The Imagery of Revelation from a Processual Perspective

The Imagery of Revelation from

a Processual Perspective

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Embracing the Lamb amid Empire Horror

From Imperial Ruin and Destruction to

Transformed Lives within communities of Christ....

- R.E. Slater

Imagery in Revelation

When checking with AI on the Internet about the imagery used in Revelation it said this:

The Book of Revelation is rich with symbolic imagery, employing metaphors, similes, and allegorical narratives to convey spiritual truths and warnings.

These images often draw from the Old Testament, ancient Jewish literature, and the Hellenistic culture of the time, and are used to paint a picture of God's ultimate victory over evil and the establishment of his eternal kingdom.

Key aspects of Revelation's imagery:

• Symbolic Numbers:
• Numbers like seven (wholeness, completeness), twelve (God's people), and multiples of ten (indefinite large number) are used symbolically.

• Visual Language:
• The book is filled with visions, and the term "imagery" is widely accepted to describe its style.

• Old Testament Connections:
• Revelation reinterprets and expands on Old Testament imagery, particularly from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel, in the context of the New Covenant.

• Transformation of Reality:
• The imagery aims to transform the reader's understanding of ultimate reality, encouraging faithful discipleship and action.

• Good vs. Evil:
• The book presents a cosmic conflict between good and evil, with vivid depictions of both heavenly glory and the destructive forces of evil.

• Hope and Judgment:
• Revelation combines images of judgment and destruction with those of hope and ultimate restoration.

 

  

Examples of specific imagery:

• The Lamb: Jesus is portrayed as a slain Lamb, representing sacrifice and redemption.

• The Woman and the Dragon: The woman, representing Israel or the church, is pursued by the dragon, symbolizing Satan.

• The Beasts: Beasts from Daniel's visions reappear in Revelation, symbolizing corrupt worldly powers.

• The Whore of Babylon: This figure represents the seductive and corrupting influence of sin and worldly power.

• The New Jerusalem: This city symbolizes the ultimate dwelling place of God's people, a place of peace and perfection.

• The Seven Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls: These represent judgments unleashed upon the earth, but also point to God's ultimate victory.

• The Four Horsemen: They represent conquest, war, famine, and death.

Understanding the imagery:

• The Book of Revelation is not meant to be interpreted literally, but rather symbolically.

• The imagery is intended to reveal, not conceal, spiritual truths.

• Context is crucial for understanding the meaning of the images, and modern interpretations can be aided by studying the Old Testament and other ancient Jewish texts.

• The purpose of the imagery is to exhort and encourage the reader to faithful discipleship

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Now let's look at how the imagery in the Book of Revelation might be understood using processual language from process theology as we have been doing in the past two recent posts....

Symbols in Revelation:

A Process Theology Reflection

Introduction

The Book of Revelation is rich with imagery, much of which is drawn from the Old Testament, particularly the books of Daniel and Ezekiel. These images include depictions of the divine realm (such as the sea of glass, the heavenly temple, and the Passover lamb), descriptions of evil (including the dragon, serpent, and beasts), and symbolic representations of God's people (such as the woman clothed with the sun, the 144,000 faithful, and the Bride of Christ).

Daniel’s beasts and Ezekiel’s throne visions are recontextualized in Revelation to challenge Roman domination, casting present struggles in cosmic, theological terms. These prophets offered symbols of resistance during exile - Revelation does the same in a world shaped by imperial evil and fear.

When viewed through the lens of Process Theology, these images are not fixed dogmatic symbols but dynamic invitations - living metaphors pointing to God's ongoing relationship with the world. In process terms, Revelation offers a vision not of predetermined events but of co-creative possibilities. Each symbol becomes a moment of divine lure, a call toward becoming, transformation, and faithful response.

---

Symbolic Themes in Process Reflection

Divine Realm

• Sea of Glass – Purity and divine presence; mirrors cosmic stillness inviting participation, not separation.

• Temple – Sacred meeting place; a symbol of relational intimacy dissolving into unmediated communion (“God is the temple”).

• The Lamb – Jesus as the vulnerable center of divine love; in Jesus divine power is expressed through self-giving, not divine domination.

• Son of Man – Archetype of divine judgment through wisdom and radiance; symbolizes discernment more than wrath. Where the Lamb lures through self-giving love, the Son of Man stands as an archetype of relational truth—one who reveals where we have deviated from love’s becoming, not to punish, but to invite into deeper alignment.

• Seven Angels – Messengers of change; bearers of divine timing and transformation.

Descriptions of Evil

• The Dragon – Embodiment of chaos; resistance to divine lure and relational harmony.

• The Beasts – Institutionalized evil and domination; symbolic of empire, coercion, and disconnection from divine persuasion.

• The Serpent – Signifies primal deception and imperil man's temptation to control rather than cooperate with divine flow within creation's cosmic (divine) energy.

• Babylon – Cultural idol of excess and domination; represents collective resistance to just becoming. In process theology, Babylon symbolizes systems that ossify (become rigid and inflexible) - whether economic, political, and religious structures - that resist the lure toward justice. It is less a city than a recurring pattern of collective arrogance, pride, and resistance that denies relational becoming.

Symbolic Representations of God's People

• The Woman clothed with the sun (Rev 12) – Is the Bearer of new life and divine history; she images the faithful community of Christ across the ages; and may be described as "the faithful womb of becoming" giving birth to a future in God. She is:

• Clothed with the sun, moon under her feet, crowned with twelve stars
• Pursued by the dragon (Satan)
• Flees into the wilderness but is protected
• Gives birth to a male child who is to “rule the nations”

Process-based reading:
She symbolizes the faithful community in process - Israel, the Church, or the people of God as bearer of divine promise  (described as "the remnant of God"). She’s not static purity but a figure in motion, struggling to birth something new in history despite opposition. She is a participant in divine becoming.


• The Whore of Babylon (Rev 17): Is the Bearer of unrepentful life and works against divine history; she images the unfaithful community across the ages; and may be describes as "the false womb of decay and (imperial) coercion. This form of activity of man destroys love and devours hope. She is:

• Rides the scarlet beast with blasphemous names
• Dressed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and jewels
• Called “Babylon the Great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations”
• Drunk on the blood of saints and martyrs
• Eventually destroyed by the very powers she allied with

Process-based reading:
She embodies corrupt systems—political, religious, economic—that seduce through domination and false allure. Babylon is the anti-community, drawing others into false union, not true relationality. She reflects what happens when the lure of love is replaced with the lure of control.

• 144,000 – Symbol of fullness, not literal count; represents those aligned with divine becoming.

• Two Witnesses – Prophetic resistance; those who stand in the flow of divine justice against oppressive power.

• Bride of Christ – Covenant community in process; a people growing toward full communion.

Other Notable Images

• The Scroll – The unfolding of divine possibilities; each seal a revelation of becoming.

• The Four Horsemen – Cycles of consequence; reflections of disruption when divine lure is rejected. Basically, life choices my one or many are not without consequences.

• New Jerusalem – Image of healed community; the co-created future of beauty, justice, and presence. Represented as an eschatological event but seen as both a processual transformation in the present tense affecting the future tense of mankind and creation.

• Tree of Life – Enduring source of renewal; symbol of relational nourishment and eternal process.

• River of Life – Divine flow sustaining all; creative energy nurturing ongoing becoming.

Previously Discussed

• Doors – Thresholds of choice; divine invitations into deeper freedom.

• Lampstands – Communities of faithful light; bearing divine presence in the world.

• Bowls – Outpouring of stored consequence; embodiment of justice, not vengeance.

• Witnesses – Voices of processual faithfulness; present within cycles of resistance and rebirth.

• Cities – Babylon vs. New Jerusalem; collapse of (imperial or papal) coercion vs. rise of relational harmony amongst nations, peoples, tribes, clans, families and friends.

• Horsemen – Embodied process of breakdown and renewal; symbols of cosmic movement. Choices have consequences. Resistance to renewal may innure (make less sensitive) stubborn hearts and elevate acceptance towards evil.

• Trees and Rivers – Archetypes of continuity, regeneration, and divine flow.

---

Conclusion

None of these symbols are ends in themselves. In Process Theology, they are dynamic invitations—lures—not signs of inevitable fate, but openings to awakening; resistance to sinful coercion; and co-creations towards New Creation.

Revelation, read through the eyes of process, becomes less a coded calendar and more a living poem—drawing us forward into the transformation of all things by love.

To read Revelation in this way is to train the imagination toward justice. Each image becomes a spiritual practice—a lens through which we resist domination, participate in divine persuasion, and midwife the world towards what could be beginning with us and working outward.

Processual Doorways in the Book of Revelation

PROCESSUAL DOORWAYS

in the Book of Revelation

A Processual Theology of Thresholds

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Introduction

The Book of Revelation is often approached with apprehension - its apocalyptic imagery, cryptic messages, and cosmic drama can intimidate even the most earnest readers. Yet, embedded in its pages are recurring symbols of doors - symbols that invite rather than terrify, that open rather than close. These doors are not merely thresholds in a visionary narrative; they are theological invitations to step into new ways of seeing, being, and becoming.

In process theology, where all things are in dynamic relationship and unfolding through God’s ongoing call to novelty, doors serve as metaphors of transition. They represent God's gentle lure—what Alfred North Whitehead called the "initial aim"—offering each person, community, and cosmos a path forward. To pass through a door is to enter a new phase of concrescence: to bring together the past, respond to the present, and shape what will be.

This work explores the symbolism of doors in Revelation as portals of transformation. From the church in Philadelphia's open opportunity to John’s heavenly ascent, these doors reveal a pattern: God invites, we respond, and together we shape what comes next.

---

"Come, All Ye Who Will."

I. Scriptural Doorways and Processual Interpretations

1. Revelation 3:8 — An Open Door for the Church in Philadelphia

“See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut...”

• Context: Spoken to a small, faithful community.

• Meaning: A divinely ordained opportunity for mission, growth, and endurance.

• Whiteheadian Interpretation:

  • God offers an initial aim—a pathway for co-creative action.

  • The church’s faithfulness becomes the actualization of this divine lure.

2. Revelation 3:20 — The Door of the Human Heart

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock...”

• Context: Invitation to intimate relationship with the divine.

• Meaning: Relational openness to Christ.

• Process Insight: The moment of invitation is a prehension of divine nearness, where openness births transformation.

3. Revelation 4:1 — An Open Door to Heaven

“After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven...”

• Context: Marks the transition from earthly messages to cosmic vision.

• Meaning: Access to divine mysteries and the heavenly realm.

• Whiteheadian Interpretation:

  • A transition from one level of actuality to a higher dimensional perspective.

  • A lure toward a vision of divine ordering and cosmic process.

4. Revelation 21:25 — Eternal Gates of the New Jerusalem

“Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.”

• Context: Vision of the world remade.

• Meaning: Full and open communion with God.

• Process Insight: Fulfillment of divine intention; telos (ultimate aim or goal) as a participatory welcome.

---

II. Typology of Doors in Revelation

Symbolic Door	Meaning in Revelation	Processual Insight
🔓 Open Door	Invitation to opportunity, insight, or mission	God's initial aim opened to conscious participation
🚪 Threshold Door	Liminal moment or crisis of change	A transition in becoming under tension
🔒 Closed Door	Resistance or foreclosed potential	Rejection of offered potential
💓 Heart Door	Entry to the soul, intimacy with God	Invitation to relational becoming
🌐 Heavenly Door	Apocalyptic revelation and cosmic vision	Expansion of awareness, call into divine rhythm
🧠 Cognitive Door	Shift in mental framing or worldview	Moment of rupture and reorientation
🕊️ Eternal Gate	Final telos of welcome and communion	Ongoing divine hospitality within fulfilled process

---

III. Poetic Meditation

The Door

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

I saw a door, not locked, not shut -

But open wide with silent hush.
A whisper echoed, Come and see,
As time bent down on bended knee.

A door to mission, set in stone,
For those with little strength alone.
No riches bought this threshold prize -
But faith that dared to lift its eyes.

Another knock upon the wood -
If you will open, I will come.
A heart’s own hinge, a soul’s small gate,
Where God still waits to sup and stay.

A trumpet’s voice, a higher call,
A heaven’s door revealed to all.
The throne room glows, the glassy sea -
Creation’s rhythm, wild and free.

And at the last, those golden gates
Will never close, will never wait.
No night shall fall, no door be barred -
The world remade, the gate ajar.

For every door that once we feared
Now stands transformed -
The Way is clear.

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT
August 3, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

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Besides doors there are lampstands, bowls, temples,
angels, dragons, beasts, serpents, cities, witnesses,
horsemen, trees, and rivers, etc. What could be said
of each of these images using Process Theology?

IV. Study Guide: "Walking Through Revelation's Doors"

Each session includes:

• Scripture Focus

• Theological Reflection

• Processual Insight

• Discussion Prompts

• Spiritual Practice

Session 1: The Door of Opportunity (Rev. 3:8)

• Focus: Mission amid limitation.

• Insight: Faithfulness draws forth God’s possibilities.

• Prompts:

  • Where do you see "open doors"?

  • How do you walk through them?

Session 2: The Door of the Heart (Rev. 3:20)

• Focus: Relational nearness.

• Insight: God persuades, never coerces.

• Prompts:

  • What knocks on your heart right now?

  • What blocks your openness?

Session 3: The Door to Heaven (Rev. 4:1)

• Focus: Cosmic perspective.

• Insight: Crisis and vision often go together.

• Prompts:

  • What is your current threshold?

  • What new awareness are you being invited into?

Session 4: The Liminal Door (Crisis and Change)

• Focus: Transition and discernment.

• Insight: Becoming is often born in ambiguity.

• Prompts:

  • Reflect on a past threshold. What was transformed?

Session 5: The Ever-Open Gate (Rev. 21:25)

• Focus: Telos as communion.

• Insight: The future is participatory, not predetermined.

• Prompts:

  • How might you live now as though the gates are already open?

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Conclusion

In the final vision of Revelation, the New Jerusalem descends, and we are told:

"Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there" (Rev. 21:25).

Here, the door becomes the gate eternal—not a barrier, but a perpetual welcome. In a world often marked by locked doors and shut hearts, Revelation offers a cosmic reversal: the future is not closed off, but ever opening. This vision is not about finality, but fidelity; not about endings, but evolution.

Through a processual lens, every door in Revelation is a divine whisper:

"Come up here..." (Rev. 4:1)

It is an eschatology not of doom but of participation—a call to step into the unfolding co-creation of heaven and earth. Whether we face personal loss, communal crisis, or global transformation, the question remains: Will we walk through the door?

In every threshold stands a choice.
In every doorway, a becoming.
And through each door,
the God of process calls -

not with coercion, but with possibility.

The doors are open.
The thresholds await.
Let us walk forward.

---

Appendix: Visual Map

Forgive the diagram... my talents with

computerized drawing is rather crude.

- res

[Rev 3:8]
     ╔══════════════════╗
     ║ 🔓 Open Door to                     ║
     ║     Mission                                 ║
     ║  (Philadelphia)                        ║
     ╚══════════════════╝
              ↓
      [Faithful Response]
              ↓
         [Spiritual Call]
              ↓
             [Rev 3:20]
     ╔══════════════════╗
     ║ 💓 Door of the    ║
     ║   Human Heart     ║
     ║  ("I stand and    ║
     ║  knock…")         ║
     ╚══════════════════╝
              ↓
        [Relational Entry]
              ↓
             [Rev 4:1]
     ╔══════════════════╗
     ║ 🌐 Door to Heaven ║
     ║  (Apocalyptic     ║
     ║   Vision)         ║
     ╚══════════════════╝
              ↓
        [Cosmic Perspective]
              ↓
           [Thresholds]
     ╔══════════════════╗
     ║ 🚪 Liminal Doors  ║
     ║  (Crisis/Choice) ║
     ╚══════════════════╝
              ↓
     [Transformation / Becoming]
              ↓
            [Rev 21:25]
     ╔══════════════════╗
     ║ 🕊️ Eternal Gates  ║
     ║   (New Jerusalem)║
     ╚══════════════════╝
              ↓
      [Full Communion with God]

Revelation Beyond Literalism: A Process-Based Reading of Apocalyptic Imagery

Traditional Christian Apocalyptic

Reimagining Christian apocalyptic using Process Theology

REVELATION BEYOND LITERALISM:

A Process-Based Reading

of Apocalyptic Imagery

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Embracing the Lamb amid Empire Horror

“The gospel is fiction when judged by the empire;

but the empire is fiction when judged by the gospel.”

- Walter Brueggemann

I. Introduction: Why Revelation Needs Reinterpretation

For generations, the Book of Revelation has been misread as a literal forecast of destruction - a final divine war plan. Especially in evangelical circles, Revelation has morphed into a horror story of rapture, wrath, and punishment. The literalist lens creates:

• A theology of fear, not freedom;
• A theology of coercion, not compassion;
• Often justifying power, empire, and exclusion in the name of a violent God.

But Revelation, when interpreted through the lens of process theology, becomes something else entirely. It becomes:

• A call to resistance against domination systems,
• A poetic vision of divine lure toward justice, and
• An open invitation to co-create a new world.

This project proposes that Revelation is not about divine violence, but divine vulnerability. Not about eschatological finality, but relational becoming. Not about destruction, but about deep unveiling - an apocalypse of love.

II. A Very Short Process-Based Summary of Revelation

Revelation is not a forecast of destruction, but a symbolic protest against empire and a call to faithful co-creation with God. It envisions love's ultimate triumph—not through violence, but through persistent, transformative presence.

III. Key Themes in a Processual Interpretation

**1. God’s Power as Persuasive, Not Coercive**

Revelation presents Christ not as a warlord but as the Lamb slain—a symbol of radical vulnerability. The power of God is not displayed through domination but through the invitation to love. The Lamb's 'victory' is not a military conquest but the triumph of relational fidelity.

**2. Symbolic Protest Against Empire**

The apocalyptic imagery is not predictive but poetic. Babylon is Rome—and every empire like it. The beast is a symbol of imperial force, economic domination, and religious manipulation. Revelation's drama urges readers to 'come out' of these systems, not to wait for their collapse.

**3. Hope Without Guaranteed Certainty**

Process theology does not teach predestined outcomes. Instead, it sees the future as open and becoming. Revelation is a vision of what could be, not what must be. The New Jerusalem is a lure—a divine possibility calling creation forward.

**4. Freedom within the Process of Redemption**

Love does not coerce. Even in judgment, Revelation does not depict God as cruel, but as one who reveals the true nature of all things. The apocalypse ('unveiling') is the peeling back of falsehoods so truth may shine—inviting transformation, not demanding it.

**5. A Call to Cosmic Renewal, Not Cosmic Erasure**

Revelation ends not with the annihilation of the earth but its healing. “Behold, I make all things new,” not all new things. The new creation is not a replacement but a renewal. The eschaton is not escape but embrace.

IV. Dialogue with Classical Views

• Literalism turns Revelation into a fear-based map. Process reads it as a vision of hope.

• Classical theism sees God's sovereignty in unilateral action. Process sees God's power in participatory becoming.

• Traditional eschatology implies divine coercion. Process insists on divine invitation.

• Evangelical frameworks lean on divine violence. Process theology emphasizes divine love.

V. Scripture as Poetic Lure

Revelation is not a newspaper headline from the future. It is a theological vision composed in apocalyptic imagery, political resistance, and pastoral urgency.

Like dreams or parables, it conveys deep truth through metaphor.

• “Every knee shall bow” is not a divine threat, but a poetic aspiration.
• The beast, the dragon, and the throne are archetypes.
• The scrolls and seals are cosmic metaphors.

To read Revelation faithfully is to read it processually, not literally.

VI. A Creed for Reading Revelation in Process

We believe the Book of Revelation is not a timetable of terror but a vision of divine love resisting empire, inviting all creation into the journey of justice, beauty, and peace.

We believe God's power is persuasion, not domination, and that the Lamb reigns not by violence, but by witness, vulnerability, and persistent love.

We believe that every image in Revelation invites us to become co-creators of a renewed world, where God makes all things new—with us, never without us.

VII. Conclusion: Apocalypse as Revelation, Not Ruin

The word "apocalypse" means unveiling, not catastrophe. In process theology, the Book of Revelation is the unveiling of what *could be* if love wins - and what happens when it is resisted.

It is not the end of the world. It is the divine lure toward the world's rebirth.

Revelation, reimagined, becomes a manifesto of hope, resistance, and transformation—one in which God calls us to join the procession of the Lamb in building the New Jerusalem (sic, a cosmic metaphor not a literal Jewish city) here and now.

Appendix A - Diagram

Classical vs. Process Readings of Revelation

See visual supplement: Revelation_Comparison_Diagram.png

The following table compares key theological elements in classical versus process readings of Revelation:

Theme	Classical Reading	Process Reading
God's Power	Coercive Sovereignty	Persuasive Love
Future Outlook	Predetermined End	Open & Becoming
Salvation	Guaranteed for Some	Hope for All
Violence	Divine Judgment & Wrath	Divine Vulnerability & Lure
Reading Method	Literal Forecast	Symbolic Protest
New Creation	Replacement	Renewal

 

Appendix B - Poem

New Heavenly Earth

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Not by fire, nor by sword, nor sky undone,

But by the slow, burning light of a rising Son.

Nor by bright new city fallen from clouds above,

But by such a one rising in hearts awakening to love.

Nor by wrathful scroll, nor cold iron stylus -

But by Jesus doorways opening sightless hearts.

Despite beasts and wars and trumpets dread,

Leaving lambs leaderless when fear has fled.

Nor worlds remade by fierce divine decrees,

But by each divine/humane act which sets love free.

Behold, says God, all things can be made new -

And I will make them new with you too.

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

August 3, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

Appendix C - Study Guide

A Processual Reading of Revelation

Section I: Introduction

How has a literalist reading of Revelation shaped Christian imagination in recent history?

What dangers arise from reading Revelation as a divine war manual?

Section II–III: Process-Based Vision

What does it mean to describe God's power as persuasive, not coercive?

How does reading Revelation as poetic protest shift our understanding of its symbols?

Section IV: Dialogue with Classical Views

How does process theology challenge the idea of predestined finality?

In what ways does process theology make space for human freedom and divine persistence?

Section V: Scripture as Poetic Lure

How can apocalyptic imagery be understood symbolically rather than literally?

What role does metaphor play in revealing theological truths?

Section VI: Creed

What key affirmations stand out in the creed? How might these reshape a community’s eschatology?

Section VII: Conclusion

How does reimagining the apocalypse as an unveiling of divine love affect our present engagement with the world?

What does it mean to co-create the New Jerusalem in the here and now?

Keith Giles - Here’s Why Most Christians Are Confused About Biblical Prophecy

Comment and Observation

by R.E. Slater

Deconstructing My Baptist Heritage

In my former "Covenant Theology" of the Old and New Testaments I would teach the bible in the way Keith Giles is teaching it below. But, whether Keith is a Covenant theologian or not, I do not know.

I also once entertained Calvinism as part of my covenant theology where God rules determinatively from the heavens above. Again, whether Keith Giles is a Calvinist or not, I do not know.

However, both of these approaches to the bible was how I had been taught in my (Reformed) Baptist tradition which I had grown up within. Today, I have kept the Covenants in both Testaments but have actively removed Calvinism (theocratic determinism) by replacing it with Arminianism (theocratic creational freewill agency) and have also contemporized Arminianism in the direction of Open and Relational theology. 

Further, instead of placing my biblical belief upon the foundations of Greek (Platonic) philosophy, (Catholic) Scholasticism, Enlightened Modernism; or upon analytical Westernized philosophy; I have removed these earlier philosophical foundational bedrocks in favor of Whitehead's process-based philosophy. Hence, here at Relevancy22, I will teach "Open and Relational Process theology which is grounded upon Whitehead's all-encompassing metaphysical process philosophy."

Some will describe process philosophy as a halfway house between Westernized analytical philosophy and (European) Continental philosophy.... However, I think of it as on it's own, and if comparing it with other cultural and religious ways of thinking and behaving, than as a step towards the Middle Eastern and Asian Eastern ways of perspectivizing at the world. In essence, Christianity should be more easily adaptable to non-Westernized nations if it is to be global in outreach. Moreover, nature acts more organically as a whole and less like how we have depicted it in the West over the centuries even though Whitehead was initially attempting to close the gap between Einsteinian and Quantum physics. As a result of his work Whitehead connected Hegel's prior cosmological work from the ancients to today's cultures and I have found in it a compassionate and hopeful teleology for the future.

A Covenantal God of Love

When approaching the bible I like to teach it within the theocratic Covenantal structures of its Testaments using a form of freewill agency where God is our "ruling" Creator/Sustainer and "present" Atoning/Savior but with an open-endedness to all  past assumed determinative biblical "prophecy". This would also importantly include a God who is highly relational and always relationally present in our lives and the lives and events of creation about us.

A God who urges us towards partnering with God's Self in bringing the Good News Gospel of God's Love and compassion through Jesus to the world - and to treat the world of creation lovingly at all times... which is quite the opposite which we find most non-democracies. And into all of this I have given to my Baptist heritage a process-relational structure and direction which is evolving over time as we lean into God's forgiving love, care, healing, mercy, and sustaining beauty.

Deconstructing the Bible and Our Beliefs

Now I do not expect Keith Giles to know about process relational theology. Nor, perhaps, to accept any form of lovingly "open and relational" theology. But when reading the article he wrote below I do appreciate his distinctions of biblical phraseology and would encourage those who read the bible to read it with an uncommon distinctiveness to it. By so doing, you will be creating more of an inductive bible study than the usual normative bible study positing popular conservative beliefs.

By this I mean that we learn to rethink the bible in holistic terms of thematic relational structure underlaid by God's holy love... and to define biblical terms more within era-contextualized and culturally-specific iconocology rather than grossly generalized bible interpretations popularized by American culture. Hence, within the bible's literature will be found differing Jewish beliefs over their ancient eras which sensed the Christ-event but laid out it's own cultural assessments within the God-inspired revelation they had presently understood. And when the Christ-event did take place, first-century Jews accordingly divided their beliefs along Messianic or non-Messianic lines. Hence, terms like "God's wrath and judgment" are enhanced or decentered when not informed by the Jesus' Incarnate - and Incarnating - compassinate presence.

How God Made the Heavens and the Earth

Lastly, I have tweaked how I think of God unlike how the ancients thought of God in the bible. Their faith was informed by God's judgment and wrath as well as mercy and grace... but with the evolution of science and modern technology our present understanding of natural events are less mystical and more perfunctory (carrying an attitude of indifference or apathy).

As example, a storm is a storm without any meaning or message from God ethically or morally. 

Because of creational freedom, nature's actions carry out events which are in line with it's "nature"... it's events may hold good or bad consequences for humans but in itself, we deem nature to be acting-in-kind to its natural self. It holds no form of "consciousness" per se of revenge or blessing (though process thought does recognize creation to have its own kind of living "consciousness" within its cosmic existence (we describe this as process-based panpsychism, which I have spoken to many times before). Thus, creaturely-and-natural events just "are" without any further implied spiritual meaning from God.

Yet, a wise man or woman would observe nature as John Muir or Aldo Leopold had done in the twentieth century, by recognizing within it's evolving output that nature is reacting to any form of mankind's external inputs. When we pollute a river there will be toxic biotic consequences to our actions. When we create mown lawns we are creating toxic deserts to bugs, birds, and varmints. When we enact war upon one another we will disturb the natural processes of the land upon which a war is being conducted... not to mention the tragic, desperate lives caught between war zones.

Similarly when we do good things in naive ways: (i) we recognize that farming practices feeds others but how we "till the land" can disturb the natural cycles upon the land. (ii) Building cities and roads across wetlands and swamps inadvertently create thermal heat sinks around a rural and urban metropolis to which powerful winds will build and react. (Iii) Placing a dam into canyons and cataracts provide water to people yet also produces additional erosional burden opon the streams located above a dam. Hence, for every naive industrial impact upon the land which mankind levies on the earth there will be a mounting order of ecological reaction akin to our own naivete.

The obvious message from God is that our wisdom is not like God's wisdom... that we need to consider the consequential burdens we place upon land... and it's resultant impacts upon people... when mining, digging, molding, shaping, building, or warring.

Conclusion

Overall, I wish to create a theology where God's love - and loving acts - are the foundation stones upon which we interact with God. In Jesus - and by Jesus' incarnational atoning work - God has shown God's Self to be loving as versus the more ancient biblical idea which beheld God as an angry Semitic (covenantal) despot requiring appeasement at every moment in our lives (altars and sacrifices). But in Jesus, he expanded the more important relational aspects of Covenant living with the God of God's and Lord of Lords that the Covenant-making God is first, last, and always a loving and compassionate, relationally present, God. Amen!

Perhaps these thoughts may help: i) those students of the bible, and, ii) Christians living and sharing their faith in innumerable socio-religious and cultural ways. I know it has helped myself when informing my Baptist faith when re-framing, or bathing, or re-centering, it in God's loving presence. That my Covenanting Father/God is as lovingly benevolent as he is my faithfully sovereign Lord and Savior.

Blessings,

R.E. Slater

May 30, 2024

* * * * * * *

Here’s Why Most Christians Are

Confused About Biblical Prophecy

article link

LAST UPDATED ON: SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 AT 7:29 PM

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 BY KEITH GILES

Other than the fact that a large majority of Christians have been raised to believe in the End Times Rapture theory created in 1850 by John Nelson Darby, the main reason there’s so much confusion about the End Times and Biblical Prophecy is how we have been trained to understand certain Biblical terminology.

IA

For example, when we read the phrase “the end of the age” we hear “the end of the world” or “the end of time,” but that’s NOT what the phrase is referring to.

“The end of the age” is a reference to the end of the Jewish age which was originally prophesied in the book of Daniel [See Dan. 12:7 & 13] and later confirmed by Jesus in his Olivet Discourse. It’s not about when the world will end or the planet will be burned up, but about when the age of the Jewish people ends and the age of the Gentiles begins. Paul makes reference to this in Romans, also.

The end of the Jewish is simply when the Old Covenant Temple was destroyed, the Old Testament priesthood was ended and the daily animal sacrifice ceased forever. That was what happened in AD 70.

IB

The end of the age is also the beginning of the next age [or the “age to come”] where the New Covenant reality is unfolded and expanded upon the earth. This is the age we are in right now.

II

Another phrase we tend to misunderstand is “coming in the clouds” in reference to Jesus. For example, when Jesus says that people will see him coming in the clouds in Matthew 24, or when he tells the High Priest that soon “…you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” [Matt. 26:64], he is not talking about the day he literally comes riding in the sky on a horse to initiate the Rapture.

The term “coming in the clouds” is a reference to God’s judgment being poured out on a nation or a city used all throughout the Old Testament scriptures by various prophets. It’s never a literal “coming in the clouds” where God shows up physically in the skies, but always a metaphorical way of saying that the destruction God’s prophets warned the people to avoid is about to be poured out – usually in the form of an invading army which destroys Babylon, or Edom, or Egypt or even Jerusalem.

III

Another example of how the coming of Jesus is seen as a warning of judgment is in Revelation where Jesus speaks to the seven churches in the first few chapters and each time he warns them to repent of their sins he mentions that if they do not he will “come to them” and take away their lampstand or rebuke them in some way. The “coming” in this sense is not a good thing. It’s a sign of something you want to avoid if at all possible.

IV

One related misunderstanding is also about the Second Coming of Christ where we tend to view this event as a literal physical return of Jesus in the flesh. However, the term in the Greek is “parousia” and it simply means “presence” which in the case of Christ is something we can all experience right now, even though Jesus isn’t physically in the room with us.

The word parousia is found in the following verses: Matthew 24:3, 27, 37, 39; 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:1,8,9; James 5:7,8; 2 Peter 1:16; 3:4,12; 1 John 2:28.

Our challenge, then, is in what way the term “coming” is used or intended to be understood in the New Testament. Sometimes:

i) the “coming” is in reference to the fulfillment of a prophetic judgment event [as seen when Jerusalem is destroyed by the Romans in AD 70], and [at] other times

ii) the “coming” of Christ is in reference to the presence of Christ being experienced spiritually by us here and now.

[Summary] These are two different things: The “coming” which involves the fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecy by invading armies, and the “coming” which involves the experience of the presence of Christ by those who are abiding in Christ today.

Understanding the differences between when the context is the apocalyptic destruction and when the context is the presence of Christ now is pretty important.

Conclusion

For further study on this topic, I recommend the new book I just published from Quoir called “Jesus Unexpected: Ending the End Times to Become the Second Coming” which also features a Foreword by Baxter Kruger.

You can pick up a copy on Kindle or in Paperback.

Here’s what a few nice people had to say about my book:

Deconstructing your faith? Need a community to help you find space to Reconstruct your faith? If so, please meet me at Square 1. This 90-day online course is designed to help you move through the painful process of Deconstruction and onward through the freedom and joy of Reconstruction. Our next round starts Sept. 21. Register for 50% off for a limited time HERE

Keith Giles and his wife, Wendy, work with Peace Catalyst International to help build relationships between Christians and Muslims in El Paso, TX. Keith was formerly a licensed and ordained minister who walked away from organized church over a decade ago to start a home fellowship that gave away 100% of the offering to the poor in the community. Today he is the author of several best-selling books, including “Jesus Unexpected: Ending The End Times To Become The Second Coming” which is available now on Amazon.

ABOUT

Keith Giles is a former pastor who left the pulpit over a decade ago to follow Jesus. He’s been interviewed on CNN with Anderson Cooper, USA Today, Fox News, BuzzFeed and hundreds of other podcasts and radio programs. He’s a regular contributor to John Fugelsang’s Sirius XM Radio show, “Tell Me Everything”, as part of the weekly “God Squad” segment, and he is the founder and co-host of the “Heretic Happy Hour Podcast”, and his solo podcast, “Second Cup with Keith.”

Keith is also the best-selling author of the 7-part “Jesus Un” book series focused on Deconstruction of the Christian faith, and the “Sola” book series focused on embracing the mystery of the Divine. His latest book, “The Quantum Sayings of Jesus: Decoding the Lost Gospel of Thomas” is available now on Amazon.

Keith currently lives in El Paso, TX with his wife Wendy.