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

-----

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

Monday, October 14, 2024

Reflecting On My Legacy, by John Cobb



Reflecting On My Legacy

By John Cobb
December 21, 2023


I am 98, and for that age, my faculties (sight and hearing and even thinking) are quite good. The one about which I do complain is memory. Probably I’m typical for my age. People are very understanding. While I still can, I am reviewing my “legacy.” It is mixed up with the legacies of many others in the process movement. I conclude that my most important contribution is institutional. That is because the institutions to whose existence I have contributed are all acting responsibly in relation to what is happening. I think and hope that none of them give priority to my opinions. They are already out-dated.

The first is the Center for Process Studies. David Griffin gave it extraordinary leadership. Andrew Schwartz succeeded him, during a period when the future of the Center and the Claremont School of Theology, of which it was a part, was uncertain. Despite difficulties, he has helped move process thought from the margin of the American discussion to a role in the mainstream. Although Andrew and the School worked well together, it was clear that a friendly separation would be good for both. That has taken place. And an independent Center is once again acting as the “center.”

From the beginning, many of those most interested in process thought were church folk. For them, we organized Process & Faith. It has worked well for some evangelicals who are unable to swallow all of traditional Christian doctrine, but who understand that there is much in Christianity of great importance for them and for the world. Tripp Fuller has provided a home for such people for many years and Tom Oord has recently offered an alternative. I had nothing to do with establishing either of these organizations, but since I have contributed to the process theology that both find works well for them, I include them in the family. The process theology they embody is Christian, but the Christianity involved appreciates and learns from other spiritual traditions. “Process” seeks to serve these other traditions as well. Process and Faith has served other spiritual traditions as well as Christianity, and an important role of process thought is to provide an inclusive vision that makes positive sense of diverse traditions.

There are a number of very small-scale experiments inspired by process thought. Bonnie Tarwater has established an ecological farm and church near Salem. Sunday afternoon we worship in the barn with the ducks and the goats. She is developing small groups for self-examination and group action.

The Center for Process Studies operates chiefly in the academic world. Another process organization worked with institutions, including educational ones, but also ecological ones and governmental ones. Eugene Shirley organized Pando Populus. When CPS moved north as part of the Claremont School of Theology, Pando was designed to keep an activist process organization alive in Los Angeles County. The County has excellent goals, and Pando is recognized as a major contributor to moving toward them.

American process thought caught the attention of leading Chinese. Zhihe Wang came to Claremont and earned a PhD here. His wife, Mei Wong has joined him. They have organized the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China. Thanks to them, process thought has played a large role in China.

When it was clear that CPS would leave Claremont together with the School of Theology, we organized our local activities under the rubric of the Cobb Institute. It has given major attention to supporting the remarkable efforts of new Hispanic leadership in Pomona to revitalize that city under the new circumstances. But the activities of the Cobb Institute are often based on working together electronically; so, it also evolved quickly into a national and even international organization. The public programs organized especially by Ron Hines every Tuesday morning are an attractive way for outsiders to join our community. Jay McDaniel has been the superb leader of the Institute. He is now taking more responsibility for CPS and is being succeeded in the Cobb Institute by Mary Elizabeth Moore.

For process thinkers feelings are the stuff of which the world is made. Still, action should be guided by thought. Ideas should have an effect, especially with respect to the global problems that became crucial in the twentieth century. In 2015 the Center for Process Studies organized a major conference subtitled “toward an ecological civilization.” We have used that term to name what we see as the most promising direction of activity and policy. Philip Clayton has organized the Institute for Ecological Civilization.

Despite the multiplicity of process organizations, I helped to add one more, a couple of years ago. We call it the Living Earth Movement. Some of us became extremely troubled by the way in which the American goal to control the planet was (in a sense rightly) recognizing China as its greatest obstacle. Some leading Americans seemed open to a nuclear war in response to that threat. Communications were breaking down, and they were being replaced by mutual demonization. The most advanced “chip,” of great importance for breaking new ground in technology, is made chiefly in Taiwan, and the U.S. wants to prevent China from having access. Although it formally recognizes Taiwan as part of China, it armed Taiwan to enable it to fight China, and blocked Chinese access to the chips. The world came close to war. We organized the Living Earth Movement (LEM) to encourage open discussion among nations, especially U.S./China. We believe that there is little hope unless the two greatest economies and most powerful countries cooperate and lead. Charles Betterton is making it possible for the LEM to “move.”

Among American nongovernmental organizations and movements, none are in better position to work with Chinese than the process ones. We process folk are well-regarded in China and have the trust of the Chinese government. But none of the organizations I have mentioned, other than the IPDC, were in position to discuss how we could fulfill the responsibilities inherent in the situation.

A major obstacle to good communication seemed to be the success of American propaganda in portraying China as evil. The Living Earth Movement has written around fifteen short papers, mostly on topics on which China is vilified. They provide a more balanced account, and we are just now getting ready to go public with them. We now want to organize many interactions between Chinese and Americans. Fortunately, Pres. Xi has called for strengthening connections at many levels. Reports on the November Xi/Biden meetings in November in the Bay area suggest that the American government will be less opposed to reducing American hatred of China. The time may have come for us to help implement a possibility that may make a significant contribution to world peace.

We have asked Philip Clayton to take the lead in this project. He is already highly respected in China as well as in the United States. Greatly increasing conversation between Chinese and Americans would be a first step toward China and the United States taking joint responsibility for global leadership in the drastic changes needed for the survival of civilization. We stand ready to do what we can to help.

Finally, I rejoice not only that all of these organizations are engaged in important activities with excellent leadership and genuine sensitivity to the context in which they are acting, but also that they support each other when that is needed. There really is a process community, and I am only one contributor among many. Nevertheless, I claim it as my legacy and am glad that my passing will have little effect.

Meanwhile I wish each and all of you a Christmas and new year of hope and joy.

Author


John B. Cobb, Jr. taught theology at the Claremont School of Theology from 1958 to 1990. In 1973, with David Griffin, he established the Center for Process Studies, and throughout his career he has contributed to scholarship on Alfred North Whitehead, and promoted numerous process programs and organizations. In recent years he has given special attention to supporting work toward the building an ecological civilization. Toward that end, he led the effort to found the Claremont Institute for Process Studies in early 2019, which was renamed in his honor one year later.View all posts




Letters from John Cobb

Reflecting On My Legacy

I am 98, and for that age, my faculties (sight and hearing and even thinking) are quite good. The one about which I do complain is memory. Probably I’m typical for my age. People are very understanding. While I still

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Introducing “Critical Conversations”

Dear Nexus Members, In February this year I began sending periodic letters to the representatives of our member organizations to keep them apprised of the latest developments and activities. Now that our members include both organizations and individuals, these letters

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Thinking More Ambitiously

Dear CPN Friends, I have held up on writing you recently because I don’t want to distract from specific planning for the meeting on October 2 at 10 PST. However, I am excited about overall developments and want to share

Read More »
Special Message

Why the Center for Process Studies Supports the Nexus

For roughly 50 years Claremont, California has been home to a family of process people. For half a century, students, scholars, ministers, and more have been drawn together by a process-relational worldview for the common good and Claremont had served as a nexus for this community.

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter from John Cobb – August 7, 2021

Dear Friends, I’m pleased to report that twelve of you have signed up on the platform. This is a good start. I hope the rest of you will sign up as soon as you’re able, and that before our kickoff

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter From John Cobb – July 27, 2021

Dear Friends, I hope that, by the time you get this, you have spent some time with the new platform. Richard is counting on your help in improving it and adding information before we open it up to the wider

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter from John Cobb – Jul 11, 2021

Dear Fellow Participants in the Claremont Process Nexus, One of the most exciting developments in the process movement is the inauguration of Flagstaff College, led by Sandra Lubarsky and Marcus Ford. It truly embodies the open and relational worldview that

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter from John Cobb – Jun 24, 2021

Dear Friends in Process, My last message discussed giving the Common Good award to Dr. Kongjian Yu, a Chinese urbanist and landscape architect. I suggested how you might learn more about him, but as I have learned more about him

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter from John Cobb – Jun 10, 2021

Dear Friends, Much is happening of interest to our Nexus, and much of it is happening among our members. We plan to open the platform for early review on July 15. On August 21 we will have a kickoff event

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter From John Cobb – May 20, 2021

Dear Fellow Members of the Process Nexus, Until we have a working platform, you will be hearing from me from time to time. Unfortunately, my knowledge of what is happening is very limited; so, you will learn more about what

Read More »


Letters from John Cobb

Letter From John Cobb – Apr 19, 2021

Dear Friends, Although it will take time to build a platform for communication among us, we can start the ball rolling right away. I will highlight a few events coming up. If there are other events you want people to

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter from John Cobb – Apr 4, 2021

Dear Colleagues, With a little prompting, we have gathered information from nearly everyone. I am one who required prompting! We think it is auspicious that cooperation has been so good. The kind of information provided has been diverse and often

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter From John Cobb – Mar 5, 2021

Dear Process Colleagues, Welcome to the Claremont Process Nexus! We appreciate your willingness to join. Around thirty organizations have done so, so we consider that our network now exists. We attach a list of the organizations with contact information. They

Read More »
Letters from John Cobb

Letter from John Cobb – Feb 17, 2021

Dear Colleagues, We are writing as representatives of a small committee concerned with strengthening the process movement. We are addressing you because your organization is part of a large family that stems directly or indirectly from the Center for Process Studies

Read More »

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Three Shorts: How to Think About the Bible, Civil Democracy, and Our Social Contracts with One Another



How to Think About the Bible

By R.E. Slater

When the Christian faith makes the following paradigm shift, it will make so much more sense than it does now. We will no longer have to defend the many indefensible things found in the Bible. As the great German theologian Karl Barth explained, the Bible is the Word of God in the words of men. It contains the word, it mediates the word.

Or as Peter Enns aptly explains, the Bible is where God allows his children to tell his story, however imperfectly they tell it.

The 16th century Protestant Reformer John Calvin called the Bible ‘the lisping of God.’ It’s God speaking with a speech impediment.

God knew what he was doing to ‘give’ an imperfect book to the church. It has been worshipped as an idol far too often and has become a replacement for God’s own authority at times in the history of the church rather than that which leads us to God and his love.

R.E. Slater
October 13, 2024


On Civil Democracy & Our Social
Contract with One Another

As you will find in the last two posted Facebook articles describing Leonard Leo's influence against America's importantly liberal, and generally revered, founding documents, "The Bill of Rights," "The Declaration of Independence," and "The United States Constitution." That these indignants live among us acting as ruthless oppressors to our nation's founding principles.

Such civil organizations use democracy to suppress democracy; they are complexly operating sources of conservative religious supremacists drawn lately again from Maga-Protestantism and sectarian-Catholicism working to withdraw our national identity we have inherited from our founding fathers to protect and expand their founding documents envisioning a new, less democratic humanity.

I cannot imagine a personal nor social identity uprooted from such vitally necessary human expressions of the human cause. What I can imagine is unchaining my corporate soul from all dehumanizing religious and sectarian groups. That I can, and must now, imagine leaving highly prejudicial and personally dehumanizing forces advocating against the sacred trust we bear for one another. That we are to guard each other from illicit forces seeking to deny our necessary and needful social contracts to one another as an evolving social species dedicated to life, liberty, and justice to the common man.

Who must uncommonly rise up against all dark forces inhabiting our souls, churches, and social/civil contracts by re-committing ourselves to the founding elements held within all cultures and races against the genocidal forces of brother against brother, and man against man.

That we hold within us a superior nobility driven by a greater force we may describe as a "God of love" who is committed against far darker and dread forces belittling our souls as worthless progenies bourned upon a divinely good and loving God who is the Primal Cause ruling over all succeeding secondary causes of death, cruelty, injustness, and oppression.

The great authors to humanity's dignity, worthiness and generators of light and love, have attested to the truths of the human soul and not to its negation.

This then is my primal identity, my purpose, and my aspiration. Committing to nothing less worthy when resisting the ruthless soul forces of indignity, corruption, injustice, and oppression.

R.E. Slater
October 13, 2024


My Journey into Processual Theology
(or, An Evolving Processual Sociology)

The Great Horizon is far enough to seem impossible
yet near enough to fire the imagination.


John Cobb has greatly influenced the direction of Whiteheadian process thought in the sancto-spheres of complexly organized moral, social, civil, scientific, ecological, and religious institutional behaviours held in their jointly organic reconstruction and awakening process activities when renewing processual traditions of human civilization.

Myself, having retiring in my early fifties I thought I might live out a retired life of travel, group ministry, and community involvement. And, in a way I did. But in another way I almost immediately began a deeply psychic reawakening of my spirit towards grander visions unrealized within my older, inherited self.

After nearly a full year of sacramental wilderness journey I found my former self deeply etched and scribed within when applying the worn motto of "learning to live in the realms of doubt and uncertainty." By it's sole force it opened up a new reality to me. A new living-ness. An enlivening-and-becoming reality to which I could apply processual being-ness towards a processual becoming-ness.

Almost immediately I took a heavy interest in what the great literatures and philosophical traditions could teach a society when committed to one another's resurrecting fellowship by applying the processual rubric of ecological civilization with it's vast array of interdependent social-relational interactions within itself and outside itself - described at once as an earthly-and-cosmological soul of present attenuative being/becoming-ness.

How we must enliven nature-around-us by acutely listening to its hoary eons of evolving sociality as it becomes in momentary processual formation truer to its divinely birthed nature and guiding (Holy) Spirit imbuing body and soul.

Hence, the need to address how static classic theism must be absorbed into a living processual theism which at once, as Primal Cause, breathed a processual DNA into the eco-cosmic soul of psychically alive processes requiring a processual cosmo-metaphysic, ontology and enlivening ethos.

I then began a writing campaign using non-processual and process-based poetry and processually alive Christian thought to inform, educate and reconstruct what processual societies in relational, experiential, and religio-cultural formation to one another might look like.

Seventeen years later I have actively published the need for humanity to reconstruct within itself an open, organically alive, beneficial systems of thought and living in social evolutionary context to have been the better path taken. A path that required the publication of my processual journey from then to now in hopes that fellow process travellers might be enriched to inspire humanity towards renewing beneficial fellowships incorporating open, processual and fluid symbolic language built atop an eco-cosmology centered in atoning redemption and compassionate resurrection wherein we each take back control of our destinies built on the simplest of constructions, that of faith, hope and love.

R.E. Slater
October 13, 2024

Whitehead and Idealism

 


Whitehead and Idealism
International Online Conference

September 30 @ 11:30 pm – October 2 @ 10:00 am PDT


The intention behind the organization of this conference is to give scholars interested in the idealist aspects of Whitehead’s philosophy the opportunity to discuss and assess the relevance of the various strands of the idealist tradition to Whitehead’s metaphysics and to process metaphysics generally, as well as the relevance of process-relational philosophy to present day anti-materialist explorations in general metaphysics and philosophy of mind.

The link to join the live sessions of this free online conference is included in the Conference Program linked blow.

Organized by Constantin Rădulescu-Motru Institute of Philosophy and Psychology of the Romanian Academy, Department of Western Philosophy


October 1, 2024


October 2, 2024

October 1, 2024 - October 2, 2024

View the Call For Papers
This event is online

Topic areas:
History of Western Philosophy
Metaphysics and Epistemology
Philosophical Traditions

Talks at this conferenceAdd a talk

Details

Whitehead and Idealism
International Online Conference: Bucharest, Romania, 1-2 October 2024
Organizer: Constantin Rădulescu-Motru Institute of Philosophy and Psychology of the Romanian Academy, Department of Western Philosophy

CONFERENCE LINK: Conference link

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), the celebrated British philosopher, mathematician and logician, studied and spent the first part of his teaching career in Cambridge. He was friends with W.R. Sorley, an idealist thinker, to whom he probably owed his initiation to philosophical thinking. As a graduate student he read Kant, Lotze, and Bradley, the foremost British defender of absolute idealism. As a member of the Cambridge Apostles and a junior academic he was around philosophers of idealist leaning, such as James Ward, of whom he saw a good deal, and the young G. F. Stout. He became friends with J.M.E. McTaggart, the greatest of the British personal idealists, and also an important Hegel commentator. Later, he was close to Lord Haldane, another idealist influenced by Hegel. The philosophical ambiance in which Whitehead’s thinking evolved, before the turn of the century, was idealistic.

He was seriously exposed to realism only after Russell followed Moore in his crusade against idealism, and Whitehead started collaborating with Russell. At first Whitehead was a spectator of the realist revolution in philosophy, but eventually he participated in it, during his London period, and was perceived as a member of the Neorealist school, alongside Samuel Alexander and Thomas Percy Nunn. He developed a highly original philosophy of physics, free from metaphysical considerations, i.e., independent of any doctrine concerning ‘the synthesis of the knower and the known.’ As one of the leading British specialists in Einstein’s theory of relativity, he took a position against those who thought this, the most advanced physical theory of the day, provided support for idealism.

However, when he became a metaphysician, he didn’t wholly reject idealism, nor did he ignore it as a hangover of the past, but claimed to transform ‘some main doctrines of Absolute Idealism onto a realistic basis.’ Thus Whitehead explicitly set his grand metaphysical system in the prolongation of the idealist tradition, not without acknowledging, at the same time, heavy obligations to the British and American realist schools. But what does this ‘transformation’ amount to? What is the depth and spread of the influence idealism - absolute, personalist, panpsychist, British or German, classical or contemporary - had on Whitehead’s metaphysical thinking? As an exponent of the ‘meeting of extremes in contemporary philosophy,’ in Bosanquet’s terms, did Whitehead apply Lotze’s dictum that ‘only inquiries conducted in the spirit of realism will satisfy the wishes of idealism?’ Is his metaphysical scheme a sui generis vindication of absolute idealism?

That Whitehead is a part of the idealist tradition seems to be further confirmed by the fact that the last Mohican of absolute idealism, Timothy Sprigge, discussed, adopted or transformed some main doctrines of the philosophy of organism.
The intention behind the organization of this conference is to give scholars interested in these and related aspects of Whitehead’s philosophy the opportunity to discuss and assess the relevance of the various strands of the idealist tradition to Whitehead’s metaphysics and to process metaphysics generally, as well as the relevance of process-relational philosophy to present day anti-materialist explorations in general metaphysics and philosophy of mind.

The conference will be conducted in English and organized by the Department of Western Philosophy at the Constantin Radulescu-Motru Institute of Philosophy and Psychology, Romanian Academy, Bucharest).

The conference will be held online on 1-2 October 2024.

Here you can download the program of the conference:

Andrew M. Davis, Process Philosopher / Theologian - Interviews, Podcasts, Educator

Process Philosopher/Theologian Andrew M. Davis

About

Friends, welcome to my channel. I am a process philosopher, theologian, and scholar of cosmological wonder. I approach philosophy as the endeavor to systematically think through what reality must be like because we are a part of it. Currently, I direct research, programing, and conference organization at the Center for Process Studies, an educational non-profit dedicated to exploring and applying process-relational philosophy and theology.


Home  ----> Latest Videos

Videos ---> All podcasts

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LATEST PODCASTS
OCT 2024


Saturday, October 12, 2024

Process-Relational Perspectives on Power and the God of Love


Process Philosopher and British Academy Mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead


How God, like creation, is process driven and why classical descriptions of God and faith are extremely impoverished descriptors of the Christian God. That a process-driven post evangelical theology must build upon the classical past by removing each of the Platonic structures so that a process based faith can build on the God that is here in our midst and not upon a Platonic God fixed in estate, severe, and ultimately unlike the creation which God had birthed and is being birthed time and time again.

R.E. Slater
October 12, 2024


Process-Relational Perspectives on
Power and the God of Love

by Andrew M. Davis


---->    link to book interview here   <-----
or any other preferred sites below 



Andrew M. Davis is program director for the Center for Process Studies. He is author, editor, and coeditor of several books including Mind, Value, and Cosmos (2020), Metaphysics of Exo-Life (2023), and From Force to Persuasion: Process-Relational Perspectives on Power and the God of Love (Cascade, 2024).


PODCAST LINKS


– Whitehead and Teilhard (book): https://tinyurl.com/2s3vxb5p

– How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere (book): https://tinyurl.com/27nk7ck2


– Center for Process Studies: https://ctr4process.org/

– Andrew’s website: https://www.andrewmdavis.info/


*The Theology Mill and Wipf and Stock Publishers would like to thank Luca Di Alessandro for making their song “A Celestial Keyboard” available for use as the podcast’s transition music. Link to license: https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/.


Five Titles to Read


amazon link

The microbiome is a vital part of life on Earth. Modern science has shown that the microbiome is involved in almost all aspects of human functioning, including human behavior. But how does the microbiome influence how we think about God as well as how God may interact with us?

In this work, John F. Pohl explores the intersection of humanity, the microbiome, and God from the perspectives of process theology and open & relational theology. This book is a wonderful read for the person interested in science and faith from an integrative perspective.

Endorsements

In A Theology of the Microbiome, Dr. Pohl presents a spiritually enlivening approach to understanding the intricate world within our bodies. Looking through the lens of a microscope as well as that of open and relational theology, Pohl invites readers to witness the divine at work even in the minute interactions of our gut’s microbial community. His book reveals the profound connections between our physical and spiritual health, opening up yet another avenue for more fruitful dialogue between science and religion.

—Matt Segall, Ph. D., author of Physics of the World-Soul

Good theology addresses all facets of life. And when we explore the world through science, the most robust theology that emerges is affected by what science suggests. In this fascinating book, John Pohl weaves together microbiome research with a compelling vision of God. The result is truly groundbreaking!

—Thomas Jay Oord, Ph.D., author of Open and Relational Theology

“Contemporary discourse in science and religion harbors all manner of questions extending from various perspectives internal to the sciences and theology alike. Here’s one you don’t often hear: What has theology to do with the microbiome? Better yet: What has God to do with your gut? Integrating his experience as a Gastroenterologist and his study of process philosophy and theology, Pohl creatively advances a metaphysics of the microbiome, with wide-ranging implications for how we think about our place in the universe. From our gut to God and back, digesting this theology is a process, but its aim is overall health.”

—Andrew M. Davis, Ph.D., author of Metaphysics of Exo-Life


* * * * * * * *





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A lot has changed in 25 years. A quarter-century after the publication of his groundbreaking first book, Malcolm Gladwell returns with a brand-new volume that reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light — this time in an immersive audio format that transports you, the listener, directly inside of each riveting story.
Why is Miami… Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena.
Through a series of gripping stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. As with his podcast Revisionist History and bestsellers Talking to Strangers and The Bomber Mafia, pressing play on this audiobook will bring each scene and story to life with vivid first-person accounts, captivating oral histories, illuminating moments from history past and present, and a cinematic original music score.
Take to the streets of Los Angeles with Malcolm to meet the world’s most successful bank robbers, rediscover a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visit the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and explore an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis.
Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell’s most personal book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of the modern world. It’s time we took tipping points seriously.

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From the bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia: discover Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough debut and explore the science behind viral trends in business, marketing, and human behavior.

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

“A wonderful page-turner about a fascinating idea that should affect the way every thinking person looks at the world.” —Michael Lewis

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In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

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Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the number-one New York Times best seller Outliers, reinvents the audiobook in this immersive production of Talking to Strangers, a powerful examination of our interactions with people we don’t know.

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true?

While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There’s even a theme song - Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout”.

Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.

The audiobook edition of Talking to Strangers was an instant number-one best seller, and was one of the most pre-ordered audiobooks in history. It seamlessly marries audiobooks and podcasts, creating a completely new and real listening experience.