Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write 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 Charities - Hope Network. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charities - Hope Network. Show all posts

Monday, February 8, 2021




Open Bibles—Open Minds

by Darrell lackey
September 19, 2020

Something I found growing up in the fundamentalist-evangelical world, was that having a closed mind was almost championed as a good thing. The more one knew about Scripture and the less one knew about “secular” literature, science, movies, music, popular culture, and philosophy, the more “spiritual” one was considered to be. Ignorance of things outside the Bible was often worn as a badge of honor.

Looking back, I think, how very sad. Also, how very contrary to the Christian faith and narrative. An open Bible should lead to an open mind. An open Bible should lead to an ever expanding and growing realization that we know very little. As we learn about the deep things of God and creation, the more curious we should become. After all, creation/existence is a big thing. The moment we think we know all we need to know, about anything, we reveal a disturbing lack of curiosity and a fairly shallow mentality.

I’m amazed at the people who because of their supposed Bible knowledge, tell us they don’t need to really delve deeply into other areas like science, political science, philosophy, social science, or all the other areas of knowledge. Holding up their Bible, they boldly claim all they need to know is contained in its pages. They then to go on to pontificate about subjects they have very little knowledge of (admittedly, proudly), beyond popular opinion, sheer prejudice, or stereotypes. They become the guy at the end of the bar blathering on about his latest conspiracy theory, which he’s “researched” deeply on the internet. Got it.

They view experts and academics with suspicion; and also news stories that don’t confirm or support what they already believe (which explains many of the anti-maskers). They are sure the fact they have memorized large portions of Scripture qualifies them to summarily dismiss people who have spent much of their lives studying, writing, publishing, and speaking in areas where they are widely recognized as experts or scholars. But what are years of learning at the highest levels, recognized learning, when one can just memorize portions of the Bible or follow some guy on the internet?

I’m stating nothing new or novel. Historian Mark Noll pointed this out back in 1995 with his book, “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.” It was supposed to be a wake-up call and yet, here we are. It is 2020 and it may be worse than it was in 1995. We have supposed intelligent evangelicals calling widely recognized facts, “fake news.” Fake? No, it’s just news they don’t like—news that doesn’t support the world they’ve constructed in their closed universe. Or we have appeals to the “common sense” of conventional “wisdom,” in whatever area.

Here is a good example:

“Think about it. Why have Americans been able to do more to help people in need around the world than any other country in history? It’s because of free enterprise, freedom, ingenuity, entrepreneurism and wealth. A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume. It’s just common sense to me.”

To the contrary, we read:

“Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, ‘Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.’” (Luke 21)

So much for, “common sense.” Falwell, Jr. probably believes because of his upbringing and history, that he knows the Bible well. But statements like his (and recent events?) prove the opposite. Somewhere along the line his supposed Bible “knowledge” became a closed room, a dead end, something much smaller than the wide expanse of creation and what creation can tell us. Or it became secular understandings with a religious veneer, but simply assumed to be true, even “biblical.”

Closed quarters, where all one can see is walls, and is familiar with everything in the room, leads to the illusion this is all there is, that we “know” it all. It becomes a very small world. And yet, a look out the window, if any still remain, reveals such not to be true at all. To wish to remain in ignorance, as even a virtue, is shameful. It’s certainly not the sign of a mature Christian.

Truly knowing the Bible, which really means knowing its author, should always lead to an open mind, a mind that recognizes how little it really knows. It should lead to a mind that realizes all of existence (including the poor) has something to teach us (Psalm 19). Further, such knowledge will often come from sources and places well outside our culture, ethnic group, religious tradition, education level, historical time frame, or familiar worldview.

In Daniel we read:
“As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom…” (Daniel 1:17)
Notice this is something God gave, and it was in “all” literature and wisdom, not just in what these young men were used to, already knew, or brought up with.

As Christians, we believe all truth is God’s truth. But not everything we believe, or think, or were taught, or interpreted, or heard somewhere once from our favorite preacher is true. Too often what we think is “common sense” is nonsense we just assume is true. A closed and uncurious mind is nothing to be proud of.

Open Bibles should lead to open minds, not the opposite.


Saturday, April 28, 2012

Of God's Love & GateKeepers of Another Sort - How Does God Love? "...If Not More"

Three little words about how we are loved raises a bigger question
Published: Friday, April 27, 2012, 9:37 AM
Kathy Higbee
IMG_4722.jpeg

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Some powerful voices shared the air at a breakfast this past week to help extend the reach of Hope Network's pastoral services.

But it was a three-word interjection from a woman in a wheelchair who stole the show, or at least helped drive home a point that perhaps all of us should stop to consider from time to time.

"If not more," said Kathy Higbee, just loud enough to be heard, but in a tone so reverently put that it raised both mild laughter and goosebumps.

Kathy was listening to Chuck Ely describe how God loves us all, and how that includes the likes of Kathy, people with special challenges whom we too often relegate to a back burner.

Because they look or sound or feel different from the rest of us "normal" people, we consciously or unconsciously tend to subjugate them to second-class status, and that's dangerous territory, especially from a spiritual standpoint.

Chuck was reminding those at the breakfast that Our Lord loves those with limitations just as much as everyone else.

And that's when Kathy piped up with "If not more."

You can slice and dice this a lot of different ways, of course. You could blame Kathy for a haughty attitude, daring to assume that the Creator plays favorites, that his chosen ones use wheelchairs and crutches and braces. That they require special therapies, feeding tubes.

But maybe he does. And wouldn't that be a wonderfully startling thing, to see Heaven's gatekeepers adorned in halos of another sort?

I first met Kathy last year, while writing profiles of people who make Hope Network the force that it is for people both struggling and soaring. It's an organization that works tirelessly to help 23,000 people a year harness their gifts, to reach their potential, no matter their lot in life.

We're talking ex-offenders and kids with autism and people fighting back from traumatic brain injury. People with needs the rest of us could only imagine, elements capable of humbling us each and every time we sweat the small stuff that makes us look, well, small.

Kathy Higbee is part of a prayer group that Chuck Ely helps direct at one of Hope Network's many sites. And I still have in my notes the first words I heard her utter, responding to the prospect that handicapped people raise their voices in song:

"The Lord doesn't mind how we sound."

How profound. Although that's not my first impression of Kathy, because I am ashamed to say that when I first laid eyes on her, my mind registered "Gal in wheelchair."

Kathy Higbee never asked for that. If it weren't for a motor vehicle accident some 20 years ago that robbed her of the ability to walk and talk without a slight slur -- that caused injury to her brain at the age of 19 -- I might have met her and thought "Engaging woman in her late 30s…nice hair."

With three words, though, Kathy helped me to see well beyond that and wonder if those with so-called limitations have a special place in the Savior's heart. And why not, given Jesus' propensity to break bread with the untouchables of his time on earth.

With three words, a woman who's been ignored and passed over and misunderstood raised the consciousness of a roomful of men and women who didn't come to hear her speak.

But I'm guessing that, thanks to Kathy's impromptu lesson, more than one of us walked away to question how warmly we embrace all God's children.

If not more.


Feel moved to help advance the mission of Hope Network? Visit them online.
Email: rademachertom@gmail.com



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