Questions for Open and Relational Theologians - Where is God for the Dying Giraffe?

We, in the open and relational process world, say that God is a loving presence in the universe, beckoning creatures on our planet, through a process of evolution, to a variety of forms of life, two of which are giraffes and crocodiles. Are-predator-prey relations a result of God's beckoning? Is it God's will that creatures eat one another? Why so much suffering? Is it truly reasonable to speak of a God of tender love, when there's so much violence? I struggle with this. Read the page and help me out.

Questions for Open and Relational Theologians

Divine love is pluriform: God loves in numerous ways to promote the well-being of people, other creatures, and all creation. - Thomas Oord

Where is God for the Dying Giraffe?

"It was a beautiful, peaceful day as I sat in a blind overlooking a small lake at the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Since this reserve is home to the Big Five, I was on high alert to see as many beautiful animals as possible. 

Nature did not disappoint, at least not at first. I had seen and shared space with a huge number of beautiful creatures as I sat munching on a sandwich and marveling at what I was experiencing. Soon, a gorgeous giraffe came up to quench its thirst. Since giraffes are so tall, they have to splay their front legs out quite far to lower their heads for a drink which makes them vulnerable. The spreading of their legs is a very gradual, slow, and deliberate process. And, once they are down, they cannot move quickly back to a standing and running position.

As this graceful giraffe began its drinking vigil, it became a victim of crocodiles. They were in hiding and surged up from the water bringing down this innocent animal who was simply trying to get a drink.

Needless to say, I was not only startled but bereft. The giraffe struggled and cried out. I wanted to help it but, of course, I could not. Nature was in process and I was only a witness. I had seen other kills like lions taking down a springbok or zebra, but there was something about this kill that overwhelmed me. The giraffe was so very vulnerable. It was not a fair fight or in any way merciful. It almost seemed like the crocodiles were taking delight in the suffering of their prey as it struggled to free itself from their grasp. Instead of just chomping the juggler, the crocs took turns maiming and drowning the giraffe as it cried out. I wanted to shout out to the mean crocs to let go!!!! My empathy for the giraffe and my dismay at the crocs' seeming cruelty did not save the giraffe. I felt as helpless as the dying giraffe."

- Nita Gilger, There can be Sadness in Holding On

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Does God Love Animals?

Dear Dr. Jay McDaniel,

Thank you for recommending that I learn about open and relational (process) theologies with their idea of a relational, loving God. I like much of what they say when it comes to human beings. But it's the other ninety-nine percent of life, including the animals, that makes me doubt the God even of open and relational theology.

As you know, I gave up on God many years ago because “he” seemed so callous when it comes to animals and their suffering.

I gave up on Christianity, too. Some of my Christian friends say that animals don't really matter to God, that they are "put here" just for us to enjoy. They seem not to care about animals at all, except maybe their pets. But even the more ecologically-minded among them talk more about "global warming" and "environmental destruction" than about individual animals. They are concerned with about the web of life but not nodes in the web, about endangered species but not vulnerable animals.

Here I'm not talking about vulnerable animals under human subjugation: the animals we eat for food, or use in scientific experiments, or ride in rodeos, or abandon on the streets. They matter to me a lot, but they're not the ones I'm concerned with here. Take a look at the photo above of the giraffe being eaten by crocodiles and read the account. Let the giraffe be the "vulnerable animal."

You explained that, for some open and relational (process) theologians, animals do matter. For them, you said, God shares in the suffering of individual animals and seeks their well-being, even as God also seeks the well-being of human beings and the planet as a whole. I asked what I might read and you mentioned your own book of many years ago: Of God and Pelicans: A Theology of Reverence for Life. You also pointed me to a more recent book by Bethany Sollereder called God, Evolution and Animal Suffering: Theodicy without a Fall and one by Thomas Oord called Pluriform Love: An Open and Relational Theology of Well-Being.

You recommended Dr. Oord's book as the one I read first, because it introduces open and relational theology in a general way. I just finished the book and am left with five questions. All are subsets of a single question: Where is God for the Dying Giraffe? I hope you might share the five questions with him or with other open and relational thinkers. Here they are:

• How does the giraffe feel God's presence, even if in an unconscious way? Is God's presence what process theologians call an initial aim: that is, a lure to live with satisfaction relative to the situation at hand?

• Do crocodiles also feel God's luring presence? Do they, too, feel God's immanence as a lure to live with satisfaction? Is their hunger a response to God's lure?

• If God lures the giraffe and the crocodiles toward these competing aims, is God conflicted? Or does God take sides?

• Nita Gilger writes:

"The giraffe was so very vulnerable. It was not a fair fight or in any way merciful. It almost seemed like the crocodiles were taking delight in the suffering of their prey as it struggled to free itself from their grasp. Instead of just chomping the juggler, the crocs took turns maiming and drowning the giraffe as it cried out."

Would the giraffe's suffering be an example of what you call genuine evil? I'm not blaming the crocodiles here. But I am talking about the giraffe's pain.

• Why, from an open and relational perspective, are there predator-prey relations in the first place? I know that, according to Thomas Oord, God did not set up the initial conditions of life on earth single-handedly. But did God play a role in bringing about predator-prey? If so, is God still loving and empathetic? Would it not be more plausible to say that God doesn't really care about individuals? And if that's the case, would God really be all-loving?

I hope you'll share these questions with Thomas Oord or some other open and relational thinkers? For my part, I'm still doubtful of God. It seems to me that, if there is a God, "he" doesn't really care about individual animal lives, and that we who do care are, in our way, more loving than God. I hate to say this, but I can't think of a way out.

Need help,

​

​Delores

Pluriform Love: An Open and

Relational Theology of Well-Being

Excerpts from Thomas Oord:​

"The God of uncontrolling love acts moment by moment and exerts causal influence upon all. God acts first as a cause in every moment of every creature’s life. Creatures feel this influence, even when they are not conscious of it. There is no time when, and no location where, God is not present and influencing."

"God does not create evil, and God did not singlehandedly determine the conditions for it to occur."

"We can solve the primary dimensions of the problem of evil by saying God can’t prevent evil singlehandedly, empathizes with the hurting, works to heal, endeavors to bring good from bad, calls creatures to join in overcoming evil, and does not create evil."

Why Isn't Divine Love Enough?

by R.E. Slater

As you can see here in these postings there is the introduction of the problem of sin and evil without any conclusion and has been left for the reader to try to answer.

Let's first assume the general teachings of the church that creation is good, and holy, and loving. This is how it was originally created as shared in the Genesis story about the Garden of Evil. Typically, the church then goes on to assert that at the Fall of Adam and Eve all of creation then fell with them.

And here lies the paradox. How could a "perfect" creation fall? Was it ultimately a failure of God's? Was God not wise enough, far looking enough, not persuasive enough in His work of creating creation?

Or perhaps God was not strong enough, too weak, too relenting, to permissive with creation?

Just what was creation's raison d'etre if it were not to become the very thing God wanted it to be? How could a good, loving God create such a paradox? Especially one that looks like a disaster on every level?

• A creation which is physically conflicted - human disabilities for instance or those "tweener" stages of evolutionary development responding too slowly or too quickly to the conditions around it?

• Or a creation which is psychologically conflicted - something along the lines of the Apostle Paul who said, "We/It wishes to do good but cannot do good."

Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? (Romans 7.13)

• Or a creation which is spiritually conflicted? 

"...but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves." (John 5.42)

In everyway which we might describe creation we find its fallenness, not its holiness, goodness, or love. And yet, creation's very definition is not by its lack, but by its very character as birthed of God IN God's very image (Imago Dei).

Creation may be described as sinful or fallen but its truer character or nature is that it IS of God, is SUSTAINED by God, and will be COMPLETED by God. During all these phases from birth to life to death God is the One who defines us - as well as our fallenness from God's divine love.

Whatever else you know of church teachings remember WE are OF God birthed to LOVE, to BE, and to BECOME. Death is the completion of this cycle. It is the next step towards God's intended BECOMING. Death is not the end, except as the end of pain, suffering, tragedy, sin and evil. Death is the next step towards discovering LIFE in its intentional design when first presented to a freewill creation.

Moreover, God did not "rule" creational freewill... freewill came from God's Person in the form of love... NOT by divine fiat as the church so blithely proclaims so wrongly. God births God's Self.

When we give birth to children we do not RULE how they shall become. NO. Children our birthed out of the essence of their parents with capacities both wonderful or horrifying. As parents we give children love, loving direction, loving care, and loving openness that they may become a loving version of their Father God Creator... along with our talents and abilities.

None of these character qualities can be RULED into becoming. We take what's there in the modeling clay and to the best of our abilities mold children into images which may give life, freedom, beauty, and kindness into this world.

So has God. Not by fiat but by love.

Small Ukrainian Child

Creation is fallen. We are fallen. No amount of (i) human ability (sic, Mother Teresa), or (ii) religious activity (sic, the Pharisees of Jesus' day such as the Apostle Paul once named Rabbi Saul for his energetic zest of Judaism), or (iii) physical denial (sic, Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox slavish, monkish rituals of chastity, abstinence, or chastisement of any kind) may produce atoning redemption.

No, Jesus alone is the One through whom atoning redemption comes. Jesus, as God in the flesh incarnated, who sacrificed Himself physically, psychologically, and spiritually, that in all areas of human living - or creational becoming - we might be freed from sin and enabled by God's Spirit to lean into - if not wholly lean into - lives of love and loving embrace.

God's Spirit, just like God's Self, does not come by divine rule, dominion, or power. But by loving embrace, entrance, wellbeing, care, kindness, and wholeness, as only God can give any part of creation.

Creation was formed for goodness and wellbeing. Happily death is part of creation that it may one day cease from its groanings and sufferings to come to know a fullness of life not grasped in this life of the in-between.

For between divine birth and a life's end indeterminancy rules. Our passions and evolved abilities drive us towards individual fulfillment, whether man or beast. A crocodile is not a giraffe. A giraffe is not a crocodile. We are not the wind. Nor is the flood like ourselves.

The gift of life isn't a guarantee of avoiding sin and evil. It but begins a life towards fulfillment as well as disappointment, dismay, even ruin. Through it all God's presence is there, living within these creational spaces, living with His creation in the good times and the bad.

We pray for peace for all living things. We pray for peace in this world and ones to come at the hands of our progeny. We pray that societies learn to live with one another in goodness and peace. And we pray we, as human civilizations, learn to live with creation in proper ecological balance and wellbeing.

The cycles of life and death, not unlike the cycles of spiritual life and death, are the only constants in an evolving creation. We do not know its outcome but we do know its Creator. And as Creator, God in His love and wisdom and filling presence goes before us, around us, within us, filling us with His love, and purpose, and desires.

Amen and Amen,

R.E. Slater

March 10, 2022

* * * * * * *

A Covid19 molecule

An Unsolvable Paradox

Should this help...

This is what I was going to write...

As a process thinker I have come to think about sin and suffering as a result of the divine freedom and love we, as any part of creation has, received. The conflicting result is a supreme paradox to the avowed divine creation of a loving God.

How could such harm and suffering come from such an innocent act as the birthing of the divine IMAGO centered in love and beauty? The purity and self-giving efficaciousness of the act of God stuns me into silence. Surely sin and evil cannot be such a byproduct of so grand a gift??

And yet, the very cycles of life contains within them cycles of pain and death. If I were an Eastern wiseman or wisewoman I would perhaps have a comment as to the necessity for such a Ying-Yang cycle. But I am not. I am Western and Christian in orientation and am not very well acquainted with the religious and moral wisdoms of the East, though I am thoroughly acquainted with the cynicisms of the West.

When I look at the Genesis account of creation I see behind it the struggle of the Hebrew ascetics struggling to answer this same age-old question against their own backgrounds of religious ethics and human morals.

Process theology comes the closest to restoring to me the sense of the love of God in all divine acts of divinity and creation. Of the uncontrolling and necessary gift of divine love inlaid upon the very heart of nature, mankind, and cosmos tells me of the consequential results of indeterminant freewill used to either love or not love.

But there is also the question of death, of pain, of sin and evil. How could a God of life even begin to accede to the realities of love's "other side" of darkness? Where "creational freewill + freewill act" may not be equal to the life and beauty and grand sunsets but more meanly described in harming family dysfunctionalism, personal or societal cruelties, or institutionalized desensitization to the suffering of others?

No, the divine act of love is a mystery. Nor can it be all on creation to act forthrightly when even the act of love is supremely hard to accomplish. And in the divine act of atonement through God's Self as witnessed in God's Incarnational Birth in Jesus, we still see the act of love confounded in a thousand different ways.

Unfortunately sin and death and suffering and injustice seemed the inconsequential acts of not only love gone wrong, but it's opposite ying-yang struggle for personal survival in the face of need using our/creation's baser instincts which overwhelm us in our sense of self to whatever this thing we call life really is.

These are age-old questions which have no simple answers. Not religiously,  Christianly, or morally, though many have attempted it many times. The mystery of creational theodicy (e.g., the problem of sin and evil) is a question not only left to theologians to answer but to the despairing mom or dad whose children are at risk of malnutrition, societal harm, continuing health complications, lack of proper clothing, who ask these same questions every moment of their lives.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

March 10, 2022

 

God Is Love

7 Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 By this the love of God was revealed [a]in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the [b]propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has [c]for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, we also are in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear [d]involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

Bill Leonard - The Fundamentalization of American Religion

TRIPP FULLER

March 8, 2022

My church history Prof from Wake Div, Bill Leonard, is back on the podcast. We have a wide-ranging conversation about the changing shape of religion in America. It is always a joy to reconnect with a mentor to pick some more wisdom and get feedback about some of the ideas you are working through.

Dr. Bill Leonard is Founding Dean and Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Wake Forest University’s School of Divinity. Leonard’s research focuses on Church History with particular attention to American religion, Baptist studies, and Appalachian religion.

He is the author or editor of some 25 books including Christianity in Appalachia (1999); Baptist Ways: A History (2003); The Challenge of Being Baptist (2010); Can I Get a Witness?: Essays, Sermons and Reflections (2013); and A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the U.S., (2014).

In March 2015 he delivered the William James Lecture on Religious Experience at Harvard Divinity School and in February 2017 he gave the William Self Lectures on Preaching at McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University.

His newest book, The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Church History: Flaming Heretics and Heavy Drinkers, was published by Fortress Press in July 2017. Leonard is on the board of the Journal of Disability and Religion, The Baptist Quarterly (England), the Day1 Preaching Network, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, and the Governing Board of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

His sabbatical research focuses on a new book, tentatively entitled: “Security or Idolatry?: A History of Religion and Firearms in the U.S.” Leonard writes a twice-monthly column for Baptist News Global, is an ordained Baptist minister, and a member of First Baptist Church, Highland Avenue (American Baptist Churches, USA) in Winston-Salem.

Check out these books by Dr. Leonard:

• A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States
• Baptist Ways: A History
• The Challenge of Being Baptist: Owning a Scandalous Past and an Uncertain Future
• Word of God Across the Ages: Using Christian History in Preaching
• The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Church History: Flaming Heretics and Heavy Drinkers

Previous Podcasts w/ Dr. Leonard:

• Listening Beyond the Times
• The History and Transformation of American Christianity
• Faith and Politics Through Church History

PLAY PODCAST HERE (new window)

01:33:24

Podcast Outline

• the church's loss of cultural social privilege
• the changing sociology of Sunday
• the rapid rise of the religiously unaffiliated
• living through a period of institutional permanent transition
• changing shape of religious pluralism
• the changing center of faith from the congregation
• the rise of Christian Nationalism
• the history of race and religion in America
• fear of critical race theory
• Christian formation in a Biblically illiterate age
• how American evangelical identity got so ugly
• the Fundamentalization of American Religion and the move from experience to transaction
• from the Scopes Monkey Trial to Critical Race Theory
• how inerrancy migrated to natural law
• “you can be right about scripture and wrong about the Gospel”
• an account of American brokenness
• how big tech is ruining religion
• the Pornification of Religion
• how individualism is destroying us individually
• the growing lack of community for many is a judgment on the church
• why the West needs the church

Jesus De/Constructed for Lent - Introduction

JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT

AN INTRODUCTION

The class will cover two books. Diana’s Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence and Tripp’s  The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic . . . Or Awesome?. If you are super nerdy you may want to check out Tripp’s Divine Self-Investment. 

***UPDATE*** Tripp’s book has proved hard to find for many of you. HERE is a PDF of the book. We just ask you don’t share it and if inspired purchase a delayed or digital copy.

Class Outline

We will have 6 weekly sessions each Thursday at 5pm ET. In addition to these sessions, there will be a special visit from the author of  After Jesus Before Christianity: a Historical Exploration of the first two centuries of Jesus Movements.

3/3 SESSION 1: De/Constructing Jesus & the Lenten Journey

Reading: the introduction to Freeing Jesus and chapter 1 of the Guide to Jesus

3/10 SESSION 2: the Consequences of C.S. Lewis’ Worst Idea

Reading: Guide to Jesus ch 2-4

3/17 SESSION 3: from Executed Prophet to Cosmic Christ

Reading: Guide to Jesus ch 5-7

3/24 SESSION 4: Freeing Jesus from Christendom Capture

Reading: Freeing Jesus ch 1-3

3/31 SESSION 5: One Jesus, One Story, & a Multitude of Christs

Reading: Freeing Jesus ch 4-6

4/7 SESSION 6: De/constructed Jesus & the Journey of Holy Week

Reading: Freeing Jesus conclusion & Guide to Jesus ch 8

SPECIAL BONUS SESSION: After Jesus Before Christianity

We are excited to have our friends at the Westar Institute supporting this class. As part of the partnership, we will have a special bonus session with the authors of an exciting new book – After Jesus Before Christianity: a Historical Exploration of the first two centuries of Jesus Movements.

Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp

• Theology and Spirituality in a Time of Rupture
• White Evangelical Theopolitics, John Shelby Spong, & Jesus
• 20 Years of Religious Decline
• Jesus After Religion and Beyond Fear
• Ruining Dinner with Diana Butler Bass and Robyn Henderson-Espinoza
• Evangelical Decline, the Supreme Court, and the Horizon of Possibility
• Debating, Praying, and Living with Tyrants
• Religion, Politics, & the Elephant in the Room

* * * * * * *

JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT, PART 1 OF 6

JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT, PART 2 OF 6

JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT, PART 3 OF 6

JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT, PART 4 OF 6

JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT, PART 5 OF 6

JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT, PART 6 OF 6

JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED - FINAL AUDIOS, VIDEOS, & RESOURCE LINKS

* * * * * * *

 JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED RESOURCES

Amazon Link

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.

Christianity has endured for more than two millennia and is practiced by billions worldwide today. Yet that longevity has created difficulties for scholars tracing the religion’s roots, distorting much of the historical investigation into the first two centuries of the Jesus movement. But what if Christianity died in the fourth or fifth centuries after it began? How would that change how historians see and understand its first two hundred years?

Considering these questions, three Bible scholars from the Westar Institute summarize the work of the Christianity Seminar and its efforts to offer a new way of thinking about Christianity and its roots. Synthesizing the institute’s most recent scholarship—bringing together the many archaeological and textual discoveries over the last twenty years—they have found:

• There were multiple Jesus movements, not a singular one, before the fourth century
• There was nothing called Christianity until the third century
• There was much more flexibility and diversity within Jesus’s movement before it became centralized in Rome, not only regarding the Bible and religious doctrine, but also understandings of gender, sexuality and morality.
• Exciting and revolutionary, After Jesus Before Christianity provides fresh insights into the real history behind how the Jesus movement became Christianity.

After Jesus Before Christianity includes more than a dozen black-and-white images throughout.

Amazon Link

The award-winning author of Grateful goes beyond the culture wars to offer a refreshing take on the comprehensive, multi-faceted nature of Jesus, keeping his teachings relevant and alive in our daily lives.

How can you still be a Christian?

This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church and its leadership. But while many Christians have left their churches, they cannot leave their faith behind.

In Freeing Jesus, Bass challenges the idea that Jesus can only be understood in static, one-dimensional ways and asks us to instead consider a life where Jesus grows with us and helps us through life’s challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.

Freeing Jesus is an invitation to leave the religious wars behind and rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Jesus beyond the narrow confines we have built around him. It renews our hope in faith and worship at a time when we need it most.

Amazon Link

Christology is crazy. It’s rather absurd to identify a first-century homeless Jew as God revealed, but a bunch of us do anyway. In this book, Tripp Fuller examines the historical Jesus, the development of the doctrine of Christ, the questions that drove christological innovations through church history, contemporary constructive proposals, and the predicament of belief for the church today. Recognizing that the battle over Jesus is no longer a public debate between the skeptic and believer but an internal struggle in the heart of many disciples, he argues that we continue to make christological claims about more than an “event” or simply the “Jesus of history.” On the other hand, C. S. Lewis’s infamous “liar, lunatic, and Lord” scheme is no longer intellectually tenable. This may be a guide to Jesus, but for Christians, Fuller is guiding us toward a deeper understanding of God. He thinks it’s good news—good news about a God who is so invested in the world that God refuses to be God without us.

Amazon Link

When muttering the word “God” doesn’t come easy, what does it mean to call Jesus “the Christ?” Fuller offers a robust constructive Christology that engages three theological registers - historical, existential, and metaphysical.

Beginning Christology not from above or below but from within the Disciple’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, Fuller constructs a powerful Open and Relational Christology. At the heart are three pairings of contemporary thinkers who share a thematic center with distinct trajectories. Fuller weaves each into a vision of God’s self-investment in history and the person of Jesus. The constructive proposal not only uses an Open and Relational vision but reshapes it in light of God’s self-investment in Christ. The significance of Fuller’s proposal is wide-reaching, engaging revelation, divine power, evil, the cross, hope, the imago dei, and the Spirit.

What They're Saying...

“This ambitious Christology marks Tripp Fuller as one of the most significant young systematic theologians to emerge on the scene in recent years. One can profitably read this book as an introduction to Open and Relational Theology; as a refresher on Logos Christology, Spirit Christology, and the quest for the historical Jesus; or as a primer on his six theological discussion partners. But the brilliance of the volume is actually the blending of biblical, classical, and process insights into a single moving vision of God’s self-investment in creation, Israel, and Jesus. Rarely have I encountered a young theologian who writes with this level of systematic depth.”

-- Philip Clayton, Ingraham Professor, Claremont School of Theology

"Tripp Fuller masterfully engages the crucial Christian question: Who do we say Jesus is? Engaging history, philosophy and theology, Fuller offers a vision of Jesus that weds evangelical convictions with progressive insights. His work stands alone side that of John Cobb, David Griffin and Elizabeth Johnson for required reading in Christology."

-- Monica A. Coleman, Professor of Africana Studies, University of Delaware, author of Making a Way Out of No Way: a Womanist Theology

Summary of the "International Open & Relational Theology Online Conference," February 2022

Summary of the "International Open &

Relational Theology Online Conference"

February 19, 2022

SUCCESS!

International Open & Relational Theology Online Conference

February 19, 2022

More than 150 people attended the International Open and Relational Theology Conference (ORTLine22) in February.

Ten authors -- Sharon Baker Putt, John Cobb, Andrew Davis, Bruce Epperly, Catherine Keller, Matthew Korpman, Rory Randall, John Sanders, Matthew Segall, Andrew Williams -- responded to distinguished panelists and conference participants, with conversation topics ranging widely.

Conference attendees will receive at no extra cost the audio and video files from the sessions. They should look for an email from Jonathan Foster with a link to the webpage with ORTLine22 audio and video files.

Schedule of Speakers

~ This was a paid conference and videos can only

be posted if they are present on YouTube ~

9am Eastern
Rory Randall, An Open Theist Renewal Theology: God’s Love, The Spirit’s Power, and Human Freedom

Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord- Panelists: Joshua Reichard, Steve Harper, Chris Baker, Monte Lee Rice

10am Eastern
Sharon Baker Putt, A Nonviolent Theology of Love: Peacefully Confessing the Apostle’s Creed

Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord - Panelists: Brian Felushko, Deanna Young, Travis Keller, Annie DeRolf

11am Eastern

Matthew Korpman, Saying No to God: A Radical Approach to Reading the Bible Faithfully

Hosted by Brian Felushko- Panelists: Eric Seibert, Scott Spencer, Tammy Wiese

Noon Eastern
John Sanders, Embracing Prodigals: Overcoming Authoritative Religion by Embodying Jesus' Nurturing Grace

Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Mark Umstot, Ryan Lambros Janna Gonwa, Michael Brennan

1pm Eastern
Andrew Davis, Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy

Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: Andre Rabe, Austin Roberts, Sheri Kling, Fidel Arnecillo

2pm Eastern
Catherine Keller, Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy, and Other Last Chances

Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: Dhawn Martin, Andrew Schwartz, Elaine Padilla, Jea Sophia Oh

3pm Eastern
Matthew Segall, Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology

Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: John Pohl, Tim Miller, Michael Epperson, Tim Eastman

4pm Eastern
Bruce Epperly, Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism

Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Clemette Haskins, Steve Watson, Tim Reddish, Clarence White

5pm Eastern
John Cobb, Salvation: Jesus’s Mission and Ours

Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Tripp Fuller, Thomas Hermans-Webster, Donna Bowman, Shaleen Kendrick, Krista E. Hughes

6pm Eastern
Andrew Williams, Boundless Love: A Companion to Clark H. Pinnock’s Theology

Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord - Panelists: Chris Fisher, Shawn Ryan, Linda Mercadante, Sharon Harvey

ADDENDUM

• ORT Shorts (Shorts Thoughts on Open & Relational Theology)

• Catherine Keller (Homebrewed Christianity)

• Chris Fisher (God is Open)

• John Haught (Homebrewed Christianity)

• John Sanders (Homebrewed Christianity)

• Open and Relational Q&A with Thomas Jay Oord and Tripp Fuller (Homebrewed Christianity)

• Open and Relational Theology Throwdown (Homebrewed Christianity)

• Open and Relational Theology Series (Laity Podcast)

• Thomas Jay Oord (A Better Story)

• Thomas Jay Oord (Homebrewed Christianity)

Let's Talk about the Genesis Void from the Language of Process Theology

Amazon Link

Everything Flows explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been supposed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilized and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes.

Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead's panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science.

Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change.

This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the prospects of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality.

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Comments by Kent Bye

I'm a huge fan of Process Philosophy as the catalyst of a paradigm shift. Rather than seeing things as static objects, Process Philosophy sees reality as a set of dynamic processes & relationships that are in constant flux. Please refer to the Stanford Encyclopedia entry  -

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/

Alfred North Whitehead's "Process & Reality" was a big catalyst for process philosophy & relational metaphysics, but his work is dense & difficult to wrap your mind around with all of his neologisms & unconventional use of terms. A good overview here  -

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/

Whitehead thought of his system as the "Philosophy of Organism," and there are some in the philosophy of biology who are arguing to take a more process philosophy & relational approach. Here's an open access book from Oxford University Press on it -

https://researchgate.net/publication/322836323_Everything_Flows_Towards_a_Processual_Philosophy_of_Biology

There's an introductory "Manifesto for Processual Philosophy of Biology" critiquing Whitehead's full metaphysical system, which is dense & confusing. But there are many powerful & robust aspects of a process/relational metaphysics beyond Whitehead -

https://researchgate.net/publication/322836323_Everything_Flows_Towards_a_Processual_Philosophy_of_Biology2836323_Everything_Flows_Towards_a_Processual_Philosophy_of_Biology

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Amazon Link

Alfred North Whitehead was among the first initiates into the twentieth century’s new cosmological story. In this newly revised and expanded edition, Segall both sets Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism in historical context and brings it into conversation with key elements of contemporary scientific cosmology—including relativistic, quantum, evolutionary, and complexity theories. It lays bare the inadequacy of the materialistic-mechanistic metaphysical interpretative cosmologies of these theories and exemplifies the contributions Whitehead’s metaphysical cosmological scheme can make to the urgent transdisciplinary project of integrating natural science with the presuppositions of human civilization. The latest scientific discoveries reveal a universe that is nearly crying aloud for an ensouled reinterpretation, one in which, for example, physics and chemistry would no longer be merely descriptions of the meaningless motion of molecules to which biology is ultimately reducible, but rather themselves become studies of creative self-organization at ecological scales other than the biological.

 

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Let's Talk about the Genesis Void

from the Language of Process Theology

by R.E. Slater

Introduction

Below I've provided a video discussion from two prominent scientists in their own fields of study, the evolutionist Richard Dawkins and Quantum Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss. They are presenting an atheistic lecture of their scientific position. Not a Christian position. In fact, I present this video here to conflict Christians so that we might begin thinking how to speak from a Jesus-faith when encountering an atheist or agnostic view of the world. (For myself, I believe the world holds on balance many more religiously-minded societal members than Spirit-less members. And even these later members tend towards a form of "spirituality" when gazing upon nature, the stars, people, activities, or inspirational times in life).

More specifically, as I listen to this older 2012 presentation on the primordial "nothingness" of the cosmos, which in more recent years, has re-appraised, or re-informed, itself as to what a "quantum nothingness" may mean, I have also been reflecting this same appraisement in my more recent articles on the subject of primordial space (as versus primordial space-time). But here, in this video, I sense Krauss' more primitive, or more inspecific, form of usage who most probably by now has also updated his own scientific understanding unlike what I'm hearing from him in this dated lecture.

A Couple of Thoughts...

As such, I've suggested my own conclusions on the subject of the meaning of the Genesis void many times using creatio continua in referring to the pre-existing "primordial quantum space" before the Big Bang era coupled with process thought. I'll be curious to find out if Richard and Lawrence will do the same using process philosophy's idea of an organic processual evolution. At least I hope so. More likely, they will not, or if they do, will not use it as informed by the process philosophy and theology component within their lecture. By this I mean that if they do speak to an organic universe it will not be in the way which Whitehead had used or understood it. Nor how I am using it to approach the "something from something" debate... they may hint towards the same terminology but on a far, far different philosophical basis using reductional language.

Secondly, the church's understanding of "nothingness" has always been without scientific content. Instead, it is full of Platonic - and later, Enlightenment Era - promotion when referring to its more popular beliefs about a creation resulting from "nothingness" (eg, "creatio ex nihilo"). However, scientifically, one can never get something from nothing. Too, Krauss' usage of "nothingness" is a far different usage of this term than the church's usage as he will explain.

Furthermore, the somethingness that was there provided God with material upon which He might "form" or "create" by His divine encounter and interaction granting to "a formless somethingness" a transformational creational act or process upon it's "inert nothingness" into a dynamic  "somethingness" of  intertwined organic structure.

This then would mean creation is as old as God. Moreover, in a way whereby each affected the other. That is, both God and the "void" of the somethingness that was already there (and described by the church as "nothingness" in Genesis) would have each informed, affected, and responded to the other, positively. In what way might that be?

I might suggest that God was the Affector, Causer, and Creational Force which "formed" or "acted upon" a static "pre-existing primordial somethingness void" towards a responding processual organic creation filled with an inverted state of becoming.

Hence, Process thought says, "That which is, is always in a state of becoming" once affected by a First Order Processual Cause, which is God in this case. Thus, we might say

God is the First Process to all becoming and succeeding Creational Processes.

So much so that the resulting reciprocal affect of creation upon the creating God who formed an "unformed Genesis void of somethingness" into a something state of potential self-creational processes" resulted in allowing His divine transcendence to infill, inform, and influence, this formed - or more correctly, forming - and responding somethingness through-and-through with His divine immanence.

Big breath... So unlike the Greek gods like Zeus - or the church's standardized classical dogma teaching of a transcendent God of through the ages - this Hebrew God of Israel who became Incarnated as Jesus does not come-and-go from from His creation but remains with it providing sustenance, nurture, guidance, redemption, reclamation, renewal, resurrection, and so forth.

Thus-and-thus,

God affects the affected while becoming affected Himself in return.

In more simpler terms, we know this truism from its expression in organic terms as processualism, panrelationalism, panexperientialism, and panpsychism. That is, when you look at, or experience, the flow of the cosmos (creation, nature, et al) we see and experience its affects of these very same metaphysical elements throughout creation's height, width and breadth. Elements which are true because they were inherited from the Creator God who gave of Himself to creation.

In return, God is here with us in everyway possible. We may describe His presence in salvific, redemptive, atoning, or resurrected terms, but God risked Himself by investing His Godhead with us and all of creation. In other words,

We are God's as God is ours.

R.E. Slater

March 4, 2022

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Cosmic Evolutionary Philosophy and a Dialectical Approach to Technological Singularity

Update

I'm about 40 min in to the conversation and am hearing a lot of religious conclusions presented which really haven't any good theology about them - which, by the way, I also have spoken to these many sentiments over the years. So, it simply shows their pat responses to faith and religion in general and Jesus more specifically.

Secondly, the primordial universe I've posited does have space in it. Here, it's pretty much the only thing there is in a null-infinite sense. But it is certainly without any quantum particle forms that we know of as I've mentioned before. Nor time. Simply space. To which Lawrence offers a general opinion but not a specific opinion. So, unless Lawrence speaks more specifically by what he means when speaking to "nothingness" I'm assuming we are both speaking to the same thing though I am speaking to it in the sense of "somethingness" while he is speaking to it in the sense of "nothingness". Hence, we saying the same thing - ironically, me in scientific terms while Lawrence in parochial terms (our roles are switched around!). And so I'm hoping to hear more from Lawrence on this subject and that he speaks to it more specifically in quantum terms of somethingness rather than the parochial terms of nothingness in the remaining 60 minutes.

Finally, I am unbothered by either speaker's religious sentiments. We, as Christians must hear these things so as to respond better to our culture's level of understanding and NOT to our own level of religious understanding.

Process Theology gives me those tools to communicate on a contemporary societal level whereas my former Hellenized/Westernized form of Christianity was inadequate to be able to do so. The church's current tool-set or language-set either prevents speech and demands defensive apologia or, when speaking, cannot reflect beyond its own biblical literalism's concordism or its own culture of metaphorical complimentarianism. Whereas in process thought the Christian faith (or any religious faith actually) can pick up its past classical doctrines and transport them back into societal relevancy again.

R.E. Slater

March 4, 2022

PS - here are a couple links to get readers started in their website search:

• How Process Philosophy & Theology Connects Scientific Evolution & Cosmology to God

• What is Processual Primordial Time before the Big Bang?

• Creatio Continua vs Creatio Ex Nihilo

I don't believe I've had time to index the latest since producing it. Too, on a reread of past links there are sometimes phrases which could be better parsed, or given a bit more length for clarity's sake. Apologies. Many days I simply have limited time. If it's published it's been proofread at least twice... but even then I miss typos, spelling and grammatical errors, and may have chosen a less clear way of communicating what I'm attempting to say. I'll leave it to readers to sort this out between themselves for me on the blogger comment section. Thanks. - res

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Richard Dawkins & Lawrence Krauss: Something from Nothing

Apr 19, 2012

Critically-acclaimed author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and world-renowned theoretical physicist and author Lawrence Krauss  discuss biology, cosmology, religion, and a host of other topics at this event entitled 'Something for Nothing'. This video was recorded at The Australian National University on 10 April 2012.

Richard Dawkins FRS is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. Born in British colonial Africa, he was educated in England, where he now lives. He did his doctorate at Oxford under the Nobel Prize winning zoologist Niko Tinbergen, then was briefly an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1967 to 1969, after which he returned to Oxford, first as a Lecturer in Zoology, then Reader, before being elected to his present professorship.

He is the author of nine books: The Selfish Gene (1976, 2nd Ed 1989), The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), A Devil's Chaplain (2003), The Ancestor's Tale (2004) and The God Delusion (2006). The God Delusion has sold more than two million copies in English, and is being published in 30 other languages. Dawkins is now editing an anthology of scientific writing for Oxford University Press, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. In 2006, to promote the values of education, science, and critical thinking skills, he established The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) which is now a registered charity in both the UK and USA.

Richard Dawkins has Honorary Doctorates of Literature as well as Science, and is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He has been awarded the Silver Medal of the Zoological Society of London, the Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the Nakayama Prize, the Cosmos International Prize, the Kistler Prize, the Shakespeare Prize and the Lewis Thomas Prize.

Lawrence M. Krauss is a renowned cosmologist and science populariser, and is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. Hailed by Scientific American as a rare public intellectual, he is also the author of more than three hundred scientific publications and nine books, including the international bestseller, The Physics of Star Trek, and his most recent bestseller entitled A Universe from Nothing.

He received his PhD from MIT in 1982 and then joined the Society of Fellows at Harvard, and was a professor at Yale University and Chair of the Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University before taking his present position. Internationally known for his work in theoretical physics, he is the winner of numerous international awards, and is the only physicist to have received major awards from all three US physics societies, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Association of Physics Teachers. Krauss is also a commentator and essayist for newspapers such as the New York Times, and the Wall St. Journal, and has written regular columns for New Scientist and Scientific American and appears regularly on radio and television. He is one of the few scientists to have crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, and is also active in issues of science and society. He serves as co-chair of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and on the Board of Directors of the Federation of American Scientists.

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Amazon Link

 

One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy.

Whitehead’s master work in philosophy, Process and Reality, propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality into a consistent relation to each other. It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant.

The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds.