Quotes & Sayings


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday, February 6, 2021

What To Do About Lent? Part 1/2




Introduction

We're coming up to the season of Lent and so I thought I should post two articles on the Christian observation of it during this season of political unrest during the viral pandemic and its variants.

Lent follows the celebration of Christ's Advent (Christmas) and precedes the celebration of Christ's Death and Atoning Resurrection (Easter). It lasts 40 days commemorating Jesus' time in the wilderness before coming to the Cross. This first post asks the question, "What To Do About Lent?" In Part 2 we will deal more directly with the observance of Lent itself as a practice.

This first article will highlight the obtusiveness of American Christianity as it finds itself embroiled in American politics. This energy has placed parts of the Christian church in grave danger of losing its witness, if not its faith altogether. Young people are leaving the church in droves dismayed by the church's unloving words and deeds spoken into the oppressed other.

Who? The borderwall immigrants being ripped apart from their children. The refugees seeking assylum from harm. Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, even Asians, because of the viral pandemic gripping the world. Not to mention lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and the queers of society (LGBTQ). Then their are the impoverished, the invisible families on the street, and on and on it goes of unjust American oppression acting against the unwanted other. Jesus said to see the other, hear the other, love the other, and minister to the other. Not to oppress the other, harm the other, chain the other, hate the other. This is not Christianity. But it is what Christianity has become.

The church then has placed itself in the position of condemning society all around itself. Seeing the sin in other lives rather than the plank in its own eye. While then having the audacity to proclaim itself holy by hosting DC Rallies in the Fall of 2020 where it repents of nothing but steels itself to launch sessionist attacks on America's democracy and Americans in general. The sin of oppression lies in the church of oppression and not in the unloved other whom it hates but God loves. Whom Jeshua has come to save. Let repentance first begin in the House of the Lord before casting aspersions upon the unapproved other whom the church would deem sinner but whom God deems loved. Thus saith the Lord.

Politics has done the church no favors. Never has. Never will. So how, during this season of Lent, will the church respond to her God? Will it repent and return to the work of ministry of the annunciation of Christ the Lover and Redeemer of our souls? Or will it continue down the path of unholiness leaning unto uncivil democracy and oppression, if not outright neo-facism, all for the prize of obtaining and holding unholy power?

Here then is my first post - "What To Do About Lent?" Part 1/2. Part 2 will deal more directly with the observance itself. But here, I feel the burden of the shallowness of observing Lent without saying something first about the church which is participating in it without qualm or uneasiness over its social and political actions.

My guide in this would be the German scholar, theologian, and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his actions against the German church as it plummeted into Nazism. He spoke against its oppression of the Jews, gypsies, and foreigner in its lands. And as he worked against a political philosophy of death and power even he himself became imprisoned and eventually hung for his anti-fascist beliefs. Let's pray that the Lord of the Harvest may come once again to save His lost people from greater harm than they already have done. Even as Jesus stood in the fires of humanity speaking love, hope, and healing actions, until his death by the hands of ungodly religious leaders.

R.E. Slater
February 6, 2021





Jeshua [N] [H] [S]

  • Head of the ninth priestly order ( Ezra 2:36 ); called also Jeshuah ( 1 Chronicles 24:11 ).

  • A Levite appointed by Hezekiah to distribute offerings in the priestly cities ( 2 Chronicles 31:15 ).

  • Ezra 2:6 ; Nehemiah 7:11 .

  • Ezra 2:40 ; Nehemiah 7:43 .

  • The son of Jozadak, and high priest of the Jews under Zerubbabel ( Nehemiah 7:7 ; Nehemiah 12:1 Nehemiah 12:7 Nehemiah 12:10 Nehemiah 12:26 ); called Joshua ( Haggai 1:1 Haggai 1:12 ; Haggai 2:2 Haggai 2:4 ; Zechariah 3:1 Zechariah 3:3 Zechariah 3:6 Zechariah 3:8 Zechariah 3:9 ).

  • A Levite ( Ezra 8:33 ).

  • Nehemiah 3:19 .

  • A Levite who assisted in the reformation under ( Nehemiah 8:7 ; Nehemiah 9:4 Nehemiah 9:5 ).

  • Son of Kadmiel ( Nehemiah 12:24 ).

  • A city of Judah ( Nehemiah 11:26 ).

  • Nehemiah 8:17 ; Joshua, the son of Nun.





  • (a saviour ), another form of the name of Joshua of Jesus.

    1. Joshua the son of Nun. ( Nehemiah 8:17 ) [JOSHUA]
    2. A priest in the reign of David, to whom the nine course fell by David, to whom the ninth course fell by lot. ( 1 Chronicles 24:11 ) (B.C. 1014.)
    3. One of the Levites in the reign of Hezekiah. ( 2 Chronicles 31:15 ) (B.C. 726.)
    4. Son of Jehozadak, first high priest after the Babylonish captivity, B.C. 536. Jeshua was probably born in Babylon, whither his father Jehozadak had been taken captive while young. ( 1 Chronicles 6:15 ) Authorized Version. He came up from Babylon in the first year of Cyrus, with Zerubbabel, and took a leading part with him in the rebuilding of the temple and the restoration of the Jewish commonwealth. The two prophecies concerning him in ( Zechariah 3:1 ) ... and Zech 6:9-15 point him out as an eminent type of Christ.
    5. Head of a Levitical house, one of those which returned from the Babylonish captivity. ( Ezra 2:40 ; 3:9 ; Nehemiah 3:19 ; 8:7 ; Nehemiah 9:4 Nehemiah 9:5 ; 12:8 ) etc.
    6. A branch of the family of Pahath-moab, one of the chief families, probably, of the tribe of Judah. ( Nehemiah 10:14 ; 7:11 ) etc.; Ezra 10:30





    JESHUA

    jesh'-u-a, je-shu'-a (yeshua`):

    A place occupied by the children of Judah after their return from captivity (Nehemiah 11:26), evidently, from the places named with it, in the extreme South of Judah. It may correspond with the Shema of Joshua 15:26, and possibly to the Sheba of 19:2. The site may be Khirbet Sa`weh, a ruin upon a prominent hill, Tell es Sa`weh, 12 miles East-Northeast of Beersheba. The hill is surrounded by a wall of large blocks of stone. PEF, III, 409-10, Sh XXV.





    Meaning
    Salvation, Saved
    Etymology
    From the verb ישע (yasha'), to save.

    The name Jeshua in the Bible

    The name Jeshua is a shortened form of the name Joshua (יהושע) and this shortened form Jeshua occurs in the later Scriptures (see Nehemiah 8:17 for a Jeshua the son of Nun, who is doubtlessly Joshua the successor of Moses — Numbers 13:16).

    Other men named Jeshua are (and the following probably overlap a bit):

    • Levite who dealt with voluntary offerings (2 Chronicles 31:15).
    • A leader among the returnees under Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:6).
    • A leader of a priestly clan (Ezra 2:36).
    • The father of one of the wall's repairers (Nehemiah 3:19).
    • One of the first rabbis installed by Ezra (Nehemiah 8:7).
    • Then there is a high priest named Jeshua who is mentioned by Ezra (2:2) and Zechariah (3:1) and Haggai who names him Joshua (1:1). Nehemiah mentions this Jeshua among the kohanim who return with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 12:1). This Jeshua is a bit mysterious because although he's fit to travel, he is father of Joiakim, grandfather of Eliashib, great-grandfather of Joiada, great-great-grandfather of Jonathan, and great-great-great-grandfather of Jaddua (12:10-11). But it seems likely that this Jeshua was still alive because only Jeshua (son of Azaniah) is mentioned among the signers of the sealed document, and one would certainly expect a high priest on that list.
    • And finally, there is also a town in Judah named Jeshua, which is mentioned in Nehemiah 11:26.

    Etymology of the name Jeshua

    The name Jeshua comes from the word group that starts with the verb ישע (yasha'), meaning to save or deliver:

    Excerpted from: Abarim Publications' Biblical Dictionary
    שוע  ישע

    The verb ישע (yasha') means to be unrestricted and thus to be free and thus to be saved (from restriction, from oppression and thus from ultimate demise). A doer of this verb is a savior. Nouns ישועה (yeshua), ישע (yesha') and תשועה (teshua) mean salvation. Adjective שוע (shoa') means (financially) independent, freed in an economic sense.

    Verb שוע (shawa') means to cry out (for salvation). Nouns שוע (shua'), שוע (shoa') and שועה (shawa) mean a cry (for salvation).





    God and Power

    So what do you think of when you think of the God of Love? Do you think of:
    • Intimidating power? Such as Judgment or Hell?
    • Self-righteousness? Such as condemnation and hate?
    • Sanctimonious hypocrisy? Such as exhibited by a Holy One doing the opposite of Holiness?
    • Or outright greed, hatred and blood-spilling, with which the church has weighed Jesus down with?
    No, neither do I. So why is today's church involved with these evils and supporting unholy men and women who daily commit them?

    I don't really know either. But I think Christians should stop. And stop confusing good civil democracy with their cherished totalitarian theocracy. America doesn't lift up kings here, but it does lift up people of all kinds as a melting pot of hope and responsible freedom.

    A loving God loves all the time. In this life and the next. Remember, it is our sin which condemns us... not a loving God. A God who would heal us... not condemn us. Too many have confused God with sin, and sin with judgment. The two ideas have been intimated wrongly of each other by confusing essence with outcome.

    A loving God saves and does not condemn. Surely He judges in terms of failure and wrong. But it is our sin which judges and condemns our actions to death and hell. A God of life and love can do neither. It would go against His essence. God is Jeshua, Savior. He is Life and Light. But the outcomes are upon us and the misuse of our freedom to hate and do evil. Hell is that place which flees from God, whether in this life or the next. Many a Christian is fleeing from God just like the irreligious and unfaithful. One doesn't have to be dead to be living in hell.

    A Kingdom on Earth?

    I earlier mentioned a totalitarian theocracy (or kingdom) which today's New Testament Church yearns for by seating Christ upon the throne of rulership. However, in theocratic terms, or kingdom terms, this is not how democracies work. They are opposed to kings and rule by fiat. Democracies more or less observe the idea of the God who shares power. Democracies lead through service. By lifting up the weak and powerless over the strong and willful. Democracies follow in the image and likeness of Christ rather than the Old Testament ideals of benevolent kings and despots which are fundamentally at odds as oxymorons to the rule of power itself.

    Further, a good civil democracy rejects an Old Testament theocracy permitting stoning, racial hatred, legalism, genocide, discrimination, religious bigotry, murder, etc and etc. God was a God of love then even as He is now. This hasn't changed. Further, Israel's theocratic leadership, whether vested in its priests or kings, was no different then its people. Most were as corrupt then as the church's leadership is deficit today. A godly leader, either then or now, is a man or woman who admits their weakness, seeks God to overcome their failings, is humble, modest, and leads by example by work and by deed. When leaders do such practices they stand out. Consider Moses, Joshua, David, or any one of the Apostles. Leaders lead by example.

    What About Theocratic Living?

    Back in the "good old days" of the Old Testament under the Mosaic Covenant established by God through Moses at Mt. Sinai, the Ten Commandments stated what love wasn't. Which is curious, isn't it? Think about it.... Since when is Love ever expressed in the not doing of something? Yeah, verily, Love is always expressed in the doing. Not in the not doing. As example, if one doesn't dishonor their parents one still may not love them. But if one loves their parents they would not dishonor them intentionally. Understand?

    So too with a good civil democracy which has its laws but underneath those laws is the commitment to treat one's fellow neighbor well and with intentional goodness. By this arrangement, both it's democratically elected laws and it's civic duty upheld the other in responsible accountability. And by these Americans are to stand against lies, duplicity, double-dealing, hypocrisy, and sedition against the nation. Americans work their disagreements out with one another through civil institutions. Not by slandering one another, seeking to overthrow their government, or suppressing rightful votes. So let's say it again... the season of Lent is a season of introspection, repentance, and commitment to love God and neighbor.

    Why then do you think Jesus was so angered by the scribes and the pharisees? By Israel's religious leadership? Because her Jewish priests and leaders had taken God's love and made it an evil thing. Even as today's church leaders are actively commiting in their political activism by choosing for racial bondage, discriminating oppression, opposing social justice, illegal anti-democratic reforms, denial of interfaith ministries and reformatory societal norms.

    Yeshua, Jehovah, Yahveh, Adoni, YHWH, are names of the God who is Love. We, as God's children, are to learn to love. To learn to bring God's love into societal civics and political public forums. We do not stand on the outside of civil institutions throwing rocks from platforms of denial and borderland beliefs. We must learn to listen, speak truth and not lies, and be at peace with one another. The evil which Christians are doing are but a litany to the list we started with in this post.

    Therefore my brothers and sisters, Refuse evil. Do good. Love your democracy and make it better, not worse. Let the season of Lent begin a season of personal and political churchly repentance. A repentance which unmasks false Christian leaders from the power and privilege they lust. And from the earthly oppressions they seek by harm and destruction upon fellow human beings they have declared unholy and uncircumscribed, lest they place Jesus and His Church again upon the altars of evil and crosses of death. Amen.

    R.E. Slater
    February 6, 2021

    Tuesday, January 19, 2021

    Integral Studies with Matthew Segall

     

    https://footnotes2plato.com/

    MATTHEW D. SEGALL

    "The safest general characterization of the philosophical tradition is that it
    consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." - Alfred North Whitehead

    "Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought
    has done its best, the wonder remains." - Alfred North Whitehead


    Advanced Seminar - A. N. Whitehead's Process and Reality

    By the mid-1920s, the new quantum and relativity theories had already succeeded in turning the old mechanical philosophy of Nature inside out by transforming matter into light and merging space and time together with gravity. The classical explanations of Nature offered by a once confident scientific materialism no longer made any sense. A second scientific revolution was afoot. At the same time, in philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein tried to close the door to further metaphysical speculation upon the ultimate nature of things: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” The physicists struggling to come to terms with their discoveries could henceforth expect no help from philosophers. In protest against the logical positivism of his era, which decided to give up on understanding Nature and withdraw into the analysis of scientific formalisms and statistics, Whitehead awoke from the dogmatic slumber of the Newtonian paradigm and attempted to make natural science philosophical again. He sought novel insight into depths of reality as yet unspoken. In Process & Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, Whitehead aims for nothing less than the construction of an organic system of the universe that not only brings quantum and relativity theories into coherence, but gathers up scientific truths, aesthetic feelings, and religious values into an integral vision of the whole.

    Students in this advanced seminar will engage in a close reading of Whitehead’s (350 page) “essay.” This text is widely considered to be one of the most obscure in the Western tradition. That is perhaps because Whitehead’s organic and process-relational way of seeing the world is so unusual. He often found it necessary to invent new words, or to use old words in new ways. His text will be supplemented with secondary readings by scholars skilled at elucidating the finer points of the “philosophy of organism” (e.g., Isabelle Stengers, Randall Auxier and Gary Herstein, Catherine Keller). (3 Units)


    EXTERNAL RESOURCES

    Resume, Contributions, Articles, and Publicastions -


    CIIS Videos with Matthew Segall -


    Footnotes to Plato - Lectures Archive by Matthew Segall


    Philosophical Essays by Matthew Segall


    Online Courses by Matthew Segall






    Friday, January 8, 2021

    The Rise of Dominionism and the Christian Right



    The Rise of Dominionism and the Christian Right


    God does not call Christians to "Suppress the Rights of Others" but to
    "Express the Rights of Others." No, my friends, Christianity isn't being
    persecuted; it is persecuting those around it for not being Christian.
    - re slater


    I give Tripp Fuller a lot of credit for speaking kindly to the radicalized far right church while trying to draw it back to its lost faith. But yesterday's Capital demonstration in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021, showed the nation all too clearly what toxic "Christian" Dominionism really is all about. It's the old idea of creating Old Testament governance into postmodern societies. It enforces religious ("biblical") prejudice and principles that are uncivil and undemocratic upon complex polyplural public societies.

    Let me say it again, the American society is not a Kingdom society. Nor are its democratic institutions in want of Kingdom-like Reconstructions. Like Christian Zionism, Christian Dominionism is extreme in its attitudes towards others; is oppressively unhealthy in all aspects of its outlooks to others (including those of its members within); and leads to greater societal division and hatred as exampled by Trumpism's injustice and oppression, circa 2016-2020, in the United States. In fact, I'll go farther and state that the belief system held by the radical Christian far right is unGodly, unBiblical, and unJesus like.



    As example, look at the Washington D.C. Rally held earlier this past summer of 2020 which intentionally sought to bring far right Christians together "to repent of sin and pray for the nation." What I had hoped would come of it did not come to pass. I had hoped that Christians would recommit themselves to loving the world around them. Instead, it focused on their rights and civilities as they saw them, denied the pandemic virus, and became more strident in their convictions that what they were doing was God-sent and judged worthy.

    And yet, by their continual actions of suppressing democratic votes throughout the year of 2020 and by storming the Capital on January 6, 2021, we can see that it's efforts of repenting were a big fail. The rally had only served to gin-up more strident voices and unrepentful spirits.

    Essentially, the DC Rally provided more self-justification among radicalized Christians to conduct unholy/unloving actions against its American brothers and sisters of all colors and faiths, and to create a roiling stridency of temperament, attitude, and deeds against America's civil democracy. Which, among other things, included deep voter racial suppression and extortion of the truth supporting radical Q’anon conspiracies and lies.

    What the fake-Christian DC Rally really created was an unholy baptism and avowal of permission by radical Christians to commit religious tyranny against a civil society. Thus I speak to its efforts as Dominionist in perspective. Or, as a secular effort at Christian reconstruction of God's Kingdom here on earth. Most certainly, the far right has given itself permission to any future acts of violence, hate, and exclusion, by condoning or conscreting itself to these tasks because of their surreptitious DC Rally. Which is highly unfortunate and exactly opposite the direction the God I declare would have them pursue.

    Folks, this isn't Christianity. Christianity is a radical faith by its demand for personal transformation into the loving image of Christ Jesus. But not as a radicalized faith demanding an overall of civil democracy designed for all religious faiths and beliefs. Nor do we live in the Old Testament any longer. Its dead and gone. We live in the present. Not the past.

    And importantly, Christianity is a trans-national, trans-generational, trans-geographic, trans-religious, and trans-temporal faith. When God comes in everything we think and believe must be conformed to Jesus' love and faith in people. It embraces our wills while also deconstructing our wills. The Christian faith is a faith of charity, forgiveness, and wellbeing.

    The Christian faith is meant by God to be pliable, flexible, and adaptable to any economy, culture, religion, or society. It isn't meant to be all one thing. Just because ancient bible cultures were used to kingdom-based governments in the Near East doesn't mean kingdom-based government is the preferred vehicle of government by God. No. If anything, kingdoms were oppressive and dominating over other cultures and societies. They did not recognize the polyplural rights and liberties of others.



    In contrast, democratic institution goals are to recognize and support the polyplural rights and liberties of its citizen-based societies. Democracies are designed to be less oppressive of its people, more entertaining to everyone's equality and rights, and interwoven in layered complexities of social networking, work, and play.

    Christianity is a peaceable religion and not meant for violence however much one reads of it in the Old Testament or thinks about the end times of Christ coming again by world tribulation or armageddon. And though we might dispute the future, a loving God is always a loving God in any future. The trials and tribulations we bring upon ourselves is our own judgment for not obeying God to love and respect one another. God doesn't come back to reap havoc and calamity upon the world, but is here presently intending to prevent us from doing the same to ourselves. The lesson of Revelation is to repent and love. To forget and show mercy even as our Lord Jesus had done.

    What was done by "bible" people back then in the past isn't what's to be done today. Process Theology says we are to grow and expand from our present wickedness and learn to love and accept one another. "Love God, Love One Another." This commandment is what makes Christianity r-a-d-i-c-a-l. The Sermon on the Mount is our new "Torah" Commandments by God to share His love with all the world... AND each other.

    Jesus and guns are wrong. The bible and hypocrisy doesn't work. And faith must be seen apart from lying lips and injurious deeds. The proof? Look at what President Trump has done and continues to do. Look at his elected officials who voted against State Rights on January 6, 2021, this week. And look at that same day's seditious "Christian" mobs as they tried to prevent the People's vote for a more just president and society be actualized against all the horrors it saw under the Trump administration.

    And yet, a day later, radical Christians and their elected officials are continuing to speak smooth lies, gaslighting each other with more deceitfulness, blaming societal failures on liberals, and generally unrepentful and unloving.

    "What ye sow so shall ye reap," my brothers. If radical Christians want anarchy and fascism it will come with the same violence it is being birthed with by its own hands. And it will fall hard upon it's head.Shutting mouths at the horrors it has created. Let's not go this far. Let's truly repent and call upon the God of Salvation to truly redeem our black hearts.

    But whether you call today's far right "Christian" oppressions Godly judgment or not, its source is a direct corollary showing to us a defunct radicalized religion masquerading as Christianity while being embraced by its unholy faithful and disruptable leaders.

    R.E. Slater
    January 8, 2021




    2 Peter 2 (NIV)

    False Teachers and Their Destruction

    2 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

    4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,[a] putting them in chains of darkness[b] to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh[c] and despise authority.

    Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; 11 yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from[d] the Lord. 12 But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.

    13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.[e] 14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! 15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer,[f] who loved the wages of wickedness. 16 But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—an animal without speech—who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

    17 These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. 18 For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” 20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”[g] and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”

    Footnotes

    2 Peter 2:4 Greek Tartarus
    2 Peter 2:4 Some manuscripts in gloomy dungeons
    2 Peter 2:10 In contexts like this, the Greek word for flesh (sarx) refers to the sinful state of human beings, often presented as a power in opposition to the Spirit; also in verse 18.
    2 Peter 2:11 Many manuscripts beings in the presence of
    2 Peter 2:13 Some manuscripts in their love feasts
    2 Peter 2:15 Greek Bosor
    2 Peter 2:22 Prov. 26:11

    * * * * * * * * *




    We need to call Trump Christians back
    to the faith they left


      |  JANUARY 7, 2021
    i
    "The Father's Forgiveness," Daniel Bonnell.

    Joe Biden is the next president of the United States. Despite allegations, falsehoods and lies, no election fraud affected the outcome of the race. That’s simply a fact.

    I’m not sure what will become of evangelical Trump supporters now that their expectation of God’s intervention to give Trump the election has not been fulfilled and now that we won’t have outrageous, false and divisive tweets emanating from the White House all through the day and night. I imagine some will continue down the rabbit hole of QAnon and apocalyptic fanaticism, but I am hoping many will decide to make their way back to the central tenets of Christian faith — love, truth, justice, peace, hope and welcome.

    Susan M. Shaw

    Susan Shaw

    As we move into the Biden-Harris era, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we invite Trump-supporting evangelicals back into the fold of the church.

    Not so long ago, I was introduced to a song, “Hymn for the 81%.” It’s a song for evangelical Trump supporters from someone raised by them in the church. These lyrics stopped me in my tracks: “You said to love the lost, so I’m loving you now.”

    Much to my surprise, that image immediately evoked incredible compassion for Trump-supporting evangelicals: They are lost.

    I felt the impact of that word. In a single moment, all the feelings of my evangelical upbringing rushed upon me. I felt the emotions of a little 6-year-old girl walking the aisle while the congregation sang “Just as I Am.” I recalled all those Sunday school teachers and GA leaders and pastors and ministers of music teaching me that we were to love the lost, and I remember the mix of relief and joy and release of knowing “I once was lost, but now I’m found.”

    All those memories and emotions swept over me like an avalanche as I realized that Trump-supporting evangelicals got lost somewhere along the way. They are lost. And that changes my responsibility toward them.

    Feminist activist Loretta Ross says that rather than calling people out, we should be calling them in. Calling in, Ross says, is “a call out done with love.” Calling in “means you always keep a seat at the table for them if they come back.”

    We have to leave a light on for them.

    “At the core of the Christian story is the possibility of redemption.”

    At the core of the Christian story is the possibility of redemption. No matter what we do, the Gospels tell us, we can repent and change our ways. No one is too far gone for the love of God to reach, to convict, to receive, to transform.

    I think about what we heard in all those invitation hymns:

    Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling
    Calling for you and for me.
    See, on the portals he’s waiting and watching,
    Watching for you and for me.
    Come home, come home,
    Ye who are weary, come home.
    Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling,
    Calling, O sinner, come home.

    Just as I am without one plea,
    But that thy blood was shed for me,
    And that thou bidd’st me come to thee,
    O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

    I’ve wandered far away from God.
    Now I’m coming home.
    The paths of sin too long I’ve trod.
    Lord, I’m coming home.
    Coming home, coming home,
    Never more to roam.
    Open wide thine arms of love.
    Lord, I’m coming home.

    Come home. That is the invitation we must offer evangelicals who supported Trump and who became lost in the mixture of Christian nationalism, white supremacy and authoritarianism that promised them it would bring in God’s community through the exercise of raw power.

    “Our evangelistic task is to call people home, to call them in.”

    Our prophetic task is to speak truth, denounce injustice and advocate for justice for all people. And, at the same time, our evangelistic task is to call people home, to call them in.

    This story gets passed around a lot. I can’t find any verification that it’s true, but I think, true or not, it points to something important about calling people in. As the story goes, in a people group in Africa, when someone commits an unjust or illegal act, the community brings the perpetrator to the center of the village, and then all the community members come and tell this person all the good things this person has done. The community believes, as the story goes, that people are good but makes mistakes and forget who they really are. By telling them all the good they’ve done, the community seeks to remind them of who they are and reconcile them to the group.

    Let’s call evangelical Trump supporters in. I’ll start:

    • You taught me to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and to love my neighbor as myself.
    • You introduced me to a world that was much bigger than my hometown and told me to love them too.
    • You told me to love my enemies.
    • You taught me to love the Bible and read it because God could speak to me through its words.
    • You told me I could be anything God called me to be.
    • You taught me to give generously, without thought of return or reciprocation.
    • You taught me to tell the truth.
    • You found a way to accommodate difference when it was up close and personal and love people who were unlike you — the lesbian aunt, the agnostic friend, the weird kid, the deaf neighbor, the immigrant co-worker.
    • You stopped to change a tire for a stranger; you took a meal to a bereaved family; you volunteered at a local shelter; you drove an older person of a different political party to vote; you served as a conversation partner in a language program for refugees; you visited sick people in the hospital; you helped Habitat for Humanity build a house; you started a clothes closet in the church basement.

    People are much more than the worst thing they ever did. We have to make a way back for evangelical Trump supporters who may want to come home. I know that’s hard after everything we’ve witnessed the past four years.

    “We have to make a way back for evangelical Trump supporters who may want to come home.”

    If nothing else, though, the gospel is a story of lavish grace and welcome, a banquet set for a prodigal son, workers who came late to the field, a thief on a cross, all of those in the highways and hedges. In fact, we ourselves are recipients of this lavish grace, this love without limit, and, as my friend Paula Sheridan once said, “We are not the maître d at God’s table. We don’t get to decide who gets seated and who doesn’t.”

    My Southern Baptist church did indeed tell me to love the lost. Our Trump-supporting evangelical siblings are lost. They followed a demagogue and lost sight of Jesus. If we want to follow Jesus, we have to make a way back for them; we have to seek them out like a lost coin or a lost sheep and call them in, “out of shameful failure and loss, into the glorious gain of (the) cross; out of unrest and arrogant pride, into (Christ’s) blessed will to abide; out of the depths of ruin untold, into the peace of (Christ’s) sheltering fold.”

    This must be our response to the past four years: Come home. Come home.

    Susan M. Shaw is professor of women, gender and sexuality studies at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore. She also is an ordained Baptist minister and holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Her most recent book is Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide, co-authored with Grace Ji-Sun Kim.