Radical Christian Process Theology, Part 4 - Secular v Christian Radical Theologies

To the Unknown God

of Radically Lived Theology

by R.E. Slater

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and whoever loves

is born of God, and knoweth God. Dear friends, let us continue to love

one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of

of God and knows God. - 1 John 4.7-8

I am no longer embraced by

what I once was embracing,

The dismay too great,

the hurt too much.

God's church lost in empire,

lost in translation, in mission

and ministry, abandoning

what once I needed, I craved.

Not in what it was, but

by what it once promised,

Once my finis coronat opus, like

Christ's, declaring God's finished work.

Ever unfinished it's continuing work

but completed God's work of Love,

His lovingcare and mercy, mended

forgiveness in Loving relationship.

Till at last there is no longer

work to be done, but joy and

peace ever present sealing

heaven's loving presence.

Sealed it's founding promises

released to its gapping potentials,

Become what it was becoming,

Embracing the God indwelling.

R.E. Slater

May 22, 2023

*finis coronat opus - the goal gives

value to the labor; the end crowns

the work that produced it.

* * * * * * *

The Necessity for a Radical Theology

Both the world, and world religions, including worldly Christianity, have together enacted oppressive systems in both past and present. None are guiltless. Let me demonstrate by listing several examples socially, politically, and by Christianlity as accepting, normative, and religious behaviours which were later critiqued and unsupported by exterior forces. Forces which we'll generally describe as radically dissenting voices to such illicit, normative, behaviours.

Three Voices. Three Discontents

I. American Christian History 101

• 1619-1865 Supported slavery and Native American genocide.

• 1865-1964 Supported Jim Crow.

• 1950-1970s Supported segregation.

• 1955-1970 Evangelicals biggest growth as they supported the Viet Nam war

• 1972-1974 Evangelicals supported Nixon during Watergate.

• 1981-2008 Evangelicals supported Reagan and the Bush duo.

• 2008-2016 Did not support Obama and created the Tea Party

• 2016- Support Trump

The theme herein is consistent.

- Wayne Boyd

2. The Church in America

If I could speak gospel in America today, I might say that the three great “masters of suspicion,” Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, understand more about the faith they don’t believe in than many/most members of its own churches. Each of them knew that humans were hiding - or had hidden - from them basic truths about functions and dysfunctions of human life and society. These truths, which should have been known and proclaimed by the church, but were not. In fact, the church was the last place you might find them out.

What are these truths?

• Marx knew from his historical and economic studies that economic systems based on wealth inequality and class distinctions were inherently unjust and oppressive.

• Nietzsche realized the Christianity he knew in 19th century Europe (hardly the real thing!) was largely responsible for its cultural malaise and reason enough for Nietzsche to declare God as dead.

• Freud knew how screwed up we were hidden under the roles, rituals, and rules of our times and, when unearthed, a very different person freed to be driven by those repressed instincts would emerge.

[Across all three voices] the church was the great guardian and promoter of these repressions.

Though times have changed greatly since their day, the problems they saw lying at the root of personal and societal problems remain. The church, by and large, continues to play the role of guardian and promoter of the repressions and injustices of its society. This should have changed by now and still needs to change but . . .

But since I can’t speak gospel in America today, let’s just keep on pretending everything’s alright if everyone would just get with the program and keep on acting like what’s good for America is good for the church.

- Lee Wyatt

3.  Distorted Theologies of the Church

Can you list modern-day examples of distorted theologies? I'll start...

Distorted Theologies

• Christian Zionism provides religious justification for Israel's authoritarian policies....

• "Make America Christian Again" is based upon the mythic legend that America was originally settled for religious reasons...

• The fantasized body of institutionalized Churches are God's organization to lead the nations over all the Earth to observe God's laws...

• Known as "Dominionism" it is the theocratic idea that regardless of theological camp, means, or timetable, God has called conservative Christians to exercise dominion over society by taking control of political and cultural institutions...

• The belief that true civil democracy is not God's plan for the nations but that some form of religious authoritarianism is God's perfect plan...

• The belief that Russia is leading the world back to God by establishing Russian Orthodoxy as God's perfect plan for God's coming Kingdom rule...

• That God is the divine judge over all creation; a judge who takes what he wants, when he wants; and that Christians must establish holy governances over the ends of the earth so that God may reign...

- R.E. Slater

* * * * * * *

Secular v Christian Radical Theology

by R.E. Slater

Below is a framework-discussion of how to place radical theology within the centering values of human worth and integrity. That it lies as an outside force beholden to know theological traditions but its own based in humanitarianism. And it's ability to speak across philosophies and theologies to the value of acting humanely towards one another.

Most radical theologies are actually secular "theologies" using church language to speak to corrective action as we think about ourselves and others. In contrast, Christian-based radical theologies (such as process-Christian thought and theology) will speak to the teachings and practices of the Church using it's own language.

Whether secular or Christian or religious, radical theology is intentional in spanning across all present day actions of humanity. Its theology may be based in strictest humanism or the teachings of the bible dependent upon the speaker, the organization, or the movement.

As always, I am proposing a:

• Process-based Christian Radical theology built upon the God of Love in the bible and upon Christ, the enactor of God's Love to the world.

• That this philosophic-theology is will endowed and able to speak across both humanism and religious theologies of all sorts.

• And that it's place can be view as both helpful deconstructing away from unloving dogmas and actions of the Church as well as recontructing towards a Theology of Love based upon Christ, the God of Love.

The article below then speaks more directly to secular radical humanist "theologies" urging corrective thought and action towards one another within itself rather than being dependent upon God's Self. Regardless, its aims and analysis does helpful frame how the world has reset faith within the context of humanitarian cooperation, sharing, and a multiplicity of ways forward against state-and-church regimes bound by fiefdom, oppression, and injustice.

R.E. Slater

May 27, 2023

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Radical (Secular) Theologies

article link

Palgrave Communications volume 1, Article number: 15032 (2015)

authored by Mike Grimshaw

Department of Sociology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

October 13, 2025

[xxx] - brackets are mine: re slater

~ I have also taken the liberty to edit the outline of the abstract

to help readers more easily follow its train of thought ~

Abstract

Radical theology as a field encompasses the intersections of constructive theology, secular theology, death-of-God theologies, political theologies, continental thought and contemporary culture.

It expresses an inter-disciplinary engagement and approach dedicated to redefining the very terms of theology as a concept and practice. This article provides an introductory overview to a multi- and inter-disciplinary thematic collection dedicated to thinking in this area.

It used to be social science orthodoxy that not only was religion in decline but that there was no place for theology or allied religious discussion and critique. Religion was something that could be explained—and explained away. Theology was to be relegated to seminaries and kept within very strict disciplinary boundaries. The future was to be secular—and more importantly, secularist.

The humanities were more open to religion, especially within historical and literary studies, most often as a means of understanding texts and historical events. There was of course Religious Studies, an area that as a “studies” strove for disciplinary authenticity, but in intention and focus was often misunderstood by other areas in the university and the wider public.

Also, the growth of Religious Studies as a post-war, Cold War field cannot be ignored, and here the study and the support of the study of religion arose often as counter to communism. Yet this was a field that was far more diverse within Religious Studies or Religion departments than many outside could ever hope or wish to understand. Politically it ranged from hard left to hard right. The areas of specialization within such departments often meant colleagues had far more in common with those in other departments than within their own. But one thing was usually a constant: there was no place for theology.

Furthermore, even if there existed a combined department, there was Theology and then there was Religion or Religious Studies and the boundaries between them were often strictly policed. The same types of demarcation tended to occur within combined programmes of Philosophy and Religious Studies; philosophy of religion was allowed but theology was usually forbidden. Therefore, even if religion was allowed, albeit often grudgingly, theology was viewed, at best, with suspicion, especially within the Anglosphere.

In this I am speaking primarily of state-funded tertiary institutions. Of course, in privately endowed universities and colleges theology could be undertaken, but then most usually within the limits of faith traditions and a confessional ethos. The dominance of analytic philosophy in the Anglosphere also viewed with suspicion the claims and arguments of theology, preferring to allow, if anything, the limitations of a strictly policed philosophy of religion which was most often undertaken to serve the ends of analytic thought. This is, of course, [is] a broad-brush caricature, but for those of us who undertook most of our academic study and training in the last century, it is one that we can understand.

Towards radical theology

[I]

However, in the twenty-first century, theology is increasingly back and making its presence felt in a number of disciplines via the influence of Continental thought. It is interesting to note that the American theologian Van Harvey identified this as a possibility back in 1970, where, in reassessing what was now opened up in the wake of the 1960s Secular Theology and the Death of God he argued for a new home and possibility for theology in Religious Studies. In particular, for Harvey (1970) this included the possibility of “a new and probably non-Christian theology of some sort” being developed that is “more strictly philosophical and does not at all understand itself as a servant of a church or a tradition” (28). Referencing Victor Preller of Princeton, Harvey terms this a “meta-theology” (Harvey, 1970: 28) or “a genuinely secular theology” (Harvey, 1970: 29) that is to be thought, critiqued and argued in departments of Religion.

This is what I term the American strand of origin of radical theology: a theology that, arising out of the American encounter with modernity, arising from secular theology and the Death of God theologies, sought to express a theology not held captive by the church. Such a radical theology aimed to express a theology of radical critique not only of the institutional expressions of religions, but also of the society where those institutions often held sway. Radical theology therefore existed and was expressed as a language and grammar of critique, a voice from within the western tradition that proclaimed a counter-narrative, a prophetical tradition of dissent.

[II]

The other strand within radical theology is the one that has risen to prominence in this century, a radical theology arising from within what can be termed Continental thought, from within an intellectual history whereby non-analytic philosophy and theology intersected with each other. This is from an intellectual tradition open to the use the language of theology as a political and social counter-claim, a grammar and language that holds within it both the excess and limit of possibility. This means that “god” within such a radical theology is first and foremost a noun that operates as that uttered as a claim as to the excess and limit of possibility. A claim uttered in relation to human activity, a claim that seeks to overcome human actions of limitation and exclusion, a claim uttered against our acting inhumanly to others.

In this tradition, [A] theology continues as a necessary problem within both modernity and post-modernity, the necessary problem that holds within it a counter-narrative to the enlightenment-derived claims of the triumph of rationality, reason and logic. But also [B] in its central claim of the necessary value of the human being, theology exists as a counter claim to the economic reductionism of capitalism and especially neo-liberalism and occurs increasingly therefore as a counter-claim to the instrumentalist reduction of an uncritically technologically-triumphalist society. [*neo-liberalisim is a political approach that favors free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending. - re slater; Dictionary.com]

Out of these two traditions arises what can be termed radical theology, a theology that is type of nomadic mode of thinking and action, unsettled and unsettling, wandering across, within and against both institutional religion and the surrounding secular, pluralist society. Radical Theology is not a singular activity, nor is it stable, and it rejects both orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Rather it is, via the plurality of the saeculum, a plurality of theologies. Therefore, rather than being a defined body of knowledge, radical theology is an activity of intent and a hermeneutics of critique of all that taken to be normative. Radical theology is where we get, where we claim, where we demand the space, language and the tradition to talk, think, critique and re-imagine human value in a world where value is too often consigned to function and economic value.

Radical theology also exists explicitly as part of a rupture and reassessment of the Western project. Radical Theology is therefore a way of writing, thinking and talking against the limitations of both secular and confessional authorities. This can be understood when we acknowledge that Radical Theology as a field encompasses the intersections of constructive theology, secular theology, death of god theologies, political theologies, continental thought and contemporary culture.

Thematic collection

Just as Rhizomic thought engages with multiplicities and counters dualistic and prescriptive approaches, this thematic collection issue offers a timely outlet for an expanding field of “breakout” radical theologies that seek to redefine the very terms of theology. This thematic collection engages with an ever-multiplying radical expression and critique by theologies that have entered or seek to enter the public sphere, arising from the continued turn to religion and especially radical theology in politics, social sciences, philosophy, theory, cultural, queer and literary studies.

All share the aim and expression of breaking out of walls previously ideologically invisible. The article collection covers the engagement of radical theology with culture, society, literature, politics, philosophy and the discipline of religion. Providing an outlet for those writing and thinking at the intersections of these areas with radical theology, radical theology expresses an inter-disciplinary engagement and approach dedicated to redefining the very terms of theology as a concept and practice. This can be seen in the papers included in this launch of the thematic collection:

Bray (2015), in The Monstrosity of the Multitude critically engages with the issues of disability and work; Grimshaw (2015) traces a different possibility of secular theology, despite the death of God, via Gabriel Vahanian; Robbins and Crockett (2015), who we can think of as this century’s “Deleuze and Guattari” of radical theology, outline Five Theses for a Radical Theology for the Future; Wigg-Stevenson (2015) brings an Ethnographic Disruption to theology; Dubilet (2015) articulates the messianic possibility of non-philosophy along with a central proclamation of justice; Kelley (2015) considers hermeneutics and genocide. Further essays in thematic collection will engage with divinations of neo-liberalism, amongst other possibilities.

Central to all radical theology is an engagement with the limits of authorities and their limits on the world. One way it does so is by talking seriously the both limits and failures of modernity. As stated, radical theology is part of a post-enlightenment critique that situates and acts versus the instrumentalism and pathology of the hegemony of the Enlightenment. Radical theology is also political in the sense that it critically engages with issues of power, participation, order and structure. Radical Theology is therefore a theology of transgression: writing and thinking within - and yet against - what is taken to be normative in a tradition, a hermeneutic and a culture.

This is the disruptive function of Radical Theology: as the activity that speaks within and into and against all normative culture spheres, including any rethought and re-imagined religion—or indeed any rethought secularism. Radical Theology is therefore the theology of those who recognize the hermeneutics and claims of western thought and yet speak out with the prophetic voice from the margins. Thus Radical Theology is too secular for theology, too theological for the secular, too theological for philosophy and too philosophical for theology, too social science for the humanities and too humanities for the social sciences. Against all such oppositional dualisms, Radical Theology occurs as a series of activities comprising the rearticulation of that central prophetic voice and thought from within, yet against the western tradition, that reminds us, often against our wishes, of our continually expressed roots (radix) in Judeo-Christian thought and culture.

I wish to position, deliberately broadly, a claim that religion itself is an interpretative frame that is applied to, and used to create, other interpretative frames. According to my analysis, the importance of religion is that it states “there is an alternative” and the grounding of religion in not only the human sciences but also the social sciences arises precisely because of this. We too easily choose to forget that religion is crucial for the self-definition of Modernity. For in religion’s dialectic with Modernity lies the mutually counter claim: “there is an alternative”. I am also always in debt to Charles Winquist’s distinction between theological study and studying theology. If to study theology “treats the theological tradition as data to be learned, absorbed and comprehended” [in effect a version, I would argue, of sui generis], then to undertake theological study “means to think with the desire for a thinking that does not disappoint, to think in extremis, to ask what is real and important” (Robbins, 2003: xv–xvi).

The challenge of the problem of Radical Theology for Religious Studies is, as Jeffrey W. Robbins notes, that of “theology’s insistence that knowledge is fundamentally limited by the gap between the known and the real, while at the same time driven by the desire to think the unthinkable and speak the unspeakable” (Robbins, 2003: 27). From this I position radical theology as the language, the grammar, the talk of this tension between limit and possibility and its resultant activity. Theology is what humans do in our here and now, using the language and claims of the possibility of an alternative. So a radical theologian is one who uses theology and theological language as a way of interrogating and critiquing the world we live in, but using the words and ideas as claims that exist as cultural critiques, as the claim of an alternative, not as dogmatic claims. So as the radical theologians Robbins and Crockett (2003) state regarding the role of theology in the work of Charles Winquist: “Theology was a discourse formulation that functioned to fissure other discourses by pushing them to their limits and interrogating them as to their sense and practicality” (ix) In effect radical theology continually asks of all claims to authority: What does this mean? Are you serious? How does this impact? What is the limit of this? What is its possibility? What is the alternative? In fact I want to argue that this function of radical theology, its fissuring and interrogation, results in what can be called theologyless theology and religionless religion—the difference between what theology and religion could be, and what they are. But more so, as an activity that arises out of the prophetic heritage, the central interrogation, the central fissurring of radical theology is focussed on the difference between what the world, what humanity, what our knowledge production and practices could be—and what they are.

Therefore, out of this, arises this special collection whereby Radical Theology is positioned as the thought and discourses that hold that description and comparison cannot be undertaken without value; that an uncritical description and comparison cannot be undertaken and expressed as normative. The papers that follow all their own ways hold true to these principles. They are the expression of a claim of an alternative, the refusal to be domesticated and disciplined, the expression of the excess and limit of possibility, arising from within, yet in critical engagement with, traditions of hermeneutic knowledge.

Additional Information

How to cite this article: Grimshaw M (2015) Radical Theologies. Palgrave Communications. 1:15017 doi: 10.1057/palcomms.2015.32.

References

Bray K (2015) The monstrosity of the multitude: Unredeeming radical theology. Palgrave Communications; 1: 15030.

Dubilet A (2015) “Neither God, nor world”: On the one foreclosed to transcendence. Palgrave Communications; 1: 15027.

Grimshaw M (2015) “In spite of the death of God”: Gabriel Vahanian’s secular theology. Palgrave Communications; 1: 15025.

Harvey V (1970) Reflections on the teaching of religion in America. Journal of the American Academy of Religion; 38 (1): 17–29.

Google Scholar

Kelley S (2015) Hermeneutics and genocide: Giving voice to the unspoken. Palgrave Communications; 1: 15031.

Robbins J W (2003) In Search of a Non-Dogmatic Theology. The Davies Group, Publishers: Aurora, CO.

Google Scholar

Robbins J W and Crockett C (2003) Foreword In: Winquist C E (ed) The Surface of the Deep. The Davies Group, Publishers: Aurora, CO.

Google Scholar

Robbins J W and Crockett C (2015) A radical theology for the future: Five theses. Palgrave Communications; 1: 15028.

Wigg-Stevenson N (2015) From proclamation to conversation: Ethnographic disruptions to theological normativity. Palgrave Communications; 1: 15024.

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Radical Christian Process Theology, Part 2 - "Radical Love"

To the Unknown God

of Radical Love

by R.E. Slater

"What therefore you worship as unknown

this I now proclaim to you." Acts 17.23

Yes, I said to my Christian friend,

I will fellowship with you, and

with the Church, and in the church

    even when away or absent it's pews

    in heart and body but not in soul

    where God lives in me and I in Love.

But I also thought to myself,

No, I can no longer find sympathy

nor fellowship with my faith,

    for I seek another God...

    a God not of the church...

    a God unlike the church....

A God where the church may

find itself at times, but not where

God might find himself oftentimes

    when worshipped as unloving

    judgmental, wrathful; an absent

    Divine unattached to humanity.

This God I seek is a God of Love,

who offers service to the other,

who is against self-serving empires,

    and against empire-like religions

    holding human worth as a crime

    when unlike its own rules.

There is a kind of fellowship I seek

where I might find God's people,

but another kind of fellowship

    another kind of space whereby

    I might find all of God's people

    linked in love and loving fellowship.

The God I seek is the unknown God,

Unknown to us in so many ways,

but not in the ways of presence,

    ministry, advocacy, caregiving,

    promise, nor love; this God is the

    God I yearn to know, to be one.

R.E. Slater

May 21, 2023

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Radical Theology Cliff Notes

article link

Home / thinking / emergent / Radical Theology Cliff Notes

by Bo Sanders

July 23, 20213

Sometimes you stumble into something so wildly different than anything you have encountered before that it can give you a bit of whiplash.

When this happens in the realm of theology – it can cause a level of trauma to your faith that it feels as if it will never recover.

This is where translators and apologist can come in and play a healthy role.

I am not a practitioner of Radical Theology per-se. I am more of a practical theologian who is in dialogue with (or informed by) schools of thought that might be challenging to the population as a whole (or at least those who occupy the pews).

I received this week’s notes from one Mr. Tripp Fuller that he intended to utilize on the most recent episode of the High Gravity reading group co-hosted by the incomparable Peter Rollins. I took one look at them and thought to myself:

“Self… folks may not know what some of this stuff means. This is sad because much of it has deep implications on living out faith in the 21st century and even deeper implication on the cultural conversation that each of us finds ourselves caught up in the middle of.”

SO I thought it might be interesting to throw a few of the notes out there and to attempt to attach a helpful note on a few items.

Here is what I am up to: if you feel like you are interested in a Radical approach but find it out of reach or unclear … please respond in the comment section and we can either A) figure this out together or B) I will point you in a helpful direction if I know of one.

DEFINITIONS

Before we start – a couple of overly-simplistic definitions:

Radical Theology – a theological approach that is not tied to a congregation, denomination or other sanctioning body. The freedom of not being anchored in a confessional approach allows thinkers to interact with daring, innovative and contemporary schools of thought without consequence of consideration of how the outcome will impact faith communities (at least not primarily).

Confessional Theology – a theological approach rooted in both historic tradition and local expression. Confessional theology takes classical perspective and either tries to update it for the current context or attempts to return to some previous incarnation with the hopes of a purer expression or acceptable orthodoxy/practice.

Theo-poetics – born out of an awareness that all of our god-talk is both perspectival and provisional. When we speak of god/the divine we do so in imagery, metaphor, and symbol. This awareness of our limitations of language release us to confess that our signifiers (symbols) can never fully or truly represent that which they signify. The result is a freedom to explore, innovate, ratify, renovate and adapt our god-language in order to both expose idolatry and inspire creativity in how we express our beliefs.

Big Other – As Tom explains below “(in very simple terms) the set of customs and rules that regulate our horizontal social interaction and belief”. One way of conceiving of this is “That is to say, ‘the big Other’ is the ambience of the situation that comes through human ways of following situational “rules.” That is, without human beings, there is no ‘big Other.’” Addressing the Big Other is often manifest in a critique of a projection of a watcher in the sky sort of conception of god.

---

Here are some of Tripp’s notes:

RADICAL V CONFESSIONAL THEOLOGY

1) Radical Theology is parasitic to Confessional Theology… on its behalf. Radical Theology is being faithful to what is harbored in the name of ‘God’ – the event & not the tradition on the tradition’s terms.

2) Radical Theology reserves the right to ask any question. Because Confessional Theology is accountable to a tradition & its institutions there will be places where questions\conversations\operating conclusions will serves as “conversation stoppers.” Places in which that activity of critical thinking puts one out of the building. (ex. Trinity or Same Sex Marriage)

3) Radical Theology seeks to be EXPOSED to the Event w/in the Confessional Theology tradition but not PROPOSE a new articulation of the tradition.

4) Radical Theology rejects both the apathetic silence about the Big Other & the theist\atheist debate about the Big Other. The Big Other does not exist.

5) Radical Theology displaces the boundaries & certainty of ‘belief’ w/in Confessional Theology – the “how” w/out articulating another ‘what.’ Why? Whatever the ‘what’ is w/in a tradition doesn’t correlate to ‘how’ it is enacted.

6) Radical Theology affirms the Event contained IN but not BY Confessional Theology.

7) Radical Theology is a material (therefore a political) theology. God’s insistence is about our existence, here in the world, in relationships, & not about our continued or reanimated existence elsewhere. Radical Theology is about faith enacted for this world, not faith in another.

8) Radical Theology leaves the logos of Confessional Theology behind for theo-poetics. For the Radical Theology there is no divine-logic to be learned or sacred syllogisms to be mastered. When ‘words’ are used to close the circle around the truth, the poet protests ‘words’ enslavement… their demonic possession of the impossible possibilities that vanquished on behalf of the actual – the certain – the final – the verdict of Confessional Theology.

I thought it would be helpful at this point to outline how Caputo frames the turn from Confessional to Radical Theology in his amazing and short book “Philosophy And Theology” . In chapter 5 he illustrates 3 turns that converge together to make the BIG turn.

First up is the Hermeneutical Turn – this a confession we each read a text or interpret our experience from an angle. We all have a location and that means that we all see things from an angle.

Second is the Linguistic Turn – this is a recognition that every discipline and every tradition has its own set of vocabulary and concepts that form the ‘rules of the game’. Just as one can not play ‘Sport’ but plays A sport (football or baseball) so one can not speak ‘Language’ but A language. One can not practice ‘Religion’ but A religion. One must learn and abide by the rules of language game that one is playing.

Third is the Revolutionary Turn – this is an admission that things change… or rather that the way we see things changes. Working off of Kuhn’s idea of ‘paradigms’ and scientific revolutions, we readily admit that even where the data does not change (the universe) the way that we conceptualize it does periodically alter in radical ways.

These three come together to form the Postmodern Turn. They are also helpful for illustrating the sort of thing that Radical Theology is up to.

If you have any questions or comments I would love for post them below!

---

I also wish to acknowledge that I left out references to Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Tillich, Descartes, and Kant. We can do all of that in a subsequent post if you want.

Filed Under: Emergent, Latest, Philosophy, Pomo, Post-Something

Tagged With: And Kant, Bible, Big Other, Book, Books, Church, Confessional, Descartes, God, Hegel, Heidegger, High Gravity, Jesus, Radical, Theology, Tillich, Wittgenstein

 

Odes to Creation, Life, Purpose, Nation Building, and Parenting

Creation

R.E. Slater

March 25-26, 2023

The human mind cannot comprehend

those hoary ages which came before,

nor human breast deny its longings,

yearning long life and fellowship;

measured in eons past it's instincts for

survival's best of self and contrary world.

Formed at once of soil and frail breed, One

with nature, sea and land, beast and primate,

which came before overcoming perils;

all bourne of earth, of starry celestials,

rich in lore, in act and sacrifice, running

to mysteries divine and divinely driven.

Impregnated with renewal divine yet fraught

heavenly fellowships by forces dark and wan;

disrupters to the One, the All, the Creator God

we call Redeemer, Lover, Hope, and Sage;

frail, impoverished, having but one another

against crucibles natural, unwieldy, fey.

To Thee, O' Lord, we submit to mysteries

incomprehensible but assuredly Thine,

to Thy love which runs throughout vine

and branch, to the starry skies above;

Thy hallowed spaces are everywhere about

when met with bent knee to Thee and Thine.

R.E. Slater

March 26, 2023

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

* * * * * * *

Human Evolution

by Ryan Christopher Brandes

October 2012

We open our minds to expand to the times not to pretend there is some end to confine the limits of prime; we defend to remind to dance to the trance we redefine to enhance not to surrender to chance.

We open our hearts to embrace the new space-time transparency, interdimensional race as we become united and one, open to truth we exhibit ourselves as one infinite youth, gifted and new, eternally pure evolved to endure no end to potential, perfect and cured.

We strengthen our bodies and build on each other we love ourselves and love one another we grow and mature and extend to our neighbors but as we think deeper our expansion is greater our planet is one and our galaxy peace to the opening worlds we bring wisdom and ease we do not enslave or deny or deceive but we share our pure knowledge our light and belief.

We raise up our souls beyond science and physics to evolve beyond consciousness confinements and limits our imperial nature shifts to emerge from the boundaries of body and smallness of Earth we expand our perception to include all dimensions from previous eons to future inceptions.

We shift our new world from finite to light, universal, infinite, natural, bright we embrace the day and welcome the night to work with each other to be perfect, upright, to evolve our new planet, our galactic mindframe to expand from micro to cosmically aimed to unlock the portals to open our brains to evolve from old gears to interdimensional spheres uniting creation without hesitation pure as clean water and deep meditation.

* * * * * * *

To Darwin

A poem about human evolution

by N.A. Kazi

June 28, 2021

O, the grandmaster of philosophy!
And the patron saint of biology!

I recite to thee:

I decoupled myself by performing
the most effective therapy
And the greatest meditation of all: poetry;

To observe my motionless body
In search of the mysteries of lostness,
And the paths to self-identity.

I sought that exact moment
When a species evolves into another:

From an Australopithecus to
Homo Habilis into Homo Erectus to the next.

A minute-by-minute record,

A frame-by-frame snapshot

Of the final changes in

The DNA of an embryo

In the womb of its unwitting

Heidelbergian mother that

Engendered the primeval baby-sapient.

That moment, that precious second of

The mutation is a secular miracle,

A natural yet defiled magical process

Of procreation, survival, and growth,

In pursuit of self-promotion

On this Planet Number X

Of the Galaxy Y. Voila!

Welcome to human society:

At the mercy of biochemistry

And genetic coding over zillions of years.

Each incremental incident

Producing that microscopic change

That all adds up to our paranoid existence.

The flawless scientific logic of trial and error,

Mediated by a handsome dose of coincidence,

Cannibalism, and self-preservation.

But were they, too, the naked, feeble

Hominid ancestors of ours, romantic?

Did they love to rhyme

With the opening words of

Their primitive languages?

Did they observe thunder, rain, and rainbow

With similar bewilderment?

Did they watch the night-sky

And it's billions of stars and

Thought, “Is it, one giant

Piece of hanging net adorned

With gems and diamonds?”

Or did they know not any

Precious metals and stones?

Did they see their reflections in the water

And amazed at the beauty of the beholder?

Or like me, they, too, saw shabby images,

As though on a mirror, and frowned,

Groaned, mocked, and took pity

On their own souls and self?

Did they, too, comprehend that

This ephemeral body is but a vessel

For the brain: a watery, fatty creature that

Cannot walk or live outside its host?

We are at the mercy

Of that demigod and its

All-powerful courtesans:

The heart, the gut &

The nervous scheme.

But what’s the point of carrying

Around this tangle of neurons?

Oh, the mind, of course!

It is the domicile of the latter,

Which holds in its palms

The twin portions of id

And super-ego:

The constant tug-of-war

Between instinct and critique.

We know not

Which one is poisonous

And which is nourishing.

It is a great unsolved puzzle,

My polymath friend:

They both might be succulent,

Or both equally noxious.

[Halifax, 28.06.21]

* * * * * * *

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

by Walt Whitman

 1
AS a strong bird on pinions free, 
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, 
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, 
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee.
 

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, 
Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of foreign court, or indoor library; 
But an odor I’d bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine—or
 breath
 of an Illinois prairie, 
With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee—or from Texas uplands, or
 Florida’s glades, 
With presentment of Yellowstone’s scenes, or Yosemite;
And murmuring under, pervading all, I’d bring the rustling sea-sound, 
That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world.
 

And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union! 
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee—mind-formulas fitted for
 thee—real, and
 sane, and large as these and thee; 
Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew—thou transcendental Union!
By thee Fact to be justified—blended with Thought; 
Thought of Man justified—blended with God: 
Through thy Idea—lo! the immortal Reality! 
Through thy Reality—lo! the immortal Idea! 

2
Brain of the New World! what a task is thine!
To formulate the Modern.
.
.
.
.
Out of the peerless grandeur of the modern, 
Out of Thyself—comprising Science—to recast Poems, Churches, Art, 
(Recast—may-be discard them, end them—May-be their work is done—who knows?)

By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead, 
To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.


(And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain! 
Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long! 
Thou carefully prepared by it so long!—haply thou but unfoldest it—only maturest
 it; 
It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain’d in thee; 
Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee,
The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.) 

3
Sail—sail thy best, ship of Democracy! 
Of value is thy freight—’tis not the Present only, 
The Past is also stored in thee! 
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone—not of thy western continent alone;
Earth’s résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship—is
 steadied by
 thy spars; 
With thee Time voyages in trust—the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee; 
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear’st the
 other
 continents; 
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant: 
—Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman—thou carryest great
 companions,
Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee, 
And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee.
 

4
Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes, 
Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky; 
Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all;
Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons; 
Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing, 
Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life; 
World of the Real! world of the twain in one! 
World of the Soul—born by the world of the real alone—led to identity, body, by
 it
 alone;
Yet in beginning only—incalculable masses of composite, precious materials, 
By history’s cycles forwarded—by every nation, language, hither sent, 
Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here, 
(The true New World—the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,) 
Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform’d—neither do I define thee;
How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? 
I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good; 
I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past; 
I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe; 
But I do not undertake to define thee—hardly to comprehend thee;
I but thee name—thee prophecy—as now! 
I merely thee ejaculate! 

Thee in thy future; 
Thee in thy only permanent life, career—thy own unloosen’d mind—thy soaring
 spirit; 
Thee as another equally needed sun, America—radiant, ablaze, swift-moving,
 fructifying
 all;
Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy—thy endless, great hilarity! 
(Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long—that weigh’d so long upon the
 mind
 of man, 
The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;) 
Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male—thee in thy athletes, moral,
 spiritual,
 South, North, West, East, 
(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear’d alike,
 forever
 equal;)
Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain; 
Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material wealth and
 civilization must remain in vain;) 
Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship—thee in no single bible, saviour,
 merely,

Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself—thy bibles incessant, within thyself,
 equal
 to any, divine as any; 
Thee in an education grown of thee—in teachers, studies, students, born of thee;
Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse—thy high original festivals, operas,
 lecturers,
 preachers; 
Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed—the edifice on sure
 foundations
 tied,) 
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought—thy topmost rational joys—thy love,
 and
 godlike aspiration, 
In thy resplendent coming literati—thy full-lung’d orators—thy sacerdotal
 bards—kosmic savans, 
These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy.


5
Land tolerating all—accepting all—not for the good alone—all good for thee;

Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself; 
Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.
 

(Lo! where arise three peerless stars, 
To be thy natal stars, my country—Ensemble—Evolution—Freedom,
Set in the sky of Law.) 

Land of unprecedented faith—God’s faith! 
Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav’d; 
The general inner earth, so long, so sedulously draped over, now and hence for what it is,
 boldly laid bare, 
Open’d by thee to heaven’s light, for benefit or bale.


Not for success alone; 
Not to fair-sail unintermitted always; 
The storm shall dash thy face—the murk of war, and worse than war, shall cover thee
 all
 over; 
(Wert capable of war—its tug and trials? Be capable of peace, its trials; 
For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in peace—not war;)
In many a smiling mask death shall approach, beguiling thee—thou in disease shalt
 swelter;

The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike
 thee
 deep within; 
Consumption of the worst—moral consumption—shall rouge thy face with hectic: 
But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all, 
Whatever they are to-day, and whatever through time they may be,
They each and all shall lift, and pass away, and cease from thee; 
While thou, Time’s spirals rounding—out of thyself, thyself still extricating,
 fusing, 
Equable, natural, mystical Union thou—(the mortal with immortal blent,) 
Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future—the spirit of the body and the mind, 
The Soul—its destinies.


The Soul, its destinies—the real real, 
(Purport of all these apparitions of the real;) 
In thee, America, the Soul, its destinies; 
Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous! 
By many a throe of heat and cold convuls’d—(by these thyself solidifying;)
Thou mental, moral orb! thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World! 
The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine—for such
 unparallel’d
 flight as thine, 
The Future only holds thee, and can hold thee.

* * * * * * *

At The Smithville Methodist Church

by Stephen Dunn

It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,

but when she came home

with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art

was up, what ancient craft.

She liked her little friends.
She liked the songs

they sang when they weren't

twisting and folding paper into dolls.

What could be so bad?

Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith

in good men was what

we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,

that other sadness.

OK, we said, One week.

But when she came home

singing "Jesus loves me,

the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.

Could we say Jesus

doesn't love you?

Could I tell her the Bible

is a great book certain people use

to make you feel bad? We sent her back

without a word.

It had been so long since we believed, so long

since we needed Jesus

as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was

sufficiently dead,

that our children would think of him like Lincoln

or Thomas Jefferson.

Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief

to a child,

only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story

nearly as good.

On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts

all spread out

like appetizers.
Then we took our seats

in the church

and the children sang a song about the Ark,

and Hallelujah

and one in which they had to jump up and down

for Jesus.

I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain

about what's comic, what's serious.

Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.

You can't say to your child

"Evolution loves you.

"The story stinks

of extinction and nothing

exciting happens for centuries.

I didn't have

a wonderful story for my child

and she was beaming.

All the way home in the car

she sang the songs,

occasionally standing up for Jesus.

There was nothing to do

but drive, ride it out, sing along

in silence.