We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater
There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead
Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater
The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller
The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller
According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater
Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater
Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger
Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton
I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII
Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut
Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest
We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater
People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon
Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater
An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater
Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann
Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner
“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton
The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon
The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul
The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah
If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon
Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson
We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord
Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater
To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement
Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma
It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater
God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater
In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall
Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater
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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater
Showing posts with label Center for Process Studies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Center for Process Studies. Show all posts
When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions Sue Monk Kidd (Author)
Description Combining personal experience and classic Christian teachings, this inspirational autobiographical account of a woman's personal pain, spiritual awakening, and divine grace received "Virtue" magazine's "Book of the Year" award.
Publisher - HarperOne Publish Date - October 11, 2016 Pages - 240
About the Author Sue Monk Kidd is the author of the bestselling novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair, as well as the award-winning The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and God's Joyful Surprise.
Reviews
As I read her book, Kidd became a companion. I love having her walk with me on my journey.--Eugene Peterson, author of The Message
"A joy to read....Honest and healing."--Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and author of Soul Making
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Teihard de Chardin is NOT a process theologian but one which uses a small bit of process theology's relational process philosophy and theology tucked into the mythic realm of de Cardin's own Westernized (non-processual) system.
And though de Chardin describes this relational approach as a myth... a true process theologian will not; more aptly, relationality is one of the concise descriptors to how the God of all, and the creational products of the God of all, work and react to one another.
Thankfully, Ilia Delio, the author of the title below, IS a process theologian to which I am in hopes she makes this distinction as her publisher, Orbis, has not in it's published blurb below. - re slater
We are a species between axial periods. Thus, our religious myths are struggling to find new connections in a global, ecological order. Delio proposes the new myth of [Jung's] relational holism; that is, the search for a new connection to divinity in an age of quantum physics, evolution, and pluralism. The idea of relational holism is one that is rooted in the God-world relationship, beginning with the Book of Genesis, but finds its real meaning in quantum physics and the renewed relationship between mind and matter.
Our story, therefore, will traverse across the fields of science, scripture, theology, history, culture and psychology. Our guides for a new myth of relational holism are the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, and the Jesuit scientist-theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The complex human can no longer be simplified to one view or another: one must see the whole of our existence or one does not see at all.
Ilia Delio, OSF, a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, is Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology, Villanova University, and founder of the Center for Christogenesis. Her many books include The Hours of the Universe, Christ in Evolution, The Emergent Christ, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being, Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian, and Re-Enchanting the Earth: Why AI Needs Religion (all with Orbis).
Reviews
"Over ten years ago, Ilia Delio boldly asserted that evolution is the metanarrative for our age, changing even our understanding of God. Engaging the God question in this evolutionary context requires the myth of the relational whole, the story of a living God in relationship with a living earth. God is incomplete, not‐yet, and we are incomplete, not‐yet! With her unique creative literary flair, Ilia Delio draws on the relational holism of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung (whom she names as the saint) and the Jesuit scientist‐theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (whom she describes a prophet) to create a new framework for thinking about God. The outcome is a highly original synthesis--spiritually inspiring and theologically ground-breaking." --Diarmuid O'Murchu, author, Doing Theology in an Evolutionary Way
"Ilia Delio offers a brilliant and breathtaking look at the relational wholeness of God and world through the lenses of Teilhard, Jung, and contemporary science. If you're seeking faith in the future or a unitive vision that will revitalize our understanding of the participatory inter-becoming of God, humans, and world, this book is a must-read." --Sheri D. Kling, director, Process & Faith
"From the psycho-sentient depths of matter to the heights of divine becoming, Delio's cosmotheandric entanglement of Jung and Teilhard, modern science and ancient mysticism, achieve a new relational holism for a new axial age. The theology of the future will be "theohology"--experiential talk of the God-whole that is still coming into being." --Andrew M. Davis, The Center for Process Studies
"Ilia Delio is right: we need a new framework for thinking about God and salvation in an age of quantum physics and evolution that overcomes obstacles in the Church and beyond. Delio offers such an obstacle-overcoming framework: theohology. Building on insights from Jung, Teilhard, and many others, she provides a vision of the God who is the Whole of the whole, the distinct source of love but inseparable from everything that exists. This is an amazing book!" --Thomas Jay Oord, author, Open and Relational Theology
"The Not-Yet God is an important work and a major contribution to the fields of theology and depth psychology. In comparing Teilhard and Jung, Delio reveals new aspects of both thinkers and allows us to appreciate them from new angles. This work demonstrates wide reading and research in these fields and is written in a clear and concise language, so that not only specialists but general readers can glean many insights from Delio's excellent scholarship." --David Tacey, emeritus professor, La Trobe University, Australia; author, The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change
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Process Pop-Up: The Not-Yet God and the Relational Whole
January 8 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm PST
We are part of a creative whole of unlimited potential whereby God, self and world are constantly drawn into new existence together
The new science, especially quantum physics, has changed our understanding of space, time and matter; hence it raises new questions on the meaning of God. Is God outside space and time? Or is God integral to the unfolding of the universe? If consciousness is fundamental to matter, is consciousness fundamental to the reality of God as well? We will discuss these questions and more as we explore the essential role of consciousness in relation to the religious experience of God.
Entanglement is the inextricable and insuperable relationality of all that is, including God. If pantheism conjures up the collapse of God into matter, then entanglement holds everything together in a relational whole. There is no transcendence without immanence and no immanence without transcendence; there is no God without matter and no matter without God. God and matter form a complementary whole.
Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC and American theologian specializing in the area of science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics and neuroscience and the import of these for theology.
Ilia currently holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University, and is the author of twenty books including Care for Creation (coauthored with Keith Warner and Pamela Woods) which won two Catholic Press Book Awards in 2009, first place for social concerns and second place in spirituality. Her book The Emergent Christ won a third place Catholic Press Book Award in 2011 for the area of Science and Religion. Her recent books include The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love (Orbis, 2013), which received the 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award and a third place Catholic Press Association Award for Faith and Science. Ilia holds two honorary doctorates, one from St. Francis University in 2015, and one from Sacred Heart University in 2020.
I am a Christian deeply involved in interfaith communities. I look for books that Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and others might explore together as springboards for thought and conduits for friendship. "The Not-Yet God" by Ilia Delio is such a book. I am also a member of an adult Sunday School class in a local Methodist Church. I am on the lookout for books that might be helpful for my Sunday School class. Here, too, "The Not-Yet God" is such a book.
Let me explain. On the one hand, with its emphasis on Christian theologians and teachings, "The Not-Yet God" is relevant to Christians with its novel understanding of Christ and the birth of Christ in the human heart. It offers new ways of thinking about Christ, God, Church, and Christian spirituality.
On the other hand, with its focus on a religion of tomorrow that understands God as the sacred Whole of the universe and spirituality as respect and care for the planet, "The Not-Yet God" is relevant to people of all faiths. She speaks of a church of the planet, but she could as easily have said a sangha of the planet, or an umma of the planet, or a temple of the planet. Her hope, and mine as well, is that people of many faiths, and people without any faith, might find some of the ideas she proposes important, helpful, and inspiring.
I am also a process theologian, as is she, although she is much more influential and talented than I. I am chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Process Studies, on the advisory board of Process and Faith, and active in the Cobb Institute for Process and Practice - all of which seek to introduce process ways of thinking to the general public. I am always on the lookout for books that I might share with people in study groups who want to learn about the process tradition. "The Not-Yet God" is such a book.
Delio is a unique kind of process thinker: weaving together insights from Teilhard de Chardin, Whitehead, Hartshorne, Carl Jung, David Bohm, Marshall McLuhan, Cynthia Bourgeault, and many others. The subjects she addresses, too, are unique, especially computer technology and artificial intelligence. She is one of the very few who have developed theologically sensitive and appreciative approaches to AI as a potential partner in helping bring about a better world. As part of the process family, she is among our pioneers in charting new ground - a very Whiteheadian and Teilhardian thing to do.
I will show the connection between Art and Process thought of Whitehead. Whitehead also believes that aesthetic apprehension is complementary to scientific apprehension and helps to complete it. He believes that deeply felt intuitions highlight and illumines nature and that there are multiple ways of knowing and can be jointly affirmed and harmonized. Thinking is actually a form of feeling; aesthetic wisdom and rational inquiry are complementary. Both can be contexts in which people discover higher ideals in which to live and give a sense for the mystery and beauty of the universe, it becomes a means to the end of cultural transformation. Art can play a part in a direct interaction of Asian texts like the Upanishads, Bhagavadgita, the Buddhist scriptures, and the Taoist canon with the Christian biblical text. This education explores forms that enliven the minds and hearts of students leading them to healthy cultural transformation. This leads to everyone listening to each other in a spirit of respect and humility, and learn from each other with a willingness to be changed themselves.
Interfaith Explorations Spring 2023: Cultivating Spirituality in Daily Life
April 12 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am PDT
In this offering, qualities of heart and mind to help us in our daily life at home, in family, in the workplace, and other situations in the journey of life, such as births, deaths, joys, traumas will be explored through the framework of Spiritual Alphabet, developed by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. Our sessions will be facilitated by Dr. Jay McDaniel and Sophia Said, who will bring two “letters” from the spiritual alphabet to each session (“A” is for attention, “B” is for beauty, “C” is for connection, etc.), sharing quotations, poems, and stories from personal experiences that illuminate them; and then, with help from prompting questions, invite others to do the same.
Interfaith Explorations is a program of the Interfaith Center of Arkansas, and is co-sponsored by the Cobb Institute, Spirituality & Practice, and Process & Faith.
Here is an instance where it can be shown that Process-based Christianity can play well with other religions without losing it's own substance and interiority. It still is Christian but it is willing to find common ground in relationality, experientiality, morality, and the common good. Basically, the ingredients of love based upon a loving God and Savior/Redeemer in outreach to all mankind. Which also means, as it did to the Apostle Paul, you adapt Christ without losing Christ. - R.E. Slater
Compassion Here and Now: The Buddhist Way in Process Perspective
A Discussion Group Exploring Buddhism Through the Lens of Process Thought
WHAT?
Learning Circle
WHEN?
April 12 thru April 26 Wednesdays at 5:00 PM Pacific / 8:00 PM Eastern
WHERE?
Online via Zoom
This 3-week learning circle, facilitated by Jay McDaniel and Kazi Adi Shakti, explores how people might learn from Buddhism with help from process philosophy and theology. The focus is on Mayanana Buddhism in the Zen tradition. The circle is open to anyone who has an interest in Buddhism and process thought; no prior knowledge of either is required. Themes to be explored are momentariness, inter-becoming, mindfulness, breathing meditation, the Bodhisattva vow, the Buddha nature in all things, compassionate living, emptiness, God, ecological civilization, and service to the world.
“This Unthinkable Power [of Amida Buddha] stronger than ourselves, this persistent urge impelling the self to transcend itself, is a call to us of the All feeling Compassionate Heart, the Eternal Spirit of Sympathy, who is in his essence the Light and Life of all, who is World-conscious. To feel all, to be conscious of everything, is the Spirit. . . . [T]his Light and Life, this All-feeling Being is in our hearts.” –Kanamatsu
About the Facilitators
Jay McDaniel, PhD, is professor emeritus of world religions at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas who has written several books on process-relational thought and its application in religion, spirituality, and ecology. His works include Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism, What is Process Thought?: Seven Answers to Seven Questions, and Choosing Life: Ecological Civilization as the World’s Best Hope. Jay is editor of the website Open Horizons, serves as an advisor to Process & Faith, and is also chair of the board of the Cobb Institute.
Kazi Adi Shakti is an artist and independent researcher studying and theorizing on the intersections of Process thought, Madhyamaka Buddhism, Western Marxism and Ecofeminism, with a special focus on the unique role each might play in a holistic soteriology that includes them all. Kazi blogs regularly on her site, www.holo-poiesis.com. Kazi graduated with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art where she majored in Interdisciplinary Sculpture with a focus on computer modeling, 3D scanning and digital fabrication. She currently works as a specialist in the 3D digitization industry, working with museums and cultural institutions to capture and produce high-fidelity virtual representations of historical artifacts as part of the on-going process of their conservation and documentation.
From Jay McDaniel's Process Site comes "Four Hopes of the Process Movement". Let's sit back and enjoy the depth of Jay's insights over a lifetime of process study!
R.E. Slater
March 14, 2023
What Is Process?
by Jay McDaniel
July 7, 2021
The Process movement is a network of people around the world who want to make a constructive difference in the world. They include farmers, artists, business persons, government officials, philosophers, sociologists, educators, grandmothers, social workers, musicians, and poets. Some are religious and some are not; but all are hopeful.
Those who are religious include Bahais, Buddhists, Christians, Daoists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, and Unitarian Universalists. These traditions are very important to them, and they weave a process outlook on life onto, and with help from, their spiritual lineages.
Nevertheless some people in the process network are spiritually interested but not religiously affiliated. Indeed, for many, including those who enjoy a sense of religious belonging, the topic of "religion" is not as important to them as are many other topics facing humanity, other animals, local communities, and the Earth today.
So what do they have in common? They share four hopes that animate their actions in local communities and the broader world.
Whole Persons. They work to help individuals around the world grow in personal wholeness and spiritual vitality (e.g. creativity, beauty, love, forgiveness, faith, playfulness, gratitude, listening, and a sense of wonder)
Compassionate Communities: They help build compassionate communities that are creative, caring, participatory, diverse, inclusive, good for animals and good for the Earth: with no one left behind.
A Flourishing Planet: They work to help the planet as a whole flourish with its many forms of life. Toward this end they encourage "world loyalty" as well as "local loyalty," encouraging people to think of the Earth as a whole as an Earth Community deserving respect and care. This hope lies behind their commitment to "ecological civilizations."
Holistic Thinking. They encourage holistic ways of thinking - drawing from science, art, philosophy, and spirituality - that help people live with respect and care for the Earth community, enjoy meaningful bonds in local settings, and find personal happiness.
For process thinkers there are many obstacles to these hopes. Examples include:
(1) the excessive individualism of western modernity and consumer culture,
(2) a mechanistic understanding of the world that reduces all things to inert objects in space,
(3) the failure of higher education to address serious problems of the world, and
(4) the failure of education as a whole to help people become whole persons in whole communities.
Some process thinkers believe that the world is headed toward catastrophe: global climate change, chronic economic inequities, animosities between nations, and political dysfunction, The four hopes are not just icing on a cake. They are necessary for survival.
Many process thinkers take the philosophy of the late mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, as an alternative to hyper-individualism and mechanism and believe that his "philosophy of organism" is the kind of holistic thinking sorely needed.
Below I offer an example of a Whiteheadian version of holistic thinking.
Those of us in the Process movement recognize and celebrate that there are other, non-Whiteheadian forms of holistic thinking that are also conducive to living with respect and care for the community of life on Earth. The Process network can well include Islamic, Jewish, East Asian, African, and Indigenous forms of wisdom that are Whiteheadian, but that are extremely important if the four hopes are to be realized. It is the four hopes that matter the most. They are what animate the Process movement.
Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 9:00 AM – Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 6:00 PM PST
Location
Claremont United Church of Christ
233 Harrison Avenue
Claremont, CA 91711
CONFERENCE VISION AND RATIONALE
Founded in 1973 by John B. Cobb Jr. and David Ray Griffin, The Center for Process Studies (CPS) is coming upon its 50-year anniversary as a faculty research center of Claremont School of Theology. Under the leadership of Cobb and Griffin, CPS earned a global reputation as the southern California hub for the study of process philosophy and theology. Through rigorous research, cutting-edge conferences, and academic publications, Cobb and Griffin enacted the mission of CPS to facilitate the development, relevance and application of Whitehead’s philosophy across disciplines. The continued leadership by subsequent co-directors Marjorie Suchocki (1990), Philip Clayton (2003), Roland Faber (2006), Monica Coleman (2008) and others, built upon the foundations of Cobb and Griffin and continued to lead CPS into new generations of research and relevance. Now led by executive director Wm. Andrew Schwartz (2013) and program director Andrew M. Davis (2020), CPS enters its 50th year indebted to the contributions of the past, but looking toward the novelty of the future.
Co-sponsored by The Cobb Institute, The Institute for Ecological Civilization, and the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China, the “50th Anniversary Conference of the Center for Process Studies” celebrates the 50-year legacy of CPS and its creative transformation in the context of a new generation of process thinkers. Three core layers of investigation, each with four respective sessions (A-D), are proposed in light of this purpose:
1. Reenchanting Religion: Process Theology in the 21st Century (Feb 15th)
A. Divinity Reimagined: What is novel in the explication and/or reception of a process doctrine (or model) of God over and against its alternatives? Where are challenges and opportunities arising in current debates and conversations?
B. Religious Experience and Religious Belonging: What forms of religious experience, intuition and belonging are substantiated and/or produced from within process theology as creatively expressed across ecclesial settings? What does process theology/spirituality look like when lived out communally?
C. Panpsychism and Religious Naturalism: In what ways are process conceptions of panpsychism (or panexperientialism) relevant to the re-formulation of central Christian doctrines e.g., creation, Christology and divine action? What is the relationship between panpsychism and affirmations of religious naturalism?
D. Beyond Dialogue and Deep Religious Pluralism: Where are new connections being made between process theology and different religious systems and thinkers? In what ways is process theology informing new discussions of religious pluralism and multiplicity?
2. Science and Philosophy: Nature and the Nature of Reality (Feb 16th)
A. Facts, Values and Possibilities: How does process thought understand the relationship between facts, values and possibilities as variously expressed from physics to metaphysics? In what ways does process philosophy offer an interpretive metaphysics for the findings of physics?
B. New Materialism, Poststructuralism, and Process Philosophy: Where do points of connection lie between process philosophy, new materialism and poststructuralism? What new voices/insights are being integrated and what interdisciplinary insights are emerging?
C. Brains, Souls and Self: What new contributions is process thought making to related concerns and questions in neurology, psychology and psychiatry? Where have advances been made with respect to the brain, the mind-body problem, personal identity and the self, and personality growth and transformation?
D. Art, Beauty and Creativity: In what ways does process philosophy inform aesthetic experience, theory, and expression? Where are new developments and connections being made across artistic disciplines?
3. Process in Practice: Society, Sustainability and Ecological Civilization (Feb 17th)
A. Economies and Communities for the Common Good: In what ways is process thought informing and/or critiquing economic theories, policies and measures? What practical revisions are being proposed and where? To what end are these revisions sought and for which communities?
B. Power, Peace and Politics: What resources does process thought sustain in attempts to remedy deepening bifurcations across politics, society, and culture? What extremes does process thought seek to avoid in political theory, governance, and power? How is peace possible given the dysfunctional entanglement of power and politics?
C. Process Philosophy and Education: How is process philosophy informing and/or transforming educational theory and practice? Where do theoretical and practical weaknesses lie from grade-school to university settings and beyond? How is process philosophy responding to the crises in education?
D. Environmental Ethics and Ecological Civilization: What theoretical and practical ethical measures does process thought support and/or justify in light of the ecological crisis and the quest for an ecological civilization? What requires transformation in our relation to the environment and its human and non-human “others”?
It remains a truly exciting time for the global process movement with a new generation of scholars leading the way. This conference aims not only to celebrate the 50-year legacy of CPS, but also anticipate its continued relevance and creative transformation in the decades still ahead.
Alfred North Whitehead
About The Center for Process Studies
Our Mission
Driven by the principle of relationality and commitment to the common good, the Center for Process Studies (CPS) works on cutting edge discourse across disciplines to promote the exploration of interconnection, change, and intrinsic value as core features of our world.
As a faculty-based research center at Claremont School of Theology (CST), CPS conducts research and develops educational resources that explore the implications of these principles on a range of topics (e.g. science, ecology, culture, philosophy, religion, education, psychology, political theory, etc.) in a unique transdisciplinary style that harmonizes fragmented disciplinary thinking in order to develop integrated and holistic modes of understanding.
The CPS mission is carried out through academic conferences, courses, and seminars, a robust visiting scholars program, the world’s largest library related to process-relational writings, and an array of publications (including a peer-reviewed journal and a number of active books series).
Our History
The Center for Process Studies (CPS) is a faculty-based research center at Claremont School of Theology, in affiliation with Claremont Graduate University. The Center conducts research, publishes scholarly and popular works, organizes courses and conferences, and seeks to promote the common good for our common world by means of the relational approach found in process thought.
Influenced by the work of Alfred North Whitehead and John B. Cobb, Jr., CPS is dedicated to the expansive exploration of ever-new sectors of academia and society through the transformative and ever-transforming tradition of process thinking. Process thinkers engage many different religious traditions and non-religious worldviews, working to both create positive social change and protect the natural environment. Among the Center’s publications are: Process Studies, the leading refereed journal in the field; Process Perspectives, a popular newsmagazine; and multiple series of books and publications stemming from its various projects.
Founded in 1973 by John B. Cobb, Jr. and David Ray Griffin as a faculty center of Claremont School of Theology in affiliation with Claremont Graduate University, the Center for Process Studies was established to facilitate the development and application of a relational worldview. Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki became a co-director in 1990. Philip Clayton became a co-director in fall 2003. Roland Faber became a co-director in January 2006, and Monica A. Coleman became a co-director in fall 2008. In fall 2013, Wm Andrew Schwartz (a PhD student at the time) was appointed as Managing Director of CPS. In this capacity, he played a central role in organizing the 2000-person "Seizing Alternative" conference in June 2015. Upon completion of his PhD in fall 2016 Schwartz was appointed as Executive Director of CPS. As of summer of 2020, CPS is affiliated with Willamette University and located in Salem, OR.
Through seminars, conferences, publications, a library/archive, and visiting scholars program, the Center for Process Studies encourages research on the form of process thought which received its primary impetus from philosophers Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000).
CPS contributes to the development of a new cultural paradigm of systematic metaphysics influenced by a relational worldview. As a resource for scholars and professionals, CPS coordinates multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research on pressing issues while seeking to avoid the inertia and limitations of segregated university disciplines. Where other new paradigm institutes focus on singular issues—like ecology, agriculture, feminism, race and class, decentralized political economic theory, or appropriate technology—a typical process focus is to integrate these issues through a non-dualistic worldview applicable to a wide range of issues.
Deeply appreciative of the natural sciences, process philosophy uniquely integrates science, religion, ethics, and aesthetics. It portrays the cosmos as an organic whole analyzable into internally related processes. In this way process thought offers a postmodern alternative to the mechanistic model that still influences much scientific work and is presupposed in much humanistic literature. The relational process perspective deals with multicultural, feminist, ecological, inter-religious, political, philosophical, and economic issues. Process thought provides a basis for discussion between Eastern and Western religious and cultural traditions. It offers an agenda on the social, political, and economic order that brings issues of human justice together with a concern for ecology. In these and other ways, process thinkers hope to contribute to those movements that will carry the world beyond war, injustice, and despair.
