Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology

Quotes & Sayings

We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Covid19 Medical Updates & Global Resourcing Sharing

I thought these simple links may help. Especially for the medical community.

R.E. Slater

March 22, 2020

PDF Handbook of COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment (Standard)

Global Medical Resource Sharing - go here

Facebook News & Links - go here

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Handbook of COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment

Handbook Link here

Contents

Part One

Prevention and Control Management

I. Isolation Area Management.......................................................................................................1
II. Staff Management.......................................................................................................................4
III. COVID-19 Related Personal Protection Management...............................................................5
IV. Hospital Practice Protocols during COVID-19 Epidemic..........................................................6
V. Digital Support for Epidemic Prevention and Control.............................................................16

Part Two

Diagnosis and Treatment

I. Personalized, Collaborative and Multidisciplinary Management................................................18
II. Etiology and Inflammation Indicators........................................................................................19
III. Imaging Findings of COVID-19 Patients..................................................................................21
IV. Application of Bronchoscopy in the Diagnosis and Management of COVID-19 Patients........22
V. Diagnosis and Clinical Classification of COVID-19...................................................................22
VI. Antiviral Treatment for Timely Elimination of Pathogens........................................................23
VII. Anti-shock and Anti-hypoxemia Treatment.............................................................................24
VIII. The Rational Use of Antibiotics to Prevent Secondary Infection...........................................29
IX. The Balance of Intestinal Microecology and Nutritional Support.............................................30
X. ECMO Support for COVID-19 Patients......................................................................................32
XI. Convalescent Plasma Therapy for COVID-19 Patients..............................................................35
XII. TCM Classification Therapy to Improve Curative Efficacy.....................................................36
XIII. Drug Use Management of COVID-19 Patients.......................................................................37
XIV. Psychological Intervention for COVID-19 Patients.................................................................41
XV. Rehabilitation Therapy for COVID-19 Patients........................................................................42
XVI. Lung Transplantation in Patients with COVID-19..................................................................44
XVII. Discharge Standards and Follow-up Plan for COVID-19 Patients........................................45

Part Three

Nursing

I. Nursing Care for Patients Receiving High-Flow Nasal Cannula (HFNC) Oxygen Therapy...47
II. Nursing Care in Patients with Mechanical Ventilation.............................................................47
III. Daily Management and Monitoring of ECMO (Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation)...49
IV. Nursing Care of ALSS (Artificial Liver Support System).......................................................50
V. Continuous Renal Replacement Treatment (CRRT) Care........................................................51
VI. General Care.............................................................................................................................52

Appendix

I. Medical Advice Example for COVID-19 Patients.......................................................................53
II. Online Consultation Process for Diagosis and Treatment..........................................................57

References......................................................................................................................................59

Is A Pandemic a God-Sent Plague or Something Else?

Theodicy (noun)

from Greek theos, “god”; dikē, “justice”

explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty,

and all-knowing God permits evil

the vindication of God's divine goodness and providence

in view of the existence of evil.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Concrescence (verb)

the coalescence or growing together of parts originally separate

a relational, interactive, interconnective evolving of parts to the whole

the consequent nature of God interacting with the world, prehending fully every

single actual occasion in the world, upon its concrescence to thus preserving

the past, affect the present, and produce greater generative networks of

wellbeing and novelty

Process philosophers characterize God's relation to the world as one of

mutual transcendence, mutual immanence, and mutual creation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Is A Pandemic a God-Sent Plague

or Something Else?

by R.E. Slater

March 22, 2020
rev. July 31, 2020

When it comes to plagues and disasters a church may chose the loving God approach (my preference) or, as many will do, chose the condemning God approach. One seeks restoration. The other blame. One seeks communion. The other seeks disunity and division.

If theology is any good at all then a bible centered on God's love is the more meaningful, helpful, and easily transportable path to healing and peace. Good things come out of it like forgiveness, mercy, and fellowship.

The uglier approach of surmising God as a vengeful, condemning God but creates communities i) of fear, ii) rules-based faiths and formulas for legalism, and iii) ascetic living (trying to be holy by personal or social restrictions, a set of stoicisms, a self-harming form penitence, and so forth). This kind of God-perception withholds goodness and love, excludes many of God's children for many made-up religious reasons, is always sharply critical of everything, preaches guilt and unworthiness, and justifies its gospel of fear on every occasion.

Why Do Bad Things Happen?

As to why bad things happen in this world is a question of theodicy. I've been asking it for a very long time. For myself, as well as for many others, it is the simple observation that we live in a freewill creation which God doesn't control but rather guides by partnering where He can with man and nature.

Our restless and brooding souls are not unlike the whirlwind or troubling seas. But when hearing the Lord's words of peace and goodwill we must chose either by saying "Yea, Lord, I hear you," or, "Be gone from me and let me have my own way." This is the nub of an indeterminate freewill creation and sentient life.

The Agency of a Freewill Creation

Choices, as they can be made, blending with divine guidance and goodness, where it can be made possible, lived out in a cosmos boiling with restless energy yearning for life, is often expressed in ways of unbecoming rather than in ways of nurturing becoming.

Believing God to be in control is hopeful, but it is using the wrong word. God is never in control of a freewill creation with an open, undetermined future. Yet through loving guidance He seeks a kind of control in what can better be described as a fellowship or a partnership. A fellowship which guides, allowing the fullest of creation's energy to create, imagine, and become all it can be under a fulfilling divine guidance.

A virus, illness, natural disaster, or suffering is the unfortunate result of a freewill creation exercising un-nurturing agency. Within this environment - as God can - He will deliver and guide, but when not, He will always be present with us in all of life's events in a deeply personal communion.

Does God Damn and Condemn?

In this sense then, our sins do not force God away towards condemnation and judgement as many will say. As a God who is always loving and filling life with goodness, He cannot be a God of damnation. It is our own sins which fill us with grief and feelings of cursedness, not God. This, He would take away in an instant, as we let Him, filling our lives in times of harm or in times of fullness, replacing condemnation with mercy, unforgiveness with love, feelings of hurt and harm with forbearance, wisdom, and deliverance.

More simply said, God's compassion is present with all His creation. There is nothing with may separate us from God's love. And though the bible narrates stories of judgment believed by the ancients as God-sent it would be more accurate to say that these events of suffering, hardship, ruination, disaster, were more in line with how a sin-marred creation operates. Not as acts of a loving God but as acts of agency from a creation willfully exhibiting itself.

How Does God Act in a Freewill Creation?

Once an initiating process bubbles forward it may bubble for good or bad releasing succeeding bubbles of goodness or badness. This is the essence of process theology. Through these bubbling consequences God is there throughout its process doing what He can within and without a freewill creation. This is not to speak of God as limited, but as a fully sovereign God guiding creation without coercing creation.

The easiest idea is to speak of God as determining and controlling creation. But if so, creation is not open, nor free, to become in its own way. Process thought will say that creation has an open and not determined future; and that its is not controlled by God but free to become what it was initial given in its essence... that of becoming like the image of God. That is, God poured God's Self into creation. In its bones, or DNA, is the strong yearning to exercise generative bubbles of goodness, nourishment, and wellbeing for all beings. To creative novel bubbles of relationships amid thriving continuity.

Sadly, with sin came a marring of creation. It is neither wholly good or wholly evil. But it is in need of redemptive atonement which God gave through His own sacrifice on the Cross. An atonement which has placed the path of creation back towards fellowship with its Creator. Empowering it from an old creation to a new creation.

Process theodicy does not need to defend God for the evil humanity or creation groans under. It states that any judgment type of events in life testifies to the struggle of creation to either give in to itself or to God. God is not sinful or evil. Nor is He powerless or weak. God has spawned God's Self into a process that will never end which He may have eternal fellowship with.

And like Himself it has agency. And with agency it has opportunities to move from being to becoming. From being what it is to becoming all that it might be in the image of God exhibiting deep fellowship not only with God but with itself. Between these tensions of being and becoming will be a titanic history of redemptive struggle.

Our Response in Time of Evil

We might incorrectly call these times of God's judgment but in actuality these will be times of opportunity through crisis to regain what was lost at Eden. Times of challenge to meet devastation with compassion, wisdom, mercy and love. To take loss of life, or loss of social justice, or loss of personal freedoms and rights to remake a crisis into a good thing rather than to perpetuate its evil.

In terms of today's coronavirus, to find effective vaccines, to double down on helping each other, in rebuking - or not encouraging - views of scapegoating, hatred, or slandering talk of the whys and hows and wherefores of the crisis being experienced. Of refusing lies by speaking truth. Of refusing racism by embracing the other. Of withstanding voices or churches or faiths which speak death to society by speaking life and love and wisdom.

Our responses may be like the effervescing bubbles of creativity, novelty, life-changing goodness by praying forth newer, more whole societies of healing, helping, and affecting responses. Perhaps an ecological society in place of a capitalistic or communist society with all the associative ills these have presented to the history of the world.

We may lean into the atoning sacrifice of God that His redemptive power bubbles forth new communities of healing, new ecologies of restoration, new personages of embracing multi-ethnic pluralistic cultures of strength. When such earthly "judgments" come our way we repent, we change our course in life, we mend broken fences, and lean into God even more to teach us wisdom and love.

These are times of restoration. Not loss of heart. Time of Courage. Not sobbing and worry as the lost world does. These times will want for vision. This then is our challenge... to be women and men of courage, vision, love, and healing. Go forward in God's empowering power. Raise up new generations of concrecsing beauty and imagination.

R.E. Slater
March 22, 2020
rev. July 31, 2020

PS...

The link here will graphically illustrate how traditional Christianity has

interpreted bad events through fear and judgment. I submit, there is

another way as expressed above when we change our idea of God.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

What Is a Virus? How Does it Work?

How Viruses Work - Molecular Biology Simplified (DNA, RNA, Protein Synthesis)

Learn or review basic molecular biology to understand how viruses work with illustrations from Dr. Seheult of https://www.MedCram.com. See our first 25 videos on the novel coronavirus outbreak that started in Wuhan, China:

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 25: Vaccine Developments, Italy's Response, and Mortality Rate Trends: https://youtu.be/UImSVhLLeGY

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 24: Infections in Italy, Transmissibility, COVID-19 Symptoms: https://youtu.be/UImSVhLLeGY

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 23: Infections in Kids & Pregnancy, South Korea, Spillover From Bats: https://youtu.be/JGhwAGiAnJo

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 22: Spread Without Symptoms, Cruise Quarantine, Asymptomatic Testing: https://youtu.be/OqpHvK0XADY

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 21: Antibodies, Case Fatality, Clinical Recommendations, 2nd Infections?: https://youtu.be/9BYaywITXYk

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 20: Misinformation Spread, Infection Severity, Cruise Ship, Origins: https://youtu.be/Ka48UZDDzLY

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 19: Treatment and Medication Clinical Trials: https://youtu.be/4HK9QEy1KJ8

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 18: Cellphone Tracking, Increase in Hospitalizations, More Sleep Tips: https://youtu.be/vE4pBkslqS4

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 17: Spike in Confirmed Cases, Fighting Infections with Sleep (COVID-19): https://youtu.be/wlbM6VVkVZM

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 16: Strengthening Your Immune Response to Viral Infections (COVID-19): https://youtu.be/qqZYEgREuZ8

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 15: Underreporting, Prevention, 24 Day Incubation? (COVID19) https://youtu.be/o804wu5h_ms

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 14: Hospital spread of infection, WHO allowed in China, N-95 masks: https://youtu.be/pDnmHu8x9C4

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 13: Li Wenliang, nCoV vs Influenza, Dip in Daily Cases, Spread to Canada: https://youtu.be/0UgrPgJdzp0

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 12: Unsupported Theories, Pneumonia, ACE2 & nCoV: https://youtu.be/GT3_A1bf9pU

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 11: Antiviral Drugs, Treatment Trials for nCoV (Remdesivir, Chloroquine): https://youtu.be/pfGpdFNHoqQ

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 10: New Studies, Transmission, Spread from Wuhan, Prevention (2019-nCoV): https://youtu.be/gPwfiQgGsFo

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 9: Fecal-Oral Transmission, Recovery vs Death Rate: https://youtu.be/8Hjy3UfaTSc

- Coronavirus Outbreak Update 8: Travel Ban, Spread Outside of China, Quarantine, & MRSA: https://youtu.be/GpbUoLvpdCo

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 7: Global Health Emergency Declared, Viral Shedding: https://youtu.be/nW3xqcGidpQ

- Coronavirus Outbreak Update 6: Asymptomatic Transmission & Incubation Period: https://youtu.be/UGxgNebx1pg

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 5: Mortality Rate vs SARS / Influenza: https://youtu.be/MN9-UXsvPBY

- Coronavirus outbreak, transmission, and pathophysiology: https://youtu.be/9vMXSkKLg2I

- Coronavirus symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment: https://youtu.be/UCG3xqtcL3c

- Coronavirus Update 3: Spread, Quarantine, Projections, & Vaccine: https://youtu.be/SJBYwUtB83o

- How Coronavirus Kills: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) & Treatment: https://youtu.be/okg7uq_HrhQ

-----------------------------------------------------------

Speaker: Roger Seheult, MD

Clinical and Exam Preparation Instructor

Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine.

MedCram.com has videos on over 60 medical topics including the 2019 novel coronavirus in china, asthma, COPD, virology, hypertension, virology, microbiology, amino acids, 2019 ncov, coronavirus California, coronavirus prevention, coronavirus misinformation, antiviral drugs, wuhan virus outbreak, 武汉肺炎, CDC, infectious disease, corona virus updates, severe influenza infections, immune system explained. Please check out our lectures on COVID-19, MERS, SARS, infectious diseases, sleep hygiene, Wuhan coronavirus, sleep apnea, and world health organization.

Visit our Website! https://www.MedCram.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedCram

Produced by Kyle Allred, PA

Please Note: MedCram medical videos, medical lectures, medical illustrations, and medical animations are for medical education and exam preparation purposes, and not intended to replace recommendations by your doctor or health care provider.

#Howviruseswork #microbiology #COVID19

Caption author (English)

Jacob Preciado

Saturday, March 21, 2020

Index - Process Philosophy & Theology

The Index provided here on Process Thought is not exhaustive. To date there are 80+ articles listed in this index by category out of many, many more which could have been listed from this website which are still remaining to be tagged. To these articles other possible related subjects (found in the topical column on the right side of the website) could have been listed, such as open and relational (process) theology, process-based: divine sovereignty, providence, eschatology, sin, ecotheology, evolution, quantum sciences and technologies, life applications, faith applications, and on and on as the subject of Whiteheadian process thought is very deep. Yet this new index at least gives the novice and intermediate lay person familiarity with process thought in its religious, humanitarian, and ecological outreach and direction with enough educational acumen to continue exploring the subject capably on one's own.

Not so long ago I found stagnancy in the classical expression of my Reformed (Baptist) faith as it began to clash with what I had been taught as the "only-and-truest fundamentals of the Christian faith and its doctrine". Specifically, that Jesus is the standard around which all Christian beliefs and ethos practices revolve. Anything less is a prevarication of the Christian faith as it is understood through God's love and salvation. I had belatedly come to realize a decade or two back that those "fundamental ideas and teachings" of my past needed to be "fundamentally" re-envisioned through the lenses of a contemporary cultural, and societal, Christian expression (but importantly without Christian legalism and religiosity). Curiously, when undertaking this complex endeavor to re-appropriate my ancient creedal faith, I didn't expect to lose the gospel of Jesus as I began to intentionally re-actualize Christianity into contemporary societal terms applying post-structural ideas to the subject matters of God, the Bible, Jesus, salvation, sin or the future. On the contrary, by carefully deconstructing Christianity's modernity teachings - then reconstructing Christianity's postmodernity expressions back again - the gospel became clearer than before. It's surprising how cleaning up one's theologic windshield of bug-guts and splattered mud can help the weary driver see the Jesus-road before him so much more clearly!

Certainly, when undertaking this daunting task I realized it would upend all of the old creeds of the church and doctrines as I applied newer, more relevant, theologic language, concepts, and contemporary perspectives to traditional Christianity. The result of this singular vision which the Holy Spirit had years ago burdened my soul to move through was a very long, complex, and rigorous application of redefining my fundamental baptist and later, conservative-evangelical faith heritage, with an updated emergent (progressive) faith stream which I am much more at ease with in its substance and Christian direction than I would've been as a youth just starting out. Lastly, into all of this I am now adding a new Christian foundation known as Process Philosophy and Theology to give all substance and structure. Age and maturity goes a long ways to re-envisioning one's faith. Inasmuch as doubt and uncertainty have properly led my postmodern explorations of faith and the bible I believe those same attitudes used in the formation of scientific theory will continue to assist in leading me forward towards more relevant and missional ideas of the love of God, His divine will for our lives, and how Christ's atoning work is bringing all back together in a fundamental restructuring of mankind and creation. Enjoy. This has not been an easy task of sorting out or rebuilding.

R.E. Slater

April 13, 2020