast away. It is hateful, unhelpful, unattractive, and isolating. This is not how Jesus lived in the world and it is not how the gospel of Christ is to reach out into the world. It is of the devil, dressed in sheep's clothing, and altogether heinous.

Statedly, it seems that evangelicals have been paying lip service to God over the decades and not dedicating in their hearts truly to God nor to Jesus as they said they were. Their prayer and repentance rally in Washington D.C. in 2015 was a lie enunciated before the world by their words and actions in trumpian hate.

Sadly, the evangelical religion of most of my life has betrayed it's real self as bigoted, discriminatory, and bent on returning to the imperial religion of its day - even if it means following the devil himself with his many corrupt and lawless trumpian minions. To all this I say, Good Riddance.

Here is a brief review of how process theology rethinks the deep and rich history of the Christian church over the many millennia...


From Essence to Event: Rethinking Theology for a Processual Age

Chapter 1: The Crisis of Theological Language

Surveys the loss of intelligibility in classical doctrine. Shows how metaphysical assumptions—drawn from a Hellenistic worldview—limit theology’s relevance today. Introduces process philosophy as a way forward.

  • Why our metaphysical assumptions matter

  • Misunderstood doctrines: Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement

  • Overview of language stagnation in Christian theology

Chapter 2: Hellenistic Metaphysics in Christian Doctrine

Traces historical roots of terms like ousia, hypostasis, and logos. Shows their use in the Nicene Creed and Chalcedonian definitions. Critiques the static and hierarchical cosmology behind timeless, impassible, omnipotent portrayals of God.

  • Substance, form, and essence: Ousia and hypostasis

  • Timelessness and immutability in Greek thought

  • Plato, Aristotle, and the Church Fathers

Chapter 3: Modern Metaphysics and the Rise of Process Thought

Presents Whitehead's alternative vision: reality as becoming, not being. Explains actual entities, concrescence, and relational power. Frames process theology as metaphysically richer and more ethically viable.

  • Alfred North Whitehead and relational metaphysics

  • Process philosophy and theology: core concepts

  • Actual entities, concrescence, prehension, and God’s two natures

Chapter 4: The Trinity in Process Perspective

Reinterprets the Trinity not as three substances in one essence but as threefold relationality in the becoming of divine love. Highlights dynamic interrelation and mutual indwelling as evolving forms of divine expression.

  • From substance unity to relational flow

  • Dynamic mutuality of the divine persons

  • Reinterpreting perichoresis and divine diversity

Chapter 5: Christology and the Incarnation Reimagined

Affirms Jesus as the ideal embodiment of divine intention. Refutes metaphysical dualism of God inserted into flesh. Incarnation becomes the fullest moment of divine-human synergy.

  • Jesus as the ideal response to divine aim

  • Incarnation as processual, not metaphysical insertion

  • Christ's divinity: ontological vs. participatory models

Chapter 6: Creation, Time, and Providence

Argues for a co-eternal God-world relationship. Rejects creation ex nihilo and affirms deep temporality. God knows all that is actual and all that is possible, responding in real-time to creation’s unfolding.

  • Co-creative becoming: no ex nihilo, no determinism

  • God as temporal yet everlasting

  • Deep time, open future, and divine knowledge

Chapter 7: Atonement and the Power of Persuasion

Replaces legal satisfaction models with an image of God who redeems through persuasive, suffering love. Salvation is relational repair, not juridical balancing.

  • A critique of penal substitutionary models

  • Suffering love, divine solidarity, and healing justice

  • Salvation as creative transformation over legal rectification

Chapter 8: Scripture as Processual Witness

Views the Bible as a collection of evolving experiences of divine presence. Sacred not because it is inerrant, but because it captures humanity’s dynamic relationship with God.

  • The Bible as evolving testimony, not static revelation

  • Inspiration, error, and the divine-human partnership

  • Narrative truth vs. metaphysical absolutism

Chapter 9: The Afterlife and Eschatology in Process

Rejects binary heaven/hell constructs. Resurrection becomes transformation into divine memory and renewed value intensity. Eschatology is unfolding participation, not final catastrophe.

  • Eternal life as ongoing becoming

  • Memory, transformation, and the resurrection of meaning

  • New creation as emergence, not cataclysm

Chapter 10: A New Lexicon for Faith

Proposes replacements for outdated metaphysical terms, beginning with “essence.” In classical theology, essence (ousia) implies a fixed, timeless substance shared among divine persons. In process theology, this is replaced with the language of actual occasions—events of experience that participate in God’s unfolding. God’s character is not located in an essence but in the faithful continuity of divine intention expressed through the dynamic responsiveness of the world. The new lexicon offers liturgical, pastoral, and doctrinal tools to replace static concepts with processual ones.

  • Suggested replacements for classical terms

  • Examples of sermons, doctrines, and liturgy updated

  • Toward a relational grammar of theology

Conclusion: A Faith Worth Speaking Again

Summarizes how process theology revitalizes Christian speech. Encourages theology grounded in love, relationality, and hope.

  • Pastoral implications

  • A spirituality of response, not control

  • Theology as living conversation


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