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 from 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 Doubt and Uncertainty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doubt and Uncertainty. Show all posts

Monday, June 1, 2020

Supporting Hawk Nelson's Frontman, Jonathan Steingard's, Uncertainty and Doubt



Supporting Faith,
Doubt and Uncertainty

by R.E. Slater
June 1, 2020

About nine years ago (2010-11) I went through a deep despair in my Christian faith. I knew going into it I would need to let everything go in order to see more clearly beyond my faith background and experiences. Little did I imagine how deep this would become or how titanic the struggle would be in the lost wilderness of my experience.

During that time I had no one to pray with me. No one who could guide me or talk with me about this chasm which had ripped open my spirit. I was utterly, utterly, alone. What made it worse was my sense that God was not there. I felt this intensely and it sadden me.

But at the same time God's Spirit was me. To this day I can't explain the difference only that God seemed very closed off from me; His heavens like brass to my prayers. And yet, in a paradoxical twist to my unwanted dive into the underworld I felt the presence of His Spirit leading and guiding.

I can't explain it. I can only say that I felt no need to leave this unearthly wilderness. My spirit told me to stay in it. Learn from it. To take my time to explore, ask questions, many questions, and to walk as much as this spiritual darkness as I could. Only when God said to leave would I leave. Not before.


And so, for nearly a year, I lived through very dark and spiritually difficult times. What I began to learn is that my faith foundation was solid but that it's particulars needed to be re-weighed, re-envisioned, and brought into the contemporary world of today. It required letting go of what I thought were most central to my faith and placing into that void a new center to help guide me through everyone of God's Spirit-ordained tasks lying ahead of me.

It was a time when I could reimagine everything I had known at a very mature age (55y) filled with many, many ministries, community services, church lay ministries, working, raising a family, learning to partner well with my spouse, and a host of other activities, central around them was my hunger to read and know what I hadn't learned in my undergraduate and graduate years.

The Lord had always challenged me to strive in His Word, to express it well in everyday living, to learn from loss (there have been many), from relationships (many again) and community activity of sundry sorts. Looking back, the Lord was preparing me to loss my faith that it might be regained again a hundredfold.


So I'm glad I allowed God to lead me, against my wishes, and quite unexpectantly, into His wilderness. It was not mine alone, but a land that He had graced and walked Himself. I saw His footsteps everywhere. His insights and teachings upon the very ground I tread. I was following after my Lord, being led by His Spirit, unto a new calling I did not want.

The burden which had grown into me was that of anger. Anger that all my preacher contacts and Christian friends were unwilling to enter the lands of unfaith. Their absence upon its desert spaces only had room for one. I thought these to be far more capable and prepared them myself. They had the tools (not that I didn't) and the personal vocations to be able to do this. And yet they entered not. It was left for me alone.

As such, I was angry that it had to be my little voice to speak up for the gospel of the Lord in a way which was not clear at all. Not until I had entered into these Spirit-filled spaces and then be lifted out of them as quickly by the Lord as I had been led into them. I cannot explain. But after that I knew what had to be undone. What had to be unsaid. And what I must do when deconstructing my fundamental and evangelical faith for a more relevant faith which might reveal the Lord more clearly than all my biblical knowledge I had obtained a mere 11 months earlier.


I latter learned what I went through is commonly termed a process of uncertainty and doubt. Its the bogey man term of the Christian world. It is the place where fallen sinners go into a personal hell of agnosticism or atheism never be delivered out of again. Though I knew of this things, and how people may look from the outside casting aspersions upon the fallen, my own experience only taught me to rejoice along the spiritually hard paths. And this I did as I struggled with the Lord for as long as He wanted me there.

When I think of people like Jonathan Steingard, the frontman for the Christian band, Hawk Nelson, and his recent admission to leaving the Christian faith, I feel only sorrow. But not in the way you would think. No, sorrow as I would for anyone in public ministry with high expectations placed upon them. that they did not have the personal space as I had to collapse into darkness with no one's care or worry.

What I had that so many in ministry do not is a personal place to go to see the Lord afresh. A hidden cleft in the rock; a lonely trail through burning brushlands; a garden undisrupted and without foes and enemies seeking my soul. When our brothers and sisters lose faith it is essential that they do if they are to find again in whatever way the Lord is leading them.


We cannot know how deliverance will come, if ever it does, but we must love, guide, and pray with our wounded warriors who may never really have had a time in their lives to ask the hard questions about their faith. My own testimony says that it often comes only after a long time of service in ministry, in study and prayer. Had it come sooner when I was younger I may not have had the ability to course-correct under the Spirit's guidance.

Jonathan Steingard is a young man, a young faith, and a faith disciple. I, myself, chose to allow him his time of wilderness walking. What will become of that walk we do not know. But I pray for God's goodness and blessing along his forbidden journey that in what ever way becomes of him the Lord continues to be His guide and stay. Amen? Yeah, verily, Amen.

R.E. Slater
June 1, 2020


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Jon Steingard (Hawk Nelson) REJECTS Christianity




Jonathan Steingard, Christian singer,
reveals he no longer believes in God

by Lisa Respers France, CNN
May 27, 2020

(CNN) Jonathan Steingard, frontman for the Christian rock band Hawk Nelson, has gone public with some personal news. In a recent lengthy post on his Instagram account, the singer shared that he no longer believes in God.

Jonathan Steingard, singer for Christian rock band Hawk Nelson, says he no longer believes in God.

"I've been terrified to post this for a while - but it feels like it's time for me to be honest," he wrote in the caption to his multi-image post of his statement. "I hope this is not the end of the conversation, but the beginning."

In his note Steingard explained how he came to his latest view:

"After growing up in a Christian home, being a pastor's kid, playing and singing in a Christian band, and having the word 'Christian' in front of most of the things in my life - I am now finding that I no longer believe in God," he wrote in his statement.
"The last few words of that sentence were hard to write. I still find myself wanting to soften that statement by wording it differently or less specifically - but it wouldn't be as true."

According to Steingard, "The process of getting to that sentence has been several years in the making."

He wrote that he started by privately processing his doubts and then sharing them in conversation with some close friends.

To his surprise, Steingard said, he found that his unbelief was shared by others who also had grown up in church, but who -- like him -- feared "losing everything if they're open about it."

Steingard said he felt like the timing was right to share given that his band is currently sidelined because of the pandemic.

His fellow band members supported the singer in a statement to USA Today, saying that Hawk Nelson's mission is to "inspire and encourage all people with the truth that God is FOR them and not against them."

"God is still FOR Jon & he still matters," the statement read. "Why? Because that truth doesn't change just because we question it."


Hawk Nelson - Drops In the Ocean (Lyric Video)



Jon Steingard of Hawk Nelson Plays the Crying Game

[Jon Steingard of Hawk Nelson is a new father to his son,
"little G" Gray Steingard. Will Jon know the differences
between his son's crying sounds?]




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Hawk Nelson frontman Jonathan Steingard



Jon Steingard: From His Bandmates:
Daniel, Micah, David

One of our best friends, one with whom we have walked, worked and lived alongside for 20 + years revealed some of his innermost feelings on his faith journey this past week.

Our mission as Hawk Nelson has always been to inspire and encourage all people with the truth that God is FOR them and not against them. In that message’s most simple and purest form, that THEY matter.

So now we turn that truth towards one of our own. That God is still FOR Jon & he still matters. Why? Because that truth doesn’t change just because we question it.

How we treat one another when they are at a different stage in their journey based on their life experiences is part of a bigger conversation. We are called to love one another unconditionally, as God loves us. We should also encourage and challenge one another in our Faith, seeking truth.

Are we the authors of our own salvation and eternity? Has God provided a way to salvation for us through Jesus? These are the questions that we each must ask and explore.

In the Bible (Romans 8:38) Paul writes, “… I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love… neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below - indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The same Lord is Lord of all, and gives richly to all who call on Him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Ever thankful and grateful for how God has used this band, the music and the relationships and how He continues to do so.

Daniel, Micah, David


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My Response to Evangelicalism's
Reaction

by R.E. Slater
May 27, 2020

Jonathan Steingard's expression of unbelief is an instance of honesty meeting doubt and uncertainty. Though it will lead him to the sidelines of institutionalized Christiandom it may also lead him to a well-needed space for faith introspection and revival which many other public Christian faith figures have taken in recovering their faith from the untruths taught by the church, or the unChristlike actions seen within the faith.

From such courage God can do great things in hearts seeking His love over other Christian beliefs disclaiming God's love in favor of practices, attitudes, and errant doctrines proclaiming God's searing judgment. I find in Jonathan's act an act of hopefulness to such a one brave enough to question his or her's faith and the teachings he or she have been raised under.

I took such a journey not too many years back myself only to discover God in uplifted and broader ways beyond my "conservative" biases. If we don't ask the right questions or challenge who we are then our faith cannot be lifted out of its misdirections. For many, its simply finding a more real Jesus culture away from the Christian secularism that too often surrounds the evangelical church. They may call it unbelief, but its more an unbelief in a Christian culture which has produced trumpian doctrines of lies, gracelessness, slander, and oppression.

Embracing empire culture is certain death to the church and its mission. I cannot fault Christian celebs who see this so starkly as to walk away from its chaining shackles. There is a better way. That way is Jesus. And those Christians and churches who chose Jesus must let go of the graceless teachings which bind them so that they may see God afresh again.

This then is the Spirit work of doubt and uncertainty. A process where the Master Potter remolds his pottery in shapes of freedom, declaration, and missional zeal for the Gospel of Christ.

R.E. Slater
May 27, 2020
Addendum

by Grant Alford
May 28, 2020

I completely agree with your assessment, and it seems in such contradiction to another posting of the same news item and the "Christian" response that seems to have all the pat answers and 'alarm'. My observation there was that the Evangelicals seem to write these people off as some kind of "Demas" who has responded to the siren voices of "the world, the flesh and the devil" so they can pursue some kind of hedonism or immorality or wealth.

My sympathies are with these who honestly and intellectually can no longer accept the "God" that they have been indoctrinated into believing.

The Evangelicals have sold a false bill of sale.

They offer a Four Spiritual Laws easy-believism, or a prosperity gospel.

They present an "Omnipotent" God who could DO ANYTHING and these ones who are "quitting the faith" wonder why, if God can do anything, has He not stopped the maniacs and dictators and perverts and sickness.

They talk about some kind of personal relationship in terms that just never materialize: "I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own".

They speak as though they just had a voice from heaven and a warm hug and everything is hunky dory.

These faiths and churches are the ones who are bearing false witness; who sit on their blessed assurance having never faced any doubts. 

I liken such faiths to the "cute" 6 or 7 year old child star (of the faith) who sings Amazing Grace, "How sweet the sound that saved a WRETCH like me." To me these faith expressions are no different than well trained parrots who mouth words which have no meaning. 

Or, they have "received Jesus into their hearts" and according to their various theologies they do so because they are the elect or children of the covenant, and if they question or quit their covenanted faith it must be because they never TRULY believed in the first place. [Circles in circles in circles of faith logicisms, as they say.]

I, too, marvel that the alarmists seem to think that the same honest intellectual questions are likely to end now that they have "walked away from (that) faith". I expect that it is these sincere ones who will pursue the options and may well be the leaders in a movement that will proclaim JESUS as the Saviour rather than the Trumpian churches, or some MAGA madness, seeking to establish some earthly kingdom (sic, Empire Christianity, or Christian Reconstructivism).


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An image of the proposed Temple for Atheists in the City of London, as called
for  by Alain de Botton. | Photograph: Thomas Greenall & Jordan Hodgson

Alain de Botton's Atheist Temple is a
Nice Idea, but a Defunct One

by John Gray
February 2, 2012

Alain de Botton has reinvigorated the conversation on religion. His new book moves away from the tedious debates of recent years to a more reflective consideration of the role of religion in sustaining values many people share.

Religion as a human phenomenon is too vast, pervasive and complicated to be discussed in simple binary terms of belief and unbelief. The evangelical atheists of the past few years may not be notable for sceptical doubt, but religious practitioners are often quite uncertain in their beliefs. De Botton is writing for the sceptics, whether they belong in any religion or not. It's a welcome shift of focus.

Atheists who aren't bigoted enemies of religion will agree that it has made many positive contributions. They are less likely to accept that they should have a religion of their own – complete with a temple in the City – as de Botton goes on to propose. Establishing atheist places of worship isn't exactly a new idea. As de Botton himself notes, an ambitious programme of atheist church-building was part of the Religion of Humanity, invented by the 19th-century French thinker Auguste Comte.

An obsessive, and at times unbalanced, personality, Comte – a fervent believer in phrenology, like many atheists at the time – developed an elaborate daily ritual that included tapping the forehead at the points where science had supposedly located the impulses of progress, altruism and order. He also created a "virgin mother of humanity", based on a married woman whom he had fallen in love with. When she died, he appointed her grave a place of pilgrimage.

Such eccentricities were not destined to last, but a number of atheist temples were established – not only in Paris, Comte's base, but in Rio de Janeiro, New York, Liverpool and London, where a church of humanity opened on Lamb's Conduit Street in 1870. In line with Comte's creed, these were temples where disciples could worship the new supreme being – humanity. As far as I know, none of the buildings is used for religious purposes today, though the Brazilian church seems to have been active until some time late in the 20th century.


When he proposes building a temple for unbelievers, de Botton is reinventing a wheel that never really turned. The fad for atheist temples lasted for perhaps 60 years, while places of worship dedicated to something bigger than humanity have been around for many millennia. There is a nice irony here. For all his loony notions, Comte was more intelligent than most of the atheists who came after him. He saw clearly that religion is an enduring human need that cannot be denied. Yet despite the formative influence it had on writers and philosophers such as George Eliot and John Stuart Mill, Comte's religion of humanity disappeared leaving hardly a trace – just a handful of sites, whose history as places of worship practically nobody remembers.

Even if Comte's church was ephemeral, he was right in predicting that religion would not die out. The world is awash with formless religiosity, much of it flowing through non-traditional channels. During most of the last century, politics was the principal vehicle for religion. Communism and the cult of the free market are examples of large, flimsy ideas being turned into articles of faith.

Today, faith is more often channelled through science. Not only the pseudo-science of crop circle enthusiasts and UFO cultists, but genuine advances in science and technology are being used to promote hopes and dreams that are quintessentially religious. People who believe that the human mind can be uploaded into virtual space and so be immune to death are recycling the fantasies of 19th-century spiritualists, who also argued that their beliefs were based on science.

Comte wanted his new religion to be based on science, so the temples of humanity pointed only as far as science could reach. That is why his new church failed. The very idea of a science-based religion is an absurdity. The value of religion is that it points beyond anything that can be known by the methods of science, showing us that a mystery would remain even if everything could be finally explained. The heart of religion isn't belief, but something more like what Keats described as negative capability: "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".

Rather than trying to invent another religion surrogate, open-minded atheists should appreciate the genuine religions that exist already. London is full of sites – churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship – that are evocative of something beyond the human world. Better spend the money that is being raised for the new temple on religious buildings that are in disrepair than waste it on a monument to a defunct version of unbelief.


Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Process Theology: The Peace of Uncertainty



Introduction

I find here in Farmer's process reflection all the best of "open and relational theology" coupled with "process thought." In opposition is the egregiousness of hob-nailed booted theology which misses everything that is said here in her well written article. Yet it is in this space we must take off our boots if we are to learn to walk again upon this earth in the presence of God as we would amongst all things holy and divine.

R.E. Slater
September 3, 2019






The Spaciousness of Uncertainty

by Patricia Adams Farmer
September 3, 2019

In the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.
- Rebecca Solnit

In her book Hope in the Dark, writer and activist Rebecca Solnit argues a strong and eloquent case for uncertainty. Uncertainty? But no one likes that word. Don't we often remark that the worst part of waiting for news about a diagnosis or a lost dog or an unpredictable hurricane is the "uncertainty"? Today, we face serious, existential uncertainties in the larger world: Will we finally address climate change before it's too late? Is it, in fact, too late? How much more violence will we see before hate runs its present course? Will our democracy hold? All this uncertainty makes us crazy. That is, until we discover the riches inherent in uncertainty.
The elegance of Solnit's premise, which she develops in historical context, is this: "In the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act." And this—uncertainty itself—forms the basis for all hope. She explains: "Hope is the embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists." She's right. Certitude is deadly. I often hear extreme optimists, particularly religious ones, exclaim with certitude (which they mistake for faith): "God's in control! It's all good!" I hear pessimists, especially lately in the face of the Amazon's raging fires, say with the same certitude, "We're toast! It's too late, it's all over." Both of these expressions lead to apathy and inaction, to say nothing of mental health problems. It is between these extremes that the gift of uncertainty steps in to save us. Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, when asked if she is an optimist or a pessimist, replies, "I am an optimist who worries a lot."

The idea of uncertainty from a spiritual viewpoint is a rich and fertile area for nurturing meaning and enthusiasm. And yes, hope itself. That's because in the spaciousness of uncertainty we come face to face with our freedom, not an illusory freedom, but authentic freedom to act, to make a difference to God and to the world. Freedom creates new worlds of possibility, but it also creates anxiety as it opens up possibilities for evil as well as for good. And so, our freedom is both a curse and a blessing. It fills us with the dread of uncertainty, but without it nothing would be real or fresh. Creation would end. Civilizations would cease.

As a process thinker and contemplative Christian, I embrace this sense of authentic freedom, even with the unpleasant side effect of uncertainty. I see God and the world as deeply interconnected—i.e., panentheism. To use religious language, we are in a covenantal relationship with God. We are co-creators with divinity, not inert chess pieces or puppets with the illusion of freedom. We possess authentic freedom to act and dream and change the world—a world of unrelenting uncertainty. But now we see that uncertainty is our best friend. Without it, it would be useless to do anything, to pray, to act, to write a letter to the editor, to protest. Nothing would count for anything without authentic freedom and its side kick, uncertainty.

In a Whiteheadian cosmology, uncertainty marks the character of every fresh droplet of experience in the universe. Every new moment is open and pliable and receptive until it becomes the past. In our human freedom, we have input, we have significance, we have power—albeit, limited. We are part of a whole universe infused with innate freedom, which means that even influencers like cancer cells and tyrants have input. But God has input, too. Always. In every fresh, becoming moment, God is at work. We may not see it or feel it, but God's presence imbues everything in the world, maybe not in an extrovert "Here I am!" sort of way, but rather in the quiet depth of things: in our sufferings and our joys, in our confusions and in our passion for a better world. God's power is not the kind of power that determines our fate like a master puppeteer; God's power is like the lure of oasis in a desert, an attraction, a beauty that we are so thirsty for that we choose it as we do a lover.

And so, God tenderly lures all creation toward the best possible choices given the circumstances. Of course, we humans often bulldoze over the best choice in favor of selfishness and greed and so break the heart of God on a daily basis. Nevertheless, love—the greatest power in the world—persists. As process theologian Marjorie Suchocki says, "God works with what is to bring about what can be." Such ongoing divine enticements toward joy and meaning and connection are driven by an unflagging cosmic love that beats quietly and patiently in the depths of the world, in the wings of the dragonfly, and in our cries for help.

So, yes, there is a kind of certainty, too, but it is not certainty of outcome or the certainty that "everything happens for a reason," or that "everything is in God's hands," but rather a faith in love itself, in beauty, in kindness—a trust in the power of creative transformation and resurrection possibilities, come what may. This is the firm, unwavering ground on which we stand.
I believe "God is love" as the New Testament says. And love never coerces or bullies or abandons or goes it alone. And so, in this thoroughly relational world, our faith in God is blended with the colors of empowerment within ourselves to create a fresh and more beautiful landscape. This means we have to be willing to accept uncertainty, even the anxiety of it.

If we have trouble accepting anxiety as a part of uncertainty, we may need to enlarge our palette to make room for several colors of feeling: contentment and restlessness, grief and joy, anger and forgiveness. All of this spaciousness helps Beauty do her work in the creation of a new world. Beauty, from a process standpoint, is not a pretty picture with monochromatic color of easy, uncomplicated feeling. It is not a Hallmark movie. Rather than a thin line of either/or, Beauty calls for a spacious, richly intense harmony of inclusion and transformation. Like the Psalmist of the Hebrew Bible who chooses all colors of feeling to be expressed in song and poetry, so maturity is learning to hold contradictory feelings in the wideness of God's mercy and love.

In the spaciousness of uncertainty, we can find a larger peace—Peace with a capital "P." This wider sense of Peace, Whitehead says, is primarily "a trust in the efficacy of Beauty." In this wideness filled with possibility and love, we can act, we can create, we make meaning. We can paint the world anew.






Saturday, July 23, 2016

Embracing the Dark Side of Doubt & Uncertainty




Not many years ago I spent nearly a year held within the black landscapes of doubt and uncertainty. My soul was troubled unlike anything I had ever experienced before and it drove me towards shattering my past before I was allowed to reform/reframe my future. Most curiously was the journey itself in that I didn't mind being in this troubling stage of destruction. I knew it needed to be done. And it needed to be quite thorough. But nor did I go on a "binger" and freak out during this time. I still was a husband and a dad and worker and lay minister with community responsibilities. But underneath to the observing eye there were dark waters and warring storms crashing across my soul.

Worse still was this strong feeling of God's absence. How ironic I thought! How could that be? Because even though there was this deep sense of abandonment of God's Spirit still I knew God was there. Hearing my laments. Knowing the troubles demanding my soul. But perhaps this was Job's experience too. Or, the Psalmist David's. Or really, any of those prophets of the bible who needed to be stretched out and laid bare before God from all the beggardly conformities of this tempestuous life.

Shattered

And so I tarried in this dark land of shattered dreams, unknowing, and personal removal. What I was ,and where I was, before this occurred turned significantly afterwards to what, and where, I am now, today. It was unplanned. It was deeply surprising and unnerving. But it was also necessary. And it wasn't a place I wanted to leave or abandon while going through this dark, soul-searching time. Why? For some reason it dawned upon me that God needed to have His way with me during this time and that I shouldn't quit it lest it be undone or incomplete. And so I stayed and waited for a redemption to come in the days of my reforming.

I knew too that my God would never leave me. But as well that I must fundamentally leave my past to follow Him. And so, it was a spiritually dark time. Nearly oppressive in many ways. And without anyone who would or could help though I tried to speak of my travail several times to unhearing ears. Still, there was silence. From God. And from man. But as this darkness persisted through most of a year I began to hear the Spirit's words in my heart and my mind more plainly than I had ever heard Him before. More surprisingly was the movement of God's Spirit upon me to write of Him in fundamentally new ways that freed my soul to do the task laid out before me; and later would go on to bless many others seeking healing, inspiration, or reconstitution.


And lest you think this is a rare occurrence let me share a video below which gives but a small glimpse of the agony a believer can go through when pressed of God into a new service, a new change of living, a new burden. But know also we are never forsaken of God though it feels for a time we are. Mine lasted most of a year. Now that is a long time. And certainly it was troubling to my soul. Foundationally troubling. Here was were doubt and uncertainly lived. Lands I had previously embraced, but now in fundamentally new ways of acceptance (and joy). Even so, though I felt abandoned by God I knew God was with me as He is with all of us at all times though we feel it not at times in life. At least that was my experience knowing God's assurance never left me even though heaven's brass ceilings echoed my laments back only to myself with no one - not even the Divine - seemingly hearing.

But morning eventually came and when it did I then understood the value of God's silence. For it was in the wilderness of my despair that He ministered to me across a land of hard rocks and desert heats. Through anguishingly empty spaces and formidable obstacles I would encounter in my (unwanted) journey into the divine whose fire burned all that remained within me. And it was there that faith returned and grew strong again in the bad lands of evil and lostness. That a divine compass was re-ignited to guide me again. That nourishing manna was provided to heal the soul. And cold waters would flow from the fissures of the earth opening up in their time.


And so it was enough. And the long days of despair in wilderness living were left behind and in its place, as I looked back, were discovered scattered memorials to God's faithfulness supplying His grace and wisdom in the desert places of my soul though I saw it not at the time. And with it a new direction that might guide me through the end of my days. And perhaps guide a host of other penitents living out their own wretched miseries and afflictions like as I. At least this is my prayer of healing restoration to the ones who weep in the night seeking guidance upon their knees. Whose speak words of lament to questions, angers, or disappointments without answer heard only upon the blowing wind. But know this, there is a mighty wind of the Spirit who bears and hears all who blows across the desperate reaches of our soul.

R.E. Slater
July 20, 2016


Doubt is Real - I Pray This Blesses Someone in Jesus name
Artist: @ChristianRapz
Category: Christian Hip Hop





Not knowing but moving forward













The Agnosticism of Wonder






Thursday, March 24, 2016

Snippets of Thoughts - Uncertainty and Doubt





UNCERTAINTY

For those living in a Christian faith full of doubt and uncertainty please know this is ok. The essence of faith in many cases is simply not knowing, not being sure. It affords the disbeliever (or unbeliever) time to look around, investigate, pray, worship, cry out, ache, share a broken heart with God, or simply learn to live in a new spiritual tension that doesn't require answers from God but perhaps better questions from us.

Too many Christians, it seems, require certainty and absolutes to assure their faith. When done it becomes a closed faith living with static pictures of an unseen, fantasy world. But doubt and uncertainty can be good things. These elements demand an openness to the hard questions of life which may never be answered as fully as we wish. It allows us to breathe again while paradoxically finding reassurance in the face of not knowing.

If we turn to the Scriptures many of the biblical figures we read of were led by God through a difficult time of personal unknowing, uncertain, even a doubting faith. A kind of faith which must allow for uncertainty while believing (or trusting) God enough to keep pressing forward.

It is said wisdom comes through experience. Faith then, is like wisdom. It needs "travel time in our lives" in order for it to take root.

R.E. Slater
March 24, 2016





Monday, February 1, 2016

Peter Enns - The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our "Correct" Beliefs



The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our "Correct" Beliefs
by Peter Enns (Author)

Publication Date - April 5, 2016


Product Details
  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: HarperOne (April 5, 2016)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 006227208X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0062272089

Book Description

The controversial evangelical Bible scholar and author of The Bible Tells Me So explains how Christians mistake “certainty” and “correct belief” for faith when what God really desires is trust and intimacy.

With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of “once for all delivered to the saints.”

Enns offers a model of vibrant faith that views skepticism not as a loss of belief, but as an opportunity to deepen religious conviction with courage and confidence. This is not just an intellectual conviction, he contends, but a more profound kind of knowing that only true faith can provide.

Combining Enns’ reflections of his own spiritual journey with an examination of Scripture, The Sin of Certainty models an acceptance of mystery and paradox that all believers can follow and why God prefers this path because it is only this way by which we can become mature disciples who truly trust God. It gives Christians who have known only the demand for certainty permission to view faith on their own flawed, uncertain, yet heartfelt, terms.

About the Author

Peter Enns is Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He has taught courses at several other institutions, including Harvard University, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary.

Enns is a frequent contributor to journals and encyclopedias and is the author of several books, including Inspiration and Incarnation and The Evolution of Adam. His popular blog The Bible for Normal People can be found at www.peteenns.com.