Short Shorts... Christian Sloganeering, Inspiration, Revelation, & Universalism

Short Shorts... Christian Sloganeering,

Inspiration, Revelation, & Universalism

kitcshe - examples of sloganeering

What is Kitsch?

Well, it's NOT the Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch... he's cool.

Art as Kitsch

It seems religious kitsch is everywhere on social media regardless the religion or faith. Here, I ask the question whether it is useful or not? Offensive? Helpful?

I suspect the answer lies in the eyes of the beholder as it would with any display of art...

...and also what the artist wishes to communicate to us about their faith or beliefs.

Some artistic kitsch I like... It may make me laugh, cry, be cynical, or be uplifted by it.

The ones displayed below I generally don't like though I realize they are telling us to be thoughtful of how Christian behavior to be loving, just and wise, and to emissaries of Jesus wherever we go.

On Parenting

In the case of raising and teaching little kids I'd like to see less abject brainwashing and more liberty for them to be directed to ask better questions when trained up in the household of their parents.

Children are innocent souls and if they are allowed, a bit of childhood respite from the wickedness of the world would be nice to be encouraged at all times.

And when approaching the subject of God as they grow older I think sets them up for good or for ill to be worked out the rest of their lives. Hence, a bit of caution to religious parents on the energy of their beliefs. Allow children to breathe a bit. Become themselves a bit. Simply watching you will be instruction enough when the time comes to verbalize wisdom and beliefs.

I love children and always wish to error towards love, patience, broad-mindedness, and good will. We each need wisdom when it comes to children... and with that wisdom we might learn ourselves and share it with those around us.

R.E. Slater

January 18, 20224

Defined

Dictionary

Definitions from Oxford Languages

kitsch /kiCH/ 

as a noun

art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.

• "the lava lamp is an example of sixties kitsch"

as an adjective

considered to be in poor taste but appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.

• "the front room is stuffed with kitsch knickknacks, little glass and gilt ornaments"

• a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition.

KITSCH

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• This article is about the art term. For other uses, see Kitsch (disambiguation).

• "Tacky" redirects here. For other uses, see Adhesive and Tacky (song).

Kitsch (/kɪtʃ/ KITCH; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal taste.

The modern avant garde traditionally opposed kitsch for its melodramatic tendencies, its superficial relationship with the human condition and its naturalistic standards of beauty. In the first half of the 20th century, kitsch was used in reference to mass-produced, pop-cultural products that lacked the conceptual depth of fine art. However, since the emergence of Pop Art in the 1950s, kitsch has taken on newfound highbrow appeal, often wielded in knowingly ironic, humorous or earnest manners.

To brand visual art as "kitsch" is often still pejorative, though not exclusively. Art deemed kitsch may be enjoyed in an entirely positive and sincere manner. For example, it carries the ability to be quaint or "quirky" without being offensive on the surface, as in the Dogs Playing Poker paintings.

Along with visual art, the quality of kitsch can be used to describe works of music, literature or any other creative medium. Kitsch relates to camp, as they both incorporate irony and extravagance.

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Christian Beliefs

 

I had two reactions to the pictures above and below...

First the con... however I read this bit of nonsense it's still crap. If religion isn't true and gets exposed by science than let's put faith to death immediately. But if religion can survive the true truths of the universe than just maybe its metaphysic might be true too. Never be afraid to autopsy your faith. We want a living faith... not one that is dead and fighting for its zombie-self to manipulate and control our agency! - re slater

Now the pro... as people of science-and-faith we are to live in the present, not flee from difficulties... especially as presented by religious zealots defending an idolatrized faith. If prophecy is in any sense alive today as I think it is, we stand up and tell (forthtell, NOT foretell) our generations it's goods and bads, pros and cons, about itself. We don't stand mum and hope to leave disruption. Esp against sin and evil whether birthed by a church gone bad or leaders turned rotten. - re slater

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Bench Pressing with Rance

Subject: Universalism

Ok, warning. A good many of my friends may not want to read this. And I admit I sound pretty self-righteous, but here goes....

Today, I met and talked with a pastor who serves a non-denominational church in Alabama who only a few months ago became a persuaded Christian universalist.

He, like me in a previous life, came from the ‘free grace’ movement (names like Charles Ryrie, Zane Hodges, Bob Wilkin, etc) and in fact his church was part of that movement. We both agreed that, despite its name, it is one of the most narrow and doctrinally legalistic theological groups around. In reality, ‘grace’ is reduced to an abstraction and salvation is reduced to something like a commercial transaction. Unless you get all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted in the ‘faith vs works b.s.,’ you’re probably not saved, according to them.

There are approximately 8.1 billion people living on earth right now. So your chances of ‘going to heaven’ (as they put it) are extremely thin. Billions of people will roast forever according to these wacko beliefs.

From my research there are somewhere between 3.9 and 7.7 million Evangelical Christians in the world. That’s a mere 4-7% of the world’s billions of people who ever end up in heaven. By the time the ‘grace movement’ people get through with their nitpicking, only a fraction of those who identify as Evangelicals will be saved. How crazy is this? Plenty, if you ask me.

Evangelicals believe they are the only religious people on earth who will be saved. In general, Catholics aren’t ’really saved.’ Liberal and progressive mainline Christians arent saved. And certainly those Orthodox and Coptic Christians aren’t either. Muslims, ditto. Hindus, ditto. Buddhists, ditto.

And it gets even more depressing still since most Evangelicals believe in a literal hell. This was one of the main reasons I departed from Evangelicalism. I could no longer tolerate this narrow view of the world informed by a legalistic narrow view of the gospel.

There’s no good news at all in this kind of Christianity. It’s 99% bad news. Who could begin to love a god who is willing to create children made in his own image only to condemn billions of them forever? Not me, thank you very much.

I was schooled in this stuff, brought up in a Southern Baptist context and then trained in fundamentalist colleges as a young man. But relatively speaking, it didn’t take me long to feel increasingly uncomfortable with such nonsense.

My deconstruction began nearly 40 years ago. I haven’t de-converted from Christian faith by any means, but after all these decades my faith looks very different now than it did back then.

As my new pastor friend told me today, ‘everything looks different now. I view people differently. I see God differently. And once I understood universal salvation, I saw it everywhere in the Bible.’

I had to agree.

- Rance, 1.17.2024

Comment 1

I think you hit this spot on Rance. Might I publish it on my site? As always, I'll add a few thoughts too. You're my hero! BTW, I left one church after 27 years as I had become tired of my fellowship's incessant judgmentalism of others-not-like-themselves.

I couldn't evangelize for God, or bring converts into the church, if the church wasn't going to provide them with a nourishing, enriching fellowship as vs some imagined legalistic interpretation as to what they thought was holy or not holy.

To this day connecting divine sovereignty to power and determinism curdles my stomach. Divine sovereignty is always about divine love working with creation towards blessed, redemptive ends. Not power. Not wrath. Not hell. Not Christian inquisitions.

Thx again. - re slater

Reply: Rance - "Of course, brother."

Comment 2

by RRW

Hi Rance. I don't think you sound so much self-righteous as misinformed. I read a lot of people saying things about "Evangelicals" that aren't necessarily and definitely not universally true. I tend to distinguish Evangelical from Fundamentalist, though I recognize considerable overlap in many areas of thought.

My theological education started around Fuller Seminary (progressive? non-denominational Evangelical) and was consolidated at Regent College (also non-denominational, and very ecumenically diverse) as an Anabaptist. I suppose I'm something like a free-will baptist now, but I've always been rather iconoclastic, rejecting every post-biblical human tradition and line of thinking I could identify. I am not dogmatic about much except insofar as I am committed to biblical revelation as exemplified by apostolic teaching as represented by the canonical texts of the Old and New Covenants.

Abandon biblical revelation and you are on your own. If we are all on our own as to what truth is we are no longer thinking and acting as followers of Christ. He is our Lord; what he said as remembered and recorded by those who knew him best must be what we believe or we have departed from faith in him. If we recreate God in our own image however we see fit we are no longer fit for eternal life with him.

Universalism is one of those ways people impose their own thinking on the gospel as received. The words of Jesus are a plain refutation of that belief; eg., separating the sheep from the goats simply can’t be ignored as irrelevant here. And there is a lot more you have to excise from scripture to make the case for God’s eventual inclusion of everyone as members of His family. Someone in the comments mentioned that universalism results in monism, or in other words a deterministic world view. God would have to coercively override the will of those he created with free will by forcing them to accept him as God.

At some point our doctrines, if they are derived from scripture, have to all be correlated and coherent, otherwise they are not reasonable. I think it is not only possible but necessary for Christian teaching to be reasonable and coherent. That doesn’t mean the same as “logical” because a logical system requires more than humans are capable of (too much to explain that here, but ask if you want clarification). I think the Bible provides a coherent structure of beliefs if we mere humans don’t force it into our own distorted ways of thinking, which are then inherently incoherent and contradictory whether we realize it or not. I think that eternal conscious torment (torture!) is not a biblical doctrine. The only reasonable alternative is something like conditional immortality, with the expectation that some form of conscious and appropriate (just!) punishment is what scripture teaches, and then comes the “second death” of annihilation (the cessation of conscious existence) for the unfaithful and unbelieving.

Scripture does not teach that humans are immortal because we are created in the image of God. In fact Genesis teaches that because we have rejected the will and commandments of God we have lost the potential for immortality. The Old Covenant says we lost immortality and the New Covenant says we can regain it through faith in and obedience to Christ. People do not have God’s Spirit dwelling in them by nature; believers in Christ receive new life through the gift of Holy Spirit. Believe the Good News and you will be saved.

Reply by Rance

Richard, I have been very careful to build my faith in ultimate reconciliation for all on the Bible. A good case can be made for it, I assure you. I don’t even know where to start but simply to say it is how one reads scripture. The number of texts that explicitly state it are amazing.

Reply by RWW

Is there not an inherent conflict in proposing that the Covenant can be regained "through faith in and obedience to Christ" and "Believe the Good News and you will be saved?"

Reply by re slater

I no longer can read the bible as a "one-time" revelation. I believe the only kind of communication God provides is one that is daily and constant.

When I read the bible I read how past cultures thought about God... especially the Jewish culture. Jesus did too and had to correct Second Temple Judaism's covenantal legalisms of the day.

I feel much the same way....

God is a God of love... NOT a God of wrath and hate. That's what we do to one another when failing to love one another and creation-around-us again.

Further, Jesus revealed this loving God he called Father not with a sword but with targeted teaching on divine love and Spirit enablement.

Today, Christianity may simply expand the doctrine of inspiration to discover God never stopped talking to our hearts, minds, and souls by study, fellowship, experience, and history. 

If you wish, we might describe these events as General Inspiration as versus Special Inspiration... but when reading the bible it seems to me that all is generally inspiration and never one-on-one audible discussion except in the Christ-event when God became man.

As corollary, this would mean that the Christian commentaries, stories, and bios we read are from people moved perhaps a bit, perhaps a lot, or not at all, by the Spirit of God. To discern whether their words are from God I ask myself if God's love is at the center of the conversation and in their works. If not, they may have some things to say but I then read such beliefs in a different light as more human than divine. Some of which may be really helpful and some of which is complete rubbish.

How people think of God and act out their faith tells us a lot about the God they believe in.

For myself, divine love displays itself in acts which are healthy, healing, and redemptive.

When I read of God by those who push protestations, defensive apologies claiming biblical authority, or are generally off-putting to those around them, I read of people trying to push their idea of God on others. An idea which may be either good or bad. But love must always be the outcome as it must be the beginning and middle of any conversation.

As to the doctrine of hell it is what we do to one another rather than a place a wrathful God puts you in. Always remember, God is not hell nor is fellowship with God through Christ anything but redemption working itself out through us. And for the unbeliever, pagan, or non-Christian (my preferred term) God will always be a God to them as well despite religion or belief.

So why teach hell?

Well, that's the question isn't it... if there is no hell as the bible says there is... or as its Jewish culture in the first century may have believed; ...and certainly in what the early, middle, and late Middle Age church taught after (Catholic?) Dante's description of hell in his Divine Comedy of Hell's Inferno (published c.1321)... then what do we do with hell?

For myself, it is how we act towards one another and to nature around us. It is a description of our relationship with one another individually, familiarly, societally, and globally. Relationships are not places there are esoteric. And the pain and torture of a soul rueing life and troubles aptly describes a soul burning under the sin and evil caused.

The only place I find resolvement is in Jesus Christ's and the hell he took upon himself for us as God's sacrificial Lamb. Who served as our Atonement and Redeemer by the force of his life and death and resurrection. For without the resurrection, says the Apostle Paul, Jesus' death would not be legitimate. But with Jesus' ascension and transfiguration as the first fruits of salvation, we may find in Jesus One who will take our past, forgive it, and begin healing those of us seeking forgiveness and transformation.

Next topic...

As a former fundamentalist and later conservative evangelical I have to call my faith out. I've leaned into my original Baptist roots into Arminianism (free will) and thrown out Calvinism (divine determinacy).

Then expanded the former to incorporate and Open and Relational Theology.

And finally, I've removed the church's Westernized (Greek Hellenism) bias towards doctrine and replaced it with Whitehead's process philosophy and Cobb's process theology.

Why?

• Because I can remove the limitations of Western philosophical theology upon church doctrines and traditions. It also allows me to freely use redactive tools upon the ancient biblical text to expand its godly content and to apply a loving divinity which is never absent of us.

• Which is also why divine inspiration and revelation are important. If kept as a one-time reveal than God has bound us as God has bound God's Self. But I don't think God works this way... an imminent, intimately-near-to-us-never-to-leave-us God is always speaking, revealing, and inspiring. Some get it, many don't. Some get a bit of it while others make a "mash" of it.

• When I read inspiring novels or fiction; see illuminating art pieces, paintings, and sculptures; hear the joy filling within a good rock opera or punk rock piece; or witness architects and landscapers weaving buildings and gardens around light and sound; I behold lively works of divine inspiration such as in the American Constitution with it's Bill of Rights. Public documents which give people liberty, personal rights, freedom, justice, and equality.

• God is present and is presently doing what he can when his creation yearns to speak, be, and breathe atoning redemption and transfiguring healing to all.

Hence, at the center of love is:

• humane and humanitarian forms of social justice;

• intersectional faiths (certainly non-Christian faiths don't have Christ but in Process thought we can emphasize a redemptive center); and generally,

• behave in progressively liberating norms of behavior with one another while abiding to love and covenantal integrity with one another.

Such thoughts never rests easily upon a Westernized conservative evangelicalism as its newer, postmodernal form of progressive evangelicalism can attest. But when uplifting Reformed and Evangelical doctrinnaire into Processual Theology's realms we may liberate bad ideas of God and judgment and recover the good news which is in Jesus anew. This, to me, is invaluable.

Lastly, if God is what evangelicalism says God is - whether Calvinistic or Arminian - than such a God is not worth following. And just like ancient man's ideas are always reforming the primal questions of purpose and destiny, so too those divinely driven burdens ask of God today to reveal a better Christ and more humane faith than in times past or present. Amen

Comment 3

By CM

I think people assume all forms of universal salvation are the same. The ultimate redemption that Brad Jersak, Chris Green and others put forward is one that has been in the historical church family all along. It includes judgement and "hell" but just sees these as penultimate not the final word. Can God's Love really fail? Will Jesus be all in all of will he not?

Reply by Rance - Exactly.

Let's Talk About Process Theology vs Universalism

R.E. Slater Shorts

Let's Talk About

Process Theology vs Universalism

by R.E. Slater

My "Shorts" are given as one-offs on any given topic of the day which I may have come across in my daily readings. Hopefully they spark another way of thinking about a subject whether that subject is light-hearted or heavy and disturbing. - re slater

Concerning the process view on universalism I would describe it as quite a bit different though getting to the same conclusion as universalism arrives at re God's reconciliation of the world to God's Self.

But I'd rather approach the story of God's love from a processual gospel standpoint than from a westernized version of systematic theology.

In the process approach, God is love and will lovingly interact with all of creation in every way possible without circumventing creational agency or freewill.

As creation bears the "Imago Dei" of God it bears:

• all the ability to bless;
• to recreate thriving communities; and,
• to enrich generative acts of love across everything around itself.

But when not enacting with our divine/human creational-nature - which is not a sin nature but a processually loving nature then:

• mankind's consequential actions will not bless,
• nor create generative thriving,
• nor provide enrichment to those around it.

In Whiteheadian-based process theology, a loving God's embeddedness of God's divine Being into creation allows for pancessual evolutionary growth of love against the self - or self will - which inhabits nature's soul.

• This divinely-based soul is molded out of LOVE, not sin.

• It is described as a processual pan-en-theism (NOT the Eastern idea of pan-theism).

Quite obviously, this approach has removed the classic approach of traditional theism which leans into God's transcendence much harder than it does God's relational immanence to God's creation.

This is inconsistent with process theology which does not deny God's transcendent "Otherness" but must speak to God's incessant, necessary immanence across all westernized doctrines of abondoness, judgment, separation, and errant beliefs of Divine Holiness.

That is, process theology leans hard into the immanence of God without denying God's "Otherness." God is not more God because God is transcendent but verifies God AS God when constantly abiding with us in God's immanence. Which is why process theology must redescribed traditional theism in terms of God-with-us pan-en-theism.

Love than is the coin with two halves... It is why we all have agency and also the reason we yearn to enact beauty.... But it is also the curse which pains our souls when we cannot, or do not, enact love thus enflaming our souls by the sin and evil we do reflected in the broken mirror of Love's passionate side. (FYI. Of note, in process theology God cannot do evil. God is without sin and evil. God is love.) 

Dante's Divine Comedy in B&W Woodcuts

Similarly, the western doctrine of universalism describes hell as a present condition and not a present expectation of the Christian gospel.

Hell is popularly depicted in the Dantian description of the Catholic purgatory in the title, The Divine Comedy, which is an Italian narrative poem by author Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. In it, the Divine Comedy revels to readers the horrors their souls would go through if they did not obey God's laws nor live righteously thus promoting Christian legalism and prideful holiness by its material. And it is here that Christianity has backfilled it's idea of a Protestant Christian hell.

And because of Calvinism - though other non-Reformed approaches are likewise as guilty (Wesleyanism, Lutheran, Methodism, Catholicism, Eastern and Russian Orthodoxy) - we blame the world condition upon a controlling God determined to enact His will upon all the earth.

Calvinism thus tells us that we receive for our sin and evil divine imprecations as  spoken throughout the biblical narrative of living up to God's contractual / covenantal obligations or else suffer the consequences of our unfaithful sin and evil.

• Of course, this would be a gross misreading of the biblical covenants as the Abrahamic Covenant beautiful shows salvation as unconditionally laid upon God and not mankind. A God who willing bears the surety of God's Atoning -Forgiving-Redeeming-and Resurrecting Self acts when walking through the sacrificial halves laid out by Abram.

• Or the Landed-Form of the Old Covenant as promised by God to Israel when coming into the land of Canaan to inhabit its enculturated regions and live out the love of God in their own way with their neighbors.

• Or the Davidic Covenant God made with the children of Israel assuring the nation a blessed reign and peace when the godly lead their flocks lovingly towards truth and beauty.

• Or even dramatically, in the New Covenant's displayed on Calvary's Cross when God Incarnate (Jesus) became the Lamb of God in Jesus' ministry, slaughter/death, and resurrection, underlining God's "sacrificial selfless service" to all the world as depicted in Jesus' atoning resurrection and dramatic revelation of God's everlasting love contra the legalism and unloving laws placed by Jewish religion upon God's people (sic, a parallel religious bondage to that of Rome's civil bonage).

Hence, Westernised Christian  "universalism" seeks to theologically delimit and re-circumscribe the borders of the Jewish faith which fell into Greek hands with its prophetic fears of the afterlife. Universalism argues that the Love of God wins (or Jesus wins for those who wish to be more sancrosanct or principled than us Christian commoners).

That in God's Love all will be reconciled in this life or the next.

Which prophetic testament is also true of process-based Christian theology. But unlike process theology, progressive Christian Universalism is trying to heal its systematic doctrines founded upon Platonic philosophies which are neither processual, pancessual, nor centered in theologies of love.

Process Christian theology is progressive but it's basis wells up from upon a non-Westernized, non-Platonic foundation. It's philosophic foundation is grounded in Whitehead's process philosophy which rejects all non-processual philosophies including the church's past two Millennias of dogmatic teachings.

For a process theologian, remaking a pig by putting lipstick on it won't be enough. The entire affair of Western dogma has to be uprooted and replaced upon Whitehead's process philosophy of organism in order to be able to live up to the God of Love whom we are worshipping as opposed to the church's creaky traditional platforms weeping with theological holes throughout its substructures because of their defiences.

In conclusion, universalism and process theology share the same end result but not the same philosophic foundation. One is inadequate and unsupportable. The other is superior and can get the Church to it's intended ideation of worship a God of Love without recoursing to the bible's older ideas of secular and religious hell.

R.E. Slater

September 12, 2023

Addenda

1 - I forgot to mention that process-based panentheism is inherently combinatory , or re-connective as a processual teleology embedded in God's love. Hence, process theology really doesn't have an eschatology but a teleology which assumes that Jesus in the processual reconnector to a "broken" creation burdened with an agency inclined towards blessing but plagued with unloving responses against it's very ontological structure. You may read more on my website.

2 - For the process few out there I would welcome further written observation beyond my mere attempts to describe the why's and wherefore's of a westernized religious system that is flawed and unable to work in a postmodern, post-Christian cultural context. Moreover, I find process theology to be more adept at morphing with the times ahead of us much as the church is trying to apply outdated Hellenised-Platonic thought to do the same from its the past 2000 years of institutionalised traditionalism.Thx.

3 - My typical (Calvinistic) Reformed soteriological chart in my non-process days focused on the Work & Sufficiency of Christ. Below may be more of a Wesleyan approach emphasizing the importance of a faith verified by it's works lest it simply exists as a useless, or meaningless, faith that "indwells" with "expelling" God's love in action.

R.E. Slater Shorts - Let's Talk About Process Theology v Universalism

I guess I am doing a little advertising for Pete Enns, but I like the guy and think he and his organization can be helpful to Christians looking to grow beyond their faith borders held in check by traditional church dogmas.

I also think Pete is personally exploring process theology while continuing to lean into progressive evangelical theology. I get the latter as it would be the direction I would choose if I hadn't discovered John Cobb et al's process theology built upon Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy many years earlier when building out this blog/website.

My journey began when concluding my lay ministeries and joining a new fellowship known as Mars Hill led by Rob Bell. Here was spoken a progressive (emergent, or emerging) evangelical gospel as a positive outbreak from the more staid forms of Christian traditionalism I had grown up with. Years later, after Rob had left for California, I realized I needed a new philosophic-theology beyond the one I had inherited from my Baptist roots.

So when deciding to write about my faith journey as I left my classical roots to explore a more progressive (westernized) theology I early on stumbled across (i.e., was providentially led by the Holy Spirit) into what has now become for me the more superior form of theology based upon Whitehead's process philosophy of organism. It became the philosophic-theological base I was seeking and naturally held at it's core God's love, equality of justice, personal liberty within a encorporated democracy, and charitable relations to all.

Before my discovery I was comparatively researching the analytical (~ formula-based) traditions of Christian systematics to the narratival approaches of continental thought. In so doing I realized I could take the art of story telling towards a more thematic approach of the bible which I could then layer on my inductive bible training. And as I did I eventually discovered process philosophy and theology which, like Bartian theology, seems more of a bridge between American and European thinking, or a mediating third way, if you well.

Here were some of my observations back then:

Firstly, process theology naturally comports with the quantum evolutionary sciences which is beginning to abandon its mechanical world of parts-and-pieces for an ever evolving, processual creation when realizing the universe's highly connective and relational cosmology acting more like a "living" organism than as an interconnected system of scientific laws and working parts.

Secondly, process thought helps me extend Jesus as Atoning Savior/God to non-westernized regions of the world, such as the Middle-Eastern and Eastern religions of Asia which look at the world we live in processually. Thus, Whitehead's western-based process philosophy is highly connective to the Muslim and Hindu faiths thus providing an extended metaphysical framework of "common ground" wherein I might describe God and salvation in processual terms rather than in stiff formulaic and non-relational systematic terms.

And thirdly, I find process theology simply works better with my earlier Reformed theology (as I suspect it will with all other forms of Christianity). That is, the Hellenised theology of the New Testament is steeped in Greek Platonic thought forms which give to us a clock-like, mechanical universe reduced to its parts (sic, Newton, Kant, Descartes, etc). Whereas Whitehead picked up Hegel's earlier cosmological insights to re-establish a far more ancient cosmology before the Greeks. One which is far more ancient describing creation as a living complex of organic panrelational, panexperiential, and panpsychic ontological primary elements which are irreducibly One. Thid is retold )or, narrated) again and again over the eons by the ancients in their paleo-stories of God, creation, redemption, provision, and beauty. In essence, creation is irreducibly and complexly One which may further be described as a living, evolving, processual organism.

Lastly, for those more interested in process theology (which is, in its heart, or core structures, naturally "progressive") than in progressive versions of westernized evangelical theology, I would suggest Tripp Fuller's Homebrewed websites as the primary place to go to re-form one's progressive thoughts besides readings in Cobb and Whitehead. Moreover, both he and Pete Enns are loosely working together from their differing approaches to the Christian faith. Tripp from his own Baptist roots and Pete from his evangelical inheritance.

I think this newly forming fellowship between the two can be greatly helpful to progressive Christians looking for a more organic theology than the present westernized Platonic theology which evangelicalism is solidly martied to. Further, Tripp is highly connected to the Whiteheadian/Cobb community of process philosophers and theologians. To help, I've provided their respective websites below.

Enjoy,

R.E. Slater

September 12, 2023

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Divine Self Investment

by Tripp Fuller

https://trippfuller.com/

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Homebrewed Christianity

by Tripp Fuller

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSEzrfWmwQaLdnA5XarVomg

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UNIVERSAL SALVATION IS NOT MODERN

Universal Salvation in Historical and Systematic Perspective.

by Pete Enns

Fall Classroom, 2023

https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/summerschool/#universalsalvation

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The "S" Word

What Sin Is & How It Has Infiltrated Our Systems

by Pete Enns

Fall Classroom, 2023

https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/classes/the-s-word/?mc_cid=5ea3228a02&mc_eid=6bdc0b206b

R.E. Slater Shorts

Let's Talk About

Process Theology v Universalism

My "Shorts" are given as one-offs which I'm thinking about on any given topic of the day which I may have come across in my daily readings. Hopefully they spark another way of thinking  about a subject whether light-hearted or heavy. - re slater

My view on universalism is quite a bit different though it probably gets me to the same conclusion as universalism. But I'd rather approach the story of God's love from a processual gospel standpoint than from a westernized version of systematic theology. In the process approach God is love and will lovingly interact with all of creation in every way possible without circumventing creational agency or freewill. As creation bears the "Imago Dei" of God it thus bears all the ability to bless; to recreate thriving communities; and to enrich generative acts of love across everything around itself. But when not enacting our very creational NATURE (which is not sin but LOVE) than it's consequential actions will not bless, nor create generative thriving, nor enrich. In Whiteheadian-based process theology, a loving God's embeddedness of God's divine Being into creation allows for pancessual evolutionary growth of love against the self - or self will - which inhabits nature's soul and is BASED on LOVE not sin (re: processual pan-en-theism NOT Eastern pantheism). Quite obviously, this approach has removed the classic approach of traditional theism which leans into God's transcendence much harder than it does God's immanence to God's creation. Without denying God's "Otherness" process theology speaks to God's incessant, necessary immanence across all westernized doctrines of abondoness, juegment, separation, and errant beliefs of Divine Holiness. Love than is the coin with two halves... It is why we all have agency and also the reason we yearn to enact beauty... but it is also the curse which pains our souls when we can not, or do not, and which enflames the sin and evil WE do (not God) from the broken mirror of Love's passionate side.

Dante's Divine Comedy in B&W Woodcuts

In contrast, the western doctrine of universalism describes hell as a present condition and not a present expectation of the Christian gospel. It is often depicted in the Dantian description of purgatory in his book, the "Divine Comedy," which shows to readers the horrors their souls would go through if they did not obey God's laws nor live righteously (thus promoting Christian legalism and prideful holiness). And because of Calvinism, though other non-Reformed approaches are likewise as guilty (Wesleyanism, Lutheran, Methodism, Catholicism, Eastern and Russian Orthodoxy), we blame the world condition upon a controlling God determined to enact His will upon all the earth. Consequently, we get divine imprecations throughout the biblical narrative of living up to our contractual obligations under God's covenants or else suffer the consequences of our unfaithful sin and evil. Of course, this would be a gross misreading of the covenants as the Abrahamic beautiful shows salvation as unconditionally laid upon us upon the surety of God's Self who walks through the sacrificial halves; or the Davidic assuring of blessed reign and peace when the godly lead their flocks towards truth and beauty; or the promise of landed communities inhabiting enculturated regions on the earth which may enact the love of God in their own way; or even dramatically in the Cross covenant of "sacrificial selfless service" to others underlaid by Jesus' atoning resurrection and dramatic revelation of God's everlasting love.

Article link - I've followed Ben Corey over the years and like his thinking. His brief article may be helpful in thinking through the more typical approach to Universalism.

Lastly, Westernised "universalism" seeks to delimit and rebound (e.g., as in re-circumscribe theological borders) the prognosticated afterlife of hell (and purgatory for some faiths) by arguing that the Love of God Wins. Or that Jesus Wins. Which is all true in process theology. But unlike process theology, progressive Christian theolgy is trying to heal its systematic doctrines upon Platonic philosophies which are neither processual, pancessual, or center in theologies of love. Remaking a pig by putting lipstick on it won't be enough. The entire affair of Western dogma has to be uprooted and replaced upon Whitehead's process philosophy of organism in order to be able to live up to the God of Love whom we are worshipping on creaky traditional church platforms weeping with theological holes throughout its substructures.

R.E. Slater

September 12, 2023

PS - I forgot to mention that process-based panentheism is inherently combinatory , or re-connective as a processual teleology embedded in God's love. Hence, process theology really doesn't have an eschatology but a teleology which assumes that Jesus in the processual reconnector to a "broken" creation burdened with an agency inclined towards blessing but plagued with unloving responses against it's very ontological structure. You may read more on my website.

PSS - For the process few out there I would welcome further written observation beyond my mere attempts to describe the why's and wherefore's of a westernized religious system that is flawed and unable to work in a postmodern, post-Christian cultural context. Moreover, I find process theology to be able to morph with the times ahead much as the church has used Hellenised/Platonic thought to do the same over the past 2000 years. Thx.

PSSS - My typical (Calvinistic) Reformed soteriological chart in my non-process days focused on the Work & Sufficiency of Christ. Below may be more of a Wesleyan approach emphasizing the importance of a faith verified by it's works lest it simply exists as a useless, or meaningless, faith that "indwells" with "expelling" God's love in action.

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THE MILESES

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

WORKS-UNIVERSALISM:

CONTRADICTION OR MIDDLE GROUND?

article link

April 28, 2022

We have developed a quadrant model for describing soteriological compromises. The biblical message of salvation is summarized as Faith Alone in Christ Alone (FACA). Two ways to reject this are by rejecting the sufficiency of FACA or the necessity of FACA. Each of these two sides has differing extremes: On the side that rejects sufficiency, a near alternative is Works-Assisted Condition while a distant alternative is Works-Assisted Merit; on the side that rejects necessity, a near alternative is Christian Pluralism while a distant alternative is Christian Universalism.

Not every soteriological view fits squarely in one of these quadrants. Sometimes, there are middle ground views. For example, a Christian Pluralist could say that works are a condition for salvation, such that all “good” Catholics and all “good” Protestants are saved. This view is extremely popular among Evangelicals. It gives a nod to some necessity of belief about Jesus, but in the end, it shifts the object of faith from Christ to self.

Another middle ground that believers need to know about is between Works-Assisted Merit and Christian Universalism. These two extremes at first seem to be contradictory. How can someone believe that everyone is saved while still saying he needs to earn his salvation? Since Universalism is so anti-biblical, it does not have a coherent hermeneutic and therefore comes in many forms. Some forms of Universalism redefine hell in a way that puts them in a Works-Universalism middle-ground.

Hell is a real place. The Bible speaks about hell in the plainest terms. Jesus talked about the rich man going to the torments of hell (Luke 16:19–31). John’s Revelation tells us that the day will come when hell will be emptied and its occupants will be judged and transferred to the Lake of Fire for eternity (Rev. 20:11–15). Universalists abandon grammatical-historical hermeneutics when reading about hell. One move that is becoming popular is to spiritualize hell into a current experience. Instead of hell being a real place that the unregenerate will go to after they die, it is a spiritual kingdom here and now. Since hell is already, then it will not be future and everyone will be with Jesus in the end… or at least this is what some Universalists are saying.

Suppose we have a drug addict living miserably on the street. The Biblicist realizes that this man’s greatest need is to believe in Christ for eternal life (if he hasn’t already). This addict was born spiritually dead and on a path to hell. He will eventually spend eternity separate from God if he does not get saved. This is everyone’s greatest need. The Biblicist would love for him to abandon his lifestyle and become a productive member of a local church—but this is a matter of discipleship, not salvation. The addict can turn his life around and live happily without Christ, but even then, he would still lack his greatest need: eternal life. To the Universalist, there is no final separation from God, so “hell” is the lifestyle that the addict is living now. He does not need to believe in Jesus; he just needs to change his lifestyle. He needs to stop doing drugs and start doing what makes him happy. It is all about works here and now.

In that way of thinking, if someone is miserable now then he is in hell now. In the drug addiction example, for someone to get out of “hell,” he needs to clean up his life. See how salvation from hell suddenly becomes a works-merit system? The Universalist of this stripe teaches that everyone will be with God eventually, but they still teach a works-merit salvation from hell because they have redefined hell in a way that fits with self-righteousness.

There are several trends in evangelicalism today that are making people susceptible to these theological moves, so the modern believer needs to be aware of these maneuvers so he can protect himself and others from these dangerous doctrines. Long story short, if someone starts to spiritualize hell, then beware of hidden self-righteousness.

Thomas Jay Oord - Relentless Love in the Afterlife

Relentless Love in the Afterlife

Article Link here

by Thomas Jay Oord

July 2nd, 2018

In the book I’m currently writing, I address the question of heaven, hell, annihilation, and the afterlife. I take the logic of uncontrolling love to its eschatological end. And this process has led me to coin a label for my view, Relentless Love.

The Usual Afterlife Theories

The logic of uncontrolling love changes the way we think about the afterlife. If God’s self-giving, others-empowering love is necessarily uncontrolling and can’t control anyone or anything, what we do now and after we die makes an ultimate difference.

The view of God most people seem to have — what I call “the conventional view” — not only assumes what we do now is unnecessary for God’s purposes, it also assumes what we do after death is unnecessary. The typical scenarios say or imply God alone can decide our destiny.

Heaven and Hell

The most common afterlife scenario says God will decide some must go to heaven and others to hell. A person’s sin may influence that decision. Whether a person “accepted Jesus” or was faithful in some religion may influence it. How a person treated the last and the least on earth may affect what God decides. But nothing we do is essential. It’s up to God. The God with controlling power can do whatever he wants.

The heaven or hell scenario assumes God alone predetermined the criteria used to decide our destinies. God set up the rules, decides whom to punish or reward, and assures judgment is executed. The One who set up the rules can change them at any time, because God is the sole lawmaker, judge, and implementer.

This God answers to nothing and no one.

Universalism

The second scenario says God accepts everyone into heaven. Often called “universalism,” this view says a truly loving God wouldn’t condemn anyone to eternal torment. The punishment of everlasting agony doesn’t fit the crimes of 80 years (more or less) of earthly sin. Besides, a loving God forgives.

This scenario assumes its God’s prerogative to put everyone in heaven. And because God can control anyone at any time, heaven is ensured for all. But this also means that what we’ve done – good or bad – doesn’t ultimately matter. Our choices now don’t matter then to the God who, by absolute fiat, will decide to place us in heaven.

This God answers to nothing and no one.

Annihilation

The third afterlife scenario agrees that a loving God would not send anyone to eternal torment. But God destroys the unrepentant. God either annihilates them in a display of omnipotence or passively by not sustaining their existence. God causes or allows death God could singlehandedly prevent.

Both active and passive destruction extinguish the unrepentant. They disappear. A controlling God retains ultimate say over whether anyone continues existing. If sinners wanted to repent, it’s too late. God set up the rules and follows through with them.

This God answers to nothing and no one.

The Lawmaker, Judge, and Jury of One

In these afterlife scenarios, our actions don’t ultimately matter. They may tilt God’s decision one way or another, but they don’t have to. The Judge with the ability to control can singlehandedly save us, condemn us, or annihilate us.

All three scenarios assume God set up afterlife’s judicial system. Whether judgment involves heaven and hell, heaven only, or annihilation, God predetermined the rules. A God who singlehandedly decides the rules retains the ability to change them. It’s up to the Lawmaker, Judge, and Jury of One.

The God who answers to nothing and no one can alone decide our fates.

Relentless Love

There’s a better way to think about the afterlife. It builds upon the radical belief God needs our cooperation for love to flourish. It endorses our deep-seated intuition that our choices matter. And it says God’s love for everyone continues beyond the grave.

The better alternative agrees with other scenarios that our hope for true happiness now and later has God as its ultimate source. It disagrees, however, with scenarios that assume God alone can decide our fate. It says God always loves and seeks our love responses. When we and others cooperate, we enjoy well-being. When we do not, we suffer.

Let’s call this the “relentless love” view of the afterlife.

Rob Bell and Love Wins

The relentless love view follows the logic of uncontrolling love. To get at the details, let’s compare it to Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. (Click for a full review of Rob’s book.)

Much of Love Wins addresses hell. The book raises to awareness among the general public what biblical scholars have known for centuries: the Bible provides little to no support for the view that hell is a place of everlasting torment. The traditional idea of hell doesn’t mesh well with Scripture.

Rob believes in a type of hell, however. “We do ourselves great harm when we confuse the very essence of God, which is love, with the very real consequences of rejecting and resisting that love, which creates what we call hell,” he says. To refuse God’s love “moves us away from it… and that will, by very definition, be an increasingly unloving, hellish reality.”

I agree with Rob. What he calls “hell,” I call the natural negative consequences of choosing not to cooperate with God’s love.

Our Beliefs about God’s Love

The most important point in Love Wins is that our beliefs about God should shape our beliefs about what happens after death. We make the best sense of reality if we believe God’s nature is love. A loving God would not send anyone to everlasting torment. God always loves everyone and all creation. Rob and I agree on that too.

In my view, God doesn’t send anyone to hell singlehandedly. God can’t. The God whose nature is uncontrolling love also can’t force anyone into heaven. Such force requires control, and God’s love is uncontrolling. As far as I can tell, Rob doesn’t make this claim.

Love Wins isn’t clear about what it means to say, “love wins.” Does “winning” mean God never stops loving? Or does it also mean God’s love eventually persuades all to cooperate? And if God’s love persuades all, is this a guarantee or hope?

The Guarantees of Love

The relentless love view of the afterlife guarantees that love wins in several ways.

First, the God whose nature is uncontrolling love will never stop loving us. Because love comes first, God cannot stop loving us. Conventional theologies say God may or may not love us now. They say God may or may not love us after we die. God could choose to torture or kill. It’s hard to imagine any loving being sending others to hell or annihilating.

1. It’s guaranteed the God of relentless love works for our well-being in the afterlife. Love wins.

The second guarantee relentless love offers is that those in the afterlife who say “Yes” to God’s love experience heavenly bliss. They enjoy abundant life in either a different (spiritual) body or as a bodiless soul. (I address these two views in chapter four of the book.) Those who say “Yes!” to God’s love are guaranteed life eternal.

2. It’s guaranteed those who cooperate with God’s relentless love enjoy eternal bliss. Love wins.

The third guarantee is that God never stops inviting, calling, and encouraging us to love in the afterlife. Although some may resist, God never throws in the towel. There are natural negative consequences that come from refusing love in this life and the next. But these consequences are self-imposed not divinely inflicted. God never gives up and never sends some to hell or annihilates.

3. It’s guaranteed God always offers eternal life and never annihilates or condemns to hell. Love wins.

As we consistently say “Yes” to God, we develop loving characters. The habits of love shape us into loving people. While God’s love always provides choices, those who develop loving characters through consistent positive responses grow less and less likely to choose unloving options. This may happen quickly or take more time. But when we taste and see that love is good, and as love builds our spiritual bodies, we’re less likely to lust for junk food! Beyond the grave, this love diet rehabilitates. We’re guaranteed to become new creations when we cooperate with love!

4. It’s guaranteed consistent cooperation with God’s relentless love builds loving characters in us. Love wins.

The relentless love view cannot make one guarantee, however. It cannot guarantee that every creature and all creation cooperate with God’s love, but love is like that. It does not force its own way (1 Cor. 13:5). Love cannot coerce. Love is always uncontrolling.

Because God’s love is relentless, however, we have good reason to hope all creatures eventually cooperate with God. It’s reasonable to think the God who never gives up and whose love is universal will eventually convince all creatures and redeem all creation. After all, love always hopes and never gives up (1 Cor. 13:7)!

Divine Love Sets the Rules

We earlier noted that conventional views assume God alone sets up the rules of final judgment. The conventional scenarios say God answers to nothing and no one. God freely sets up the rules, judges, and then implements the consequences. God alone decides all.

Things are different for relentless love. God didn’t singlehandedly set the rules of judgment long ago. In this view, God’s loving ways are expressions of God’s loving nature. The lawmaker, judge, and implementer of consequences is bound by the logic of divine love. Because God “cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13), God expresses uncontrolling love now and in the afterlife.

God answers to God’s own nature of love.

Conclusion

In sum, bliss beyond the grave rests primarily, but not exclusively, in the relentless love of God. God continues to give freedom and seek cooperation. The relentless love view provides various guarantees. And what we do in response to God’s love matters now and in the afterlife.

Love wins!