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

* * * * * * *

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 3 - Living Radical Love

Process-based Ecological Societies work together with one another

Radical Christian Process Theology, Part 3

Living Radical Love

Wikipedia - Postchristianity is the situation in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion of a society but has gradually assumed values, culture, and worldviews that are not necessarily Christian.

Post-Christian tends to refer to the loss of Christianity's monopoly in historically Christian societies to atheism or secularism. It does not include formerly Christian-majority societies that now follow other religions such as Islam.

Some scholars have disputed the global decline of Christianity, and instead hypothesized an evolution of Christianity, which allows it not only to survive but actively to expand its influence in contemporary societies.

Where the Church Is At

When reading the opening paragraphs of Wikipedia's category on PostChristianity below I cannot help but sympathize with it's assessments. The Church as I knew when growing up as definitely changed from what it was. How I knew it is curious in itself as I remember it as a child would fondly remember a grandparent... kind, loving, helpful, gracious. Through the years of childhood to adulthood those impressions have not gone away. But I now am noticing what I hadn't noticed over the years... a strangeness to the church's character which wasn't there before.

Now naiveté isn't really one of my gift... I seem to be acutely aware of my environment, to wit, the fundamentalist tradition I came to recognize and understand... as well as the conservative evangelical tradition it was becoming absorbed by. Positively, I was gaining a broader awareness of the Christian tradition while negatively, I was becoming aware of how the process of Christian "assimilation" was working as well.

Where the Church Is Going (the Societal Evolution Part)

IA. Societal

More recently in the last decade or two my Christian faith needed to do a hard look at itself. Though parts of it was doing so it wasn't fully enough in my estimation. By this I mean that as a past Fundy become Evangelic we did not embrace the progressive movement of the "social gospel" very well. We did, however, interpolate it so that to those who came into our form of church enterprise we cared for and helped according to our rules of conduct and polity. But socially, as an organ of community we remained stiffly outside to its functionings.

Now I say this kindly as this was the kind of Christianity my fellowship understood and knew. The institutions we participated with - from mission agencies, to colleges and seminaries, to the morphing collection of church fellowships joining the evangelic movement - all had this idea of what was, and wasn't "Christian".

When I began to break from these religious attitudes I found myself joined to the Emerging Church movement within Evangelicalism which was but a form and segment of the greater "Social Gospel" movement of decades earlier in the 1920s and forward. I later came to understand that both groups were participating in the evolving Christian streams known as "Christian Humanitarianism" (some unkindly call this Christian "Humanism") of the 1800s. Think of Charles Dickenson's portrayal of Victorian England's working orphans. Or, the Beechers of Boston railing against child servitude in the factories; its work of Suffrage for women voters; and its work of Abolition against black slavery. Regardless, there are now many evangelical churches accurately aware of the progressive role it must play in society at large.

IB. Doctrinal

So this was one development I have been very glad to see. The other development which hasn't come as yet is the need for a broader Creedal advance in the areas of breaking down Westernized dogmas to embrace Christian Progressivism across all societal levels. Now this is being done but in multiple ways. Several of which I'll mention here.

First, is through the abandonment of Christianity as a religious institution for a more spiritual uplift of life in general which may, or may not, include formal attendance to a local church service and participation in it's ministries. This movement has grown quickly over the years and is known as the "Nones and Dones". I do not fault them as Christ and Christ-ian love has seemed to be diminished in the evangelical churches of America even though it's message is Christ and at times, love. But what they have noticed, as have I, is the lack of developing an "evangelical" theology of love. It's Calvinism of God as a transcendent Judge and Wrath giver holds it back. It has taken those aspects of the bible to heart and does not know how to let go of them.

The next group I've noticed is the denominational response to evangelicalism where Lutherans, Methodists, Nazarenes, Wesleyans, Catholics, etc, have doubled down on what makes their Protestant or Catholic faiths real for them. This would also include diverse groups as Disciples of Christ, Anglicans, Mennonites, and various Pentecostal groups. To this they have added community outreach through a variety of social agencies and fundamental helps to their localities. Evangelicals are beginning to do this but find it hard because of their dogmas and sentiments about "secular" society. Even the word "secular" keeps evangelicals from fully embracing who God is and what it means to be human. Their doctrine of sin creates a hardline in the sand to the truth that God is in all even as God abides with all.

For myself, having learned to appreciate the hard circumstances which have forced the Nones and Dones out of dogmatic Christianity. Or the fundamental needs which drive all societies in building and conducting grace-programs of education, feeding, housing, and caring for the poor and displaced. Or, in meaningfully recognizing gender and cultural/religious difference in positive, difference-making ways which are surmounting strict dogmatic beliefs. Then we must admit to the great benefit of beauty and wonder which i) the Nones and Dones and ii) Denomination Faiths have brought, and are bringing, to traditional Christianity. I cannot help but give thanksgiving to God for those who seek a faith beyond the faith they know.

Where the Church Must Go Next

The Problem

Secondly, comes a fundamental shift from the "outside" which I believe Christianity will need to make. It can no longer be simply doctrinal nor progressive but must integrate the two together - the beliefs with the actions. The knowing and the doing. The speaking and the deed. One group I know of is doing just that; the other group has left Christianity declaring God not only dead in the functionings of church care but also dead in an agnostic or atheistic sense. Both are "radical" theological groups but one is Christian and the other is more strictly humanist.

Two Solutions

IA. Radical Humanism ( = Radical Humanist Theology)

My first response here is that I fully support radical humanism in the sense that humanity must learn to love one another more fully than it has over its evolutionary history. To listen and communicate with one another is huge! To share and cooperate with one another would seem like its own positive evolutionary step when embrace nature as cause and progenitor of this act. Radical humanism means we respond to earthquakes, mudslides, sufferings due to civil and national war, unequal justice systems, inadequate education, and all forms of apartheidism. To wit, this doesn't mean a communist or socialist or neoliberal (sic, Trumpian conservatist) government must change. It simply means that a more generously humane and humanitarian socio-political system must and will change when LOVE becomes the moda operandi for any civilization willing to chance it.

My second response it to acknowledge that all religions can have a lovingly humane and humanitarian response towards its members and to those who are not part of its religion. Its what radical humanism implies... the willingness to surmount differences if favor of the greater good. That multicultural societies dealing with polyplural cultural economies must find a way together. To wit, I submit, that the cause for building and developing ecological civilizations could be the common baseline factor in accomplishing this practical - and very necessary - ideal.

My third response is to recognize that for some "spiritualists" and "non-spiritualists" there way to finding and keeping to Love may be outside of any formal religion as strictly humanists to any faith. This does not make them evil but helpful in pointing out to the religious faiths their lack of Love in a world which needs Love. This means that humanists will speak and act in candor about religions such as Christianity - perhaps even using its language and terms in iconographic and linguistic overlays in order to help exploring Christians determine what a loving spirituality might mean either with God, or apart from God. In many ways my next category is altering our religious language as well... but importantly, from within it's religious structures rather than outside it.

IB. Process Christianity = Radical Christian Theology

There are several observations I must make here:

First, Process Christianity is the reformulation of Westernized Christianity from its Platonic/Hellenistic New Testament Christian basis as perturbated through succeeding centuries of Patristic Thought, Scholastic (Aristotelian) doctrinaire, the reductionistic/mechanical era of Scientific Enlightenment, and today's Classic Christian philosophic-theologies eclectically based on all preceding centuries of Christian creeds, confessions, dogmas, polities, worship, and practice.

To propose a process-based Christianity is to embrace previously stated but overlooked ancient and modern philosophies that all is organic, living, relational, meaningfully meaningful, holding value gained by difference, and forming a solidarity with itself from its parts to its whole. This is lately come to be known by Alfred North Whitehead's observations of Hegelianism and then moving it forward in his treatise "Process & Reality". Originally aptly called "A Philosophy of Organism". And those later evolving process metaphysicians are now referring to their cumulative works as "Process Philosophy" as are process theologians who are cumulatively writing what is known as a "Process Theology" (sic, Christian, or Muslim, or Hindi Process Theologies). The baseline is Whitehead's Process Philosophy.

Secondly, progressive Christianity is not a form of process Christianity. But, to be a process theologian is to be both progressive and radically humanist. It means that what other Christians and non-Christians are experiencing, teaching and doing, is what a loving process philosophy and theology expect, inhabit, embrace, and conjoin. Said differently, not all movements and philosophies are processual but within all religious, sectarian, and humanist fellowships can be found processual processes. Process Philosophy and Theology then can be described as Integral philosophies and theologies of all previous and succeeding movements within human society. Just as an elephant's ear is not the elephant, so too Jungian Arche-types are processually acknowledging it's evolving part of the whole.

Thirdly, and in summary, there is a need to rewrite the Jewish and Christian faiths in terms of Process Philosophy. Process Theology is this very undertaking by a number of voices both within and without Christianity. It is a necessary voice in re-integrating earlier religious statements to behave more correctly with the Creator-Redeemer God of Creation. A God of Love above all other godly attributes. A God who abides and indwells as a theology of pan-en-theism well states (as versus classic transcendent theism or the other extreme of Hindi pantheism). Panentheism says that in God's Otherness (transcendentness) he is present and abiding. It leans into the Hindu version of pantheism without losing God's distinctiveness of being Creator. And panentheism further means that within the very DNA of creation is God's Imago Dei which pervades, informs, struggles against, and leads creation towards an end, or teleology, of meaningfulness, value, and Love.

At the last, the Christian God of past philosophical movements, insights, instruction, and beliefs, must relent to a processual God of Love whose is radically apart and radically within creation. Sin is that struggle which creational freedom knows and experiences. It is not a formal part of creation (or ours) nature. It is the result of being endowed by a Loving God his Loving resplendency birthed within our very beings, of which creational freedom is one. And with freedom come bondage and death. Choosing a liberty bereft of Love is to chose creational bondage in however it is imagined and clung to.

And in all things, even in a Loving system, there is death to life. It is the ying to the yang as the Chinese would say. But in Loving death is creational animation, beauty, and teleological movement towards hope filled with a creation coming to embrace generative value and worth of itself and all which lies about it. Though creation is entropic - that is, runs from chaos towards chaos - it has also bourne within it a negentropy which propels life forward in the face of death. This is panentheism... death is embraced but is also lifted up and increased by one towards life. It is why Darwinian evolutional is explained so well by process-based panentheism. Said another way, if the universe were but negentropy alone than it could not develop as it can in an entropic multiverse. It would fill itself up immediately and leave no room for growth (click here for this discussion).

I'm exhausted and will leave off here for today. I have some outdoor work to finish and a surgery later this afternoon.

Do well. Take this in. Re-read it and understand why Christianity must do what it must do rather than stay what it is. Christianity like anything else must grow from death to life. I believe Christian Process Theology will help us get there.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

May 24, 2023

* * * * * * * *

We must differentiate between saving the life of the Church and
saving the life of an Institution or Institutionalized Religion. - Anon

PostChristianity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Postchristianity is the situation in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion of a society but has gradually assumed values, culture, and worldviews that are not necessarily Christian.

Post-Christian tends to refer to the loss of Christianity's monopoly in historically Christian societies to atheism or secularism.^[1] It does not include formerly Christian-majority societies that now follow other religions such as Islam.

Some scholars have disputed the global decline of Christianity, and instead hypothesized an evolution of Christianity, which allows it not only to survive but actively to expand its influence in contemporary societies.^{[citation needed]}

Decline of Christianity

A deconsecrated church in Australia, now in use as a restaurant. Declining attendance can lead to the consolidation of congregations and repurposing of church buildings.

Historically, the majority of Christians have lived in Western nations, once called Christendom, and often conceptualized as "European Christian" civilization.^[2]

A post-Christian society is one in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion but that has gradually assumed values, culture, and worldviews that are not necessarily Christian (and also may not necessarily reflect any world religion's standpoint or may represent a combination of either several religions or none). Post-Christian tends to refer to the loss of Christianity's monopoly, if not its followers, in historically Christian societies.^[3] Post-Christian societies are found across the Global North/West: for example, though the 2005 Eurobarometer survey indicated that the majority of Europeans hold some form of belief in a higher power (see also "Ietsism"); fewer point explicitly to the Christian God.

Despite this decline, Christianity remains the dominant religion in Europe, the Americas and Oceania. According to a 2010 study by the Pew Research Center, 76% of the population of Europe,^[4] 77% of North America and 90% of Latin America and the Caribbean identified themselves as Christians.^[5]

In his 1961 book The Death of God, the French theologian Gabriel Vahanian argued that modern secular culture in most of Western civilization had lost all sense of the sacred, lacked any sacramental meaning, and disdained any transcendental purpose or sense of providence, bringing him to the conclusion that for the modern mind, "God is dead". Thomas J. J. Altizer and William Hamilton of Emory University drew upon a variety of sources, including the aphorisms of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison, and brought this line of thought to public attention in a short-lived intellectual movement of the mid-to-late-1960s among Protestant theologians and ministerial students.

In public regional and world affairs

This In public regional and world affairs relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this In public regional and world affairs by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Postchristianity" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Postchristianity^[6] is the loss of the primacy of the Christian worldview in public affairs, especially in the Western world where Christianity had previously flourished, in favor of alternative worldviews such as secularism,^[7] nationalism,^[8] environmentalism,^[9] and organized atheism;^[10] sometimes militant^[11] as well as other ideologies such as veganism or ethical veganism,^[12] that are no longer necessarily rooted in the language and assumptions of Christianity amongst many other ideologies. They previously existed in an environment of ubiquitous Christianity (i.e. Christendom).^{[13][14][15][16]}

Alternative perspectives

Other scholars have disputed the global decline of Christianity, and instead hypothesized of an evolution of Christianity which allows it to not only survive, but actively expand its influence in contemporary societies.^[17][18][19]

Philip Jenkins hypothesized a "Christian Revolution" in the Global South, such as Africa, Asia and Latin America, where instead of facing decline, Christianity is actively expanding. The susceptibility to Christian teachings in the Global South will allow the Christian population in these areas to continually increase, and together with the shrinking of the Western Christian population, will form a "new Christendom" in which the majority of the world's Christian population can be found in the South.^[20]

Charles Taylor, meanwhile, disputes the "God is dead" thesis by arguing that the practices and understandings of faith changed long before the late 20th century, along with secularism itself. In A Secular Age Taylor argues that being "free from Christendom" has allowed Christianity to endure and express itself in various ways, particularly in Western society; he notes that otherwise secular ideas were, and continue to be, formed in light of some manner of faith. He stresses that "loss of faith" reflects simplistic notions on the nature of secularization, namely the idea of "subtraction." Thus "post-Christian" is, after a fashion, a product of Christianity itself.^{[citation needed]}

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge wrote God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World, claiming that there is a global revival of faith has started in the late twentieth century.

Other uses

Some American Christians (primarily Protestants) also use this term in reference to the evangelism of unchurched individuals who may have grown up in a non-Christian culture where traditional Biblical references may be unfamiliar concepts. This perspective argues that, among previous generations in the United States, such concepts and other artifacts of Christianese would have been common cultural knowledge and that it would not have been necessary to teach this language to adult converts to Christianity. In this sense, post-Christian is not used pejoratively, but is intended to describe the special remediative care that would be needed to introduce new Christians to the nuances of Christian life and practice.^{[citation needed]}

Some groups use the term "post-Christian" as a self-description. Dana McLean Greeley, the first president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, described Unitarian Universalism as postchristian, insofar as Christians no longer considered it Christian, while persons of other religions would likely describe it as Christian, at least historically.^[21]

New religious movements such as Jesuism incorporate foundational elements of Christian thought in syncretic comination with various enlightenment beliefs ( Ie. secular democracy, equality of historical minorities ) into a coherent post-Christian theology.^[22]

See also

• Religion portal

• Apatheism
• Christian atheism
• Christian existentialism
• Cultural Christians
• Postmodern Christianity
• Postmodern Reformation
• Post-theism
• Secular movement
• A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born by John Shelby Spong

References

1. ^ "Our Post-Christian Society". National Review. December 14, 2013.
2. ^ Philip Jenkins, from "The Christian Revolution," in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2002.
3. ^ "Our Post-Christian Society". National Review. December 14, 2013.
4. ^ Including the Asian part of Russia, and excluding the European part of Turkey. Regional distribution of Christians: Europe. Pew Research Center.
5. ^ "Global religious landscape: Christians". Pewforum.org. December 19, 2011. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
6. ^ G.C. Oosthuizen. Postchristianity in Africa. C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd (December 31, 1968). ISBN 0-903983-05-2
7. ^ "Secularism". Humanists UK.
8. ^ Philip Jenkins, from "The Christian Revolution," in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2002.
9. ^ "Environmentalism as Religion". Joel Garreau. The New Atlantis.
10. ^ "Atheists Are Sometimes More Religious Than Christians". Sigal Samuel. The Atlantic.
11. ^ "Has militant atheism become a religion?". Christopher Hitchens. salon.com. March 25, 2013.
12. ^ Paulson, By Gabrielle. "Tag: new religion."
13. ^ Gordon-Finlayson, Alasdair, and Michael Daniels. "Westerners converting to Buddhism: An exploratory grounded theory investigation." Transpersonal Psychology Review 12.1 (2008): 100-118.
14. ^ Kevin Fauteux (1987). Seeking Enlightenment in the East: Self–Fulfillment or Regressive Longing? Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis: Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 223-246.
15. ^ Clobert, Magali, and Vassilis Saroglou. "Intercultural non-conscious influences: Prosocial effects of Buddhist priming on Westerners of Christian tradition." International Journal of Intercultural Relations 37.4 (2013): 459-466.
16. ^ King, W. L. (1970). Eastern Religions: A New Interest and Influence. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 387(1), 66–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/000271627038700109
17. ^ Philip Jenkins, from "The Christian Revolution," in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2002.
18. ^ Lewis Ray Rambo; Charles E. Farhadian, eds. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195338522.
19. ^ Carla Gardina Pestana, ed. (2010). Evangelicalism and Conversion: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199808342.
20. ^ Philip Jenkins, from "The Christian Revolution," in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2002.
21. ^ Daniel Harper. "What is a 'post-Christian'?"
22. ^ jesuans.org

Further reading

• Liberal Religion in the Post Christian Era, Edward A. Cahill, 1974
• The Post Christian Mind: Exposing Its Destructive Agenda, Harry Blamires, Vine, 1999 (ISBN 1-56955-142-1).
• "America's New Religions". Andrew Sullivan. Intelligencer. December 7, 2018.
• "The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era", Gabriel Vahanian, George Braziller, NY, 1961
• Dana MacLean Greeley, 25 Beacon Street, and Other Recollections (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), pp. 11–12.
• Thomas J. J. Altizer, The Gospel of Christian Atheism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966).
• Thomas J. J. Altizer and William Hamilton, Radical Theology and the Death of God (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966).
• Bernard Murchland, ed., The Meaning of the Death of God (New York: Random House, 1967)
• Phillip Jenkins, God's Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe's Religious Crisis (Oxford: University Press, 2005)
• Phillip Jenkins, The Christian Revolution in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World, Paternoster Press, 2004 (ISBN 978-1-84227-261-9).
• Stuart Murray, Church after Christendom, Paternoster Press, 2004 (ISBN 978-1-84227-292-3).
• Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Harvard: Belknap Press, 2007).