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

Monday, November 15, 2021

Authoritarianism has entered the Church; but not in a good way...


Former United States president Donald Trump's photo op at St. John's Church has been
described as following the "playbook of authoritarian-leaning leaders the world over".


Constitution of the United States - The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


Authoritarianism has entered the Church; but not in a good way...
by R.E. Slater

This morning's news of Michael Flynn's extremist speech last night at a radical right rally in San Antonio, Texas, is cause for concern to all Christians and Churches teaching an openness of dialogue, irenic critique of beliefs amid doctrinal tenents, and welcoming of all religions different from themselves as is proper in an expanding, polyplural, civil democracy of the 21st Century.

However, under the recent Trumpian era of gaslighting fundamental and conservative evangelical Christian churches, white religious nationalism (aka, white supremacy) has gained a new traction in American churches once content in arguing doctrine with one another rather than attacking the democratic institutions of the United States of America as expressed in the Constitution's First Amendment Rights.

The church in the past twenty years has changed. And not in a good way. For those interested in see how these changes have taken place I have put together a complete podcast series of 14 discussions held by Tripp Fuller with Diana Butler Bass and Brian McLaren this past Fall. All these speakers (and friends), like myself, were at one time part of the fundamental / conservative evangelical church, but have now transition to a wake-up call in Jesus to step away from any self-referential belief systems into a more expansive, and tolerant, progressive Christian frame of mind where beliefs and dogmas might be discussed more patiently with one another.

R.E. Slater
November 15, 2021


News References
November 14, 2021


MarketWatch -




One may also add multiple examples in European history
of both Catholic and Protestant authoritarianism



Religion and Authoritarianism

Most measures of religiosity, such as church attendance and affiliation, are positively correlated with the authoritarian personality cluster, which includes submission to authority, conventionality, and intolerance of out-groups. The correlation is especially strong between religious fundamentalism (defined as belief in an "inerrant set of religious teachings") and authoritarianism, both of which are characterized by low openness to experience, high rigidity, and low cognitive complexity. In particular, authoritarianism "is positively associated with a religion that is conventional, unquestioned, and unreflective".

Background

United States president Donald Trump's photo op at St. John's Church has been described as following the "playbook of authoritarian-leaning leaders the world over".

Hundreds of scientific articles have been published investigating the connections between religion and authoritarianism. There is a distinction between psychology, which treats authoritarianism as innate to the personality, and sociology, which considers authoritarianism a result of one's environment and posits that it may be influenced by factors such as religion.

A longitudinal study of Americans born in the 1920s found that this effect held for traditional church-centered religion but not for those that are seeking non-institutional spirituality. The latter mode of religion is "characterized by an openness to new experiences and by creativity and experimentation, characteristics that are antithetical to the conventionality that adheres in authoritarianism".

* * * * * * * * * *




Christianity 20 Years after 9/11/2001
by R.E. Slater

I've been finding Tripp's 14 or so podcasts on white authoritarian religious groups very relevant. These past recent years has shown to America the highly uncivil rhetoric and radical nationalism which has swept up the greater part of evangelicalism. If you, like myself, are finding yourself at a greater and greater distance from your church, family and friends, this is why.

Theo-Politicism has swept into the church and neatly divided 30% of us from our present fellowships. In these podcasts Diana has been tasked with reporting from the Pew Surveys and PRRI surveys issued recently during the discussions (the ones I listed not long ago that are always available to the public)....

Diana's religious focus is on reporting on the history of the contemporary Christian church as a religious sociologist who participates with these surveys on a regular basis and has written many books and blog articles over the years based upon her findings. You may also walk with her weekly on her website, "The Cottage".

R.E. Slater
November 15, 2021


You may subscribe free of charge -
https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/


also check youtube for more of diana's podcasts -
https://www.youtube.com/results...

and of course anything tripp fuller -
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tripp+fuller

Homebrewed Christianity -
https://www.youtube.com/results...


mine own site -
https://relevancy22.blogspot.com/



* * * * * * * *






Tripp Fuller Live Streaming W/ Diana Butler Bass
Jun 16, 2021




Invite to "Oh God, What Now?"
with Brian McLaren & Diana Butler Bass
Aug 25, 2021




Session 1
20 Years of Religious Decline
Aug 31, 2021




Session 2
The Rise of Authoritarianism
Sep 7, 2021




Q&A - Session 2
with Brian McLaren & Tripp Fuller
Sep 8, 2021




Session 3
Repentance and Resistance
Sep 14, 2021




Q&A - Session 3
with Diana Butler Bass & Tripp Fuller
Sep 16, 2021





Diana Butler Bass' Session 4 discussion | artwork by Steve Thomason



Session 4
Theology and Spirituality in a Time of Rupture
Sep 21, 2021




Q&A - Session 4
with Diana Butler Bass & Tripp Fuller
Sep 23, 2021




Session 5
Inter-Religious Learning w/ Brian McLaren
Sep 28, 2021




Q&A - Session 5
with Brian McLaren & Tripp Fuller
Sep 30, 2021




TheoCon Presentation by Brian McLaren
the Parable of the Kayakers
Jul 12, 2020


More TheoCon here - Https://Theologycon.Com



Session 6
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
with Diana Bass, Brian McLaren, and Tripp Fuller
Oct 5, 2021




Moral Injury & the War on Terror
with Army Chaplain Dr. Josh Morris
Sep 9, 2021





Saturday, November 13, 2021

Process vs Classic Church Theism: Cobb v Geisler, Part 2



Process vs Classic Church Theism:
Cobb v Geisler
Part 2

by R.E. Slater


Process Theology Debate:
Norman Geisler vs. John Cobb
Posted: Aug 21, 2021


De Veritate Apologetics and Philosophy

In this debate, Norman Geisler defends the position of 
classical theism against the process theology of John Cobb.

Comment: "As a former evangelic I totally understand the need for evangelicalism to claim victory in this debate. But now, as a process guy, I see all too plainly the obtuseness of Geisler's claimed victories and how he argued from his own self-referential and self-reinforcing theistic system putting words into Dr. Cobb's speech as well as process thought itself that aren't there. Pleases note: Part 2 is not on the youtube video nor could I locate it anywhere except here as linked below." - R.E. Slater

Overview: Geisler defends Evangelicalism
"Process Theism versus Classical Theism" - Click here to hear Part 1 and Part 2 of a fascinating debate from the 1980s between Norman Geisler and John Cobb on Process Thought (a.k.a. Process Theism, Process Theology, Process Cosmology, Process Philosophy) and the strange, panentheistic God-world model of process philosopher A.N. Whitehead. John Warwick Montgomery was present at the debate and told Norm that he had just totally destroyed Process Thought.

* * * * * * * *


Earlier Posts




* * * * * * * *


The Story of the Bible 2

"Every good theology needs a great philosophy to rest upon
even as a great philosophic-theology must rest on love."

- R.E. Slater


When it comes to evangelical theology one must realize almost immediately that its theology lies in the eclectic collection of many, many philosophies upon which it has been built. Mostly Greek Platonism, and later, Hellenised Neo-Platonism. Afterwards it goes through various permutations of Aristotelian Scholasticism, Reformational Enlightenment, pre-industrial Modernism, 19th Century Neo-Modernism, and now some kind of pre-structural postmodernism. All the while claiming evangelic theology has remained "true" to the Bible.

Which I find convenient as the evangelical bible curiously has remained amazingly "true" to their preferred collection of church creeds, dogmas, tenants, and doctrines. Each one formed as a faith-outcome under the philosophical theories of their century and belief system.

More so, evangelics know they are the right God and right belief because their preachers and theologians each tell them of the "correctness" of their faith as only a dogmatist can say such things. And for those bible teachers and theologs who would dare question evangelical church tradition? Well, excommunication from evangelical churches, schools, journals, publishers, and social media is the usual result. All-in-all its a nice, neat, tidy little system of religious control by evangelics of their contents and message.

But the Bible Tells Me So

Well yes it does, doesn't it? Especially if read in such a way which parrots back to us our belief systems. If you want a warrior God of wrath and hell, it's there. So too, a gospel based upon the Jewish legal propitiation tradition. Inerrancy? Inspiration? Divine revelation? Just read the bible and you'll find it. Reason to hate gays, condemn feminism, mock false teachers who preach God's love. There's plenty of sin verses to warn of "other gospels." My favorite are the knowing the will of God so certainly that any question we have can be found in the real Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that have been copied and recopied. In them we can instantly know the ancient customs of the day and how the religious people back then went wrong and God had to judge them with suffering, death, exile from their homes, and whatnot.

Yes, I'm being cynical as I look around at the church of my day and wonder how we are any different from the religious people back in the bible with only their rabbi's and the Holy Spirit to guide them. So if the bible tells me so and God's love is not being visibly seen, shared, or felt, then I suppose all of us better re-examine how our beliefs got to a place where all people are condemned, going to hell, and disbelieved because our preachers, books, journals, and schools have told us only our own interpretations of the bible are the correct versions of the "true" bible we know and love.

Philosophies now and then

I know of no philosophy which would say it is the correct, God-given philosophy to read the bible in. But they are there across its pages to the scholarly eye versed in ancient, pre-modern, post-scholastic forms of thinking, being, and doing. And when interpreting the bible's collection of ancient legends and narratives it would be best if those passages were better considered from their point of view rather than our own glossy point of view.

So let's take a further step back and ask what kind of philosophies permeated the collection of ancient Semitic (Near-Eastern) narratives within the sanctified, inspired pages of the inerrant evangelic Bible. Pick any ancient Kingdom - from the Akkadians to the Sumerians, from the Amoritic to the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Perian Kingdoms. And don't forget to include the many Egyptian dynasties either to complete this short list of cultural beliefs, legends, superstitions, folklore, and mystifying astrological observations where each empire, each civilization, held a kind of philosophy unique to their religious belief systems. And if you read the Bible knowledgably - that is, being familiar with ancient language, customs, and beliefs, you can see each of these era-specific philosophies readily standing out.




What's the point? Over nearly 4000 years of ancient Old Testament history, plus another 2000 years of New Testament history (if we include the historic creedal eras of the church) you can imagine the kaleidoscope of philosophic variants washing up upon the shores of religious beliefs and civilization to be imbibed, composed, synthesized, re-composed, and re-synthesized, into a labyrinth of religious  beliefs again, and again, and again.

At which point the Bible scholar comes along to decipher these beliefs to pick and choose among them the most accurate portrayal of God and religion. This scholar would be a man or woman knowledgeable in ancient linguistics, morpho-orthography, social anthropology, ancient Semitic and Greek culture, Hellenistic culture, and over-and-above all this, hopefully knowledgeable with all major Western, Continental, Near-Eastern, and Oriental philosophies over the past 2000 years.

All this so that we can state as "true" believers that we have a "true" bible which tells us of the "true" God we believe in. So let me ask again... "How do we know we have come to have all these theistic assurances? For one, biblical theologs, like Norman Geisler, have come along in their day to tell us what we should believe. But I also suspect evangelic beliefs like yesteryear's creedal doctrines all hinged on the kind of religious tradition we were raised in - or are actively involved - to claim such religious hubris.




The Art of Biblical Hermeneutics

Historically, as cultures have grown they tend to be built upon each earlier generation's labors and energies. It would not be uncommon to walk around London, England, to dig down 80 feet, perhaps more, and discover, layer by layer, the earlier histories of the men and women living their lives out in Old London stretching across the eras of its past back to its earliest days upon the Thames.

This illustration would not be unlike a theologian's efforts - be they ancient or modern. Each bible scholar of the past has waded across the muck of outrider gnostic philosophies intermixed with their own philosophical cultural traditions. And in their mirey treks have attempted to ask the question who is God? How would God communicate Himself to mankind? What would God say to us now? What would it mean to us today? And why would God's revelation be important?

We might ask the further question of whether a biblical speaker speaks for God or man; and if his or her revelations fairly represents the God we think we know off the biblical page? Whether in our defensive Christian apologies we are really sharing the God of the bible or the God of our belief systems? When I listen to dear Norman Geisler I find myself asking this question again and again as he strives to be the best servant of the Lord in the history of servant leaders of the bible and the church.

For myself, I've tried to make it really, really simple since I don't pretend to be a smart man. Perhaps  a diligent student of the Lord's trying to put things together in my own way, but I need something unremarkable about God and His church to help me know if what I believe about God is worthy of my time, attention, life, family, and energies.

The Art of Christian Living

After 6000 years of communicating to man - which the bible tells is what God has been doing through human voices, convictions, events both natural and man-made, His prophets, priests, apostles, and especially Jesus, His Son, Word, and very God of very God. Jesus, who upended all previous and future religious voices with a simple dictum....

Can you guess what that dictum was? What Jesus summed up as man's duty to God? Jesus said He could sum up God's revelation in one word which would hold us responsible before His Father and one another. That word? Yes, the word love.

Imagine, all the time and effort so many have put into their faith and belief systems coming down to understanding, receiving, giving, being, and becoming the incoming and outgoing process event of love. More a verb than it is a noun, except as a noun it defines the verb which is to be acted upon. God is love. Not was. Is. Love. The Apostle John wrote and rewrote this simple little word across the pages of his first epistle, I John. In Jesus he heard the word love and so reminded the Jesus follower to learn to love because it's the hardest thing to do, be and share.

Certainly, there's got to be more to the Christian religion, or any religion!, than this simple word love, isn't there!? I mean Yahweh took pains to tell us of Himself as the God above all other polytheistic gods! That He is the Sovereign Creator over every creative force! That He is the Heavenly Guide to all furtive soul travellers seeking the meaning of life! But to camp down on the word love when power, glory, divinity, majesty, rulership is so much more to God than love!???

Yes, perhaps Jesus got it wrong. That Jesus really didn't understand Himself as the Creator God of the universe. As the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But I don't think so. When I read bible I read of a Suffering Servant (Isaiah 52.13-53.12). Of a God who was "Cut as Abram' Covenant of Protection and Guide (Genesis 15.12-19), the Altar upon which lambs are slain before the foundation of the world (Exodus 12.21-28), whereupon sin and evil has been laid upon His uplifted Cross (John 19.23), that all rulers and kingdoms come before the God of sacrifice, love, and service, to be judged for their deeds (Revelation 19-21).

How can God's love rectify a host of philosophies, religious traditions and beliefs, and human effort? Because, my friends, it does. It will. It can. Love God. Love neighbor. This was my very simple determinant if a church or a society or a belief is worthy of being trusted, followed, and exampled. Of course, I wish to speak the most correct thoughts about the God I love. Which is also why I am being quite disagreeable with my past fundamental and evangelical heritage gone off the rails in so many unloving, ungodly directions.

So I think we can do better. But to start let's learn to love. The knowledge part is irrelevant without the loving part. That we, as Jesus followers, know and share the God of love who defines His holiness, His Being, His Essence as LOVE first, last, and foremost. Our Lord is the Alpha and Omega of love worthy to be heard, imagined, and testified to by word and deed.

Lastly, Love is a lifelong lesson in itself. I can't imagine anything harder to do then to love one another in all our differences. Let's start today as Jesus had asked His followers many years ago. Let's leave everything else aside until our spouses, kids, family, friends, workmates, neighbors, schools, churches, and communities know we our the children of God because we love as God loves and wish to love all we meet in loving support, encouragement, respect, thought, service, act, and deed. Help us, O' Lord ,to love. Amen.

R.E. Slater
November 12-13, 2021



click to enlarge


The Meaning of Life According to Different Philosophies



Friday, November 12, 2021

Process vs Classic Church Theism: Cobb v Geisler, Part 1



Process vs Classic Church Theism:
Cobb v Geisler
Part 1

My Story, Part 1
by R.E. Slater

Perhaps having come to process philosophy and theology late in life has given to me the added advantage of being intimately familiar with the fundamental and conservative evangelical positions of classic theism.

I was raised and taught within the Baptist & Reformed traditions of belief through my first five+ decades of life and only lately became aware of a shift within my faith tradition though I had felt it for years. Even as far back as university.

A shift that had been rumbling in my soul for many decades but at the last was resurrecting in my heart and head even as I was trying to ignore it as I concentrated on business, raising kids, being seriously active in community, school boards, public and civic commissions, youth rec, and  adult sports.

When the Lord called me to begin a very broad and deep personal transformation from classicism to process Christianity it was something I withstood for a number of months.

And now, when I listen to Norman Geisler debate John Cobb I no longer can hear Geisler's theistic arguments knowing how far astray they have gone from declaring the biblical faith as set in the Hebrew, and later, Greek Scriptures as Jesus and the prophets had at one time perceived them.

And while I now better understand, and can appreciate Cobb's responses, to the many dodges and false trails of Geisler's beliefs as he obstinately upheld a Christian tradition, these same arguments bounce around today from pulpit to pulpit unwilling to listen and learn for fear God and the gospel of Christ will be lost.

Let me just say, from my personal experience as one who was once sympathetic to these apologies, that God was never lost or outgrown. If anything, God is larger, more relevant, and more amazing in every aspect of His Triune being even as my Christology has found a firmer footing from a metaphysical, ontological, epistemological, and theological basis. Nothing was lost but my unbiblical ideas of the bible and God.

And there's the rub, and the challenge. I fully understand it and do confess a sensibly trained Christian cannot approach process theology without a willingness to let go and let God. But I will have you also know, I can preach the bible as I was taught without losing an ounce of God or God's Word.

Epistemologically, its not like relocating the football field's goalposts. It's more like relocating the entire football field and then abandoning it altogether. And while this is done, to reinvent an entirely new game and then disuse that as well. When the bastions of our personal foundations are uplifted and destroyed its like having to start over again but without actually starting over. Just rethinking what you've heard and placing it into a more proper, godly, salvific context. At least that was how I experienced it.

Lastly, let me share my "conversation with God" when He called me to this task. I took it very seriously and really didn't want anything to do with it. Here it goes:

God, "Hi. Let's talk. I need your help. Let's take up this thing called emergent Christianity and run with it a bit. See where it leads. My emergent/progressive servants are enlivening the Faith again by shaking it from its anomalies and foibles. It's time we take this a step or two further. Can you help Me?"

Me, "Lord, No, I cannot. I've been out of lay ministry for quite a while now and was never formally active in it to begin with though I have an M.Div. degree. Use your own ministers and pastors here in Bible Belt, USA. They're familiar with Scriptures. They like to shout and state their hard-headed opinions. And they've become their own public institutions which your people will listen too. PLUS, I have confidence in them! I am not qualified."

The Lord, "Yes, yes, yes, but it's you I want, not them."

But Lord, "Please, give this burden to someone else! I am not fit for such a task!"

Yahweh, "Funny you should mention that... I've heard this line several times before."

Me, "Sheesh, Lord! Really?! You're going to play the guilt-trip card?! Do you realize I'll lose all my Christian friends, probably my family too, and have no church in town to fellowship with once Rob Bell and the emergent crew are scrubbed out by my well meaning, officious church brethern."

El Shaddai, "Rob bore his burden as well as he could. You saw him suffer for My name as he tried to speak of ME in ways people, both saved and unsaved, could hear. But I need a few more men and women soldiers. Now take up my mantle and speak My Love into a religious world which no longer can see or hear ME."

Me, "Thanks Lord. It'd be a deep privilege but this will be an absolute disaster. My heavy heart is already broken and certainly needs repair. Perhaps, maybe, this is the thing to help me get re-righted again."

Jesus, "Ah, Hey! Nice seeing you and Abba and talking this out! Great! You and my Father will get along just fine but first, one thing.

Me, "Oh, hey. Hi. I'm afraid to ask what this one thing might be?"

Jesus, "Nothing hard really. The very first thing you'll need to do is to learn to unlearn in order to relearn from my Father and I. Our Comforter will lead and guide you along your way. Ta Ta. And thanks again!"

The first thing you'll have to do is to learn to unlearn to relearn. Let's begin there."

And with that, God abandoned me after calling me. His Spirit then led me into a very dark, very lonely, wilderness which didn't end until it needed to be ended. Throughout my abandonment God was not with me. I was very much in a black pit and felt forsaken. And there I stayed refusing to leave until the job was done.

Paradoxically, though I felt keenly God's absence He curiously left His Spirit as guide and mentor. I know, I know, the One is the same as the Other but semantically, in my classical tradition, this is how I felt.

And with that my journey began. Out of the church and into a large wilderness of doubt and uncertainty where no one else could go but me. With no help from no one and nowhere to turn. My burden was mine alone.

Even so Lord, thank you for this privilege - as ill timed, unwanted, and without any good outcome as it felt and came to be. In hindsight it was what needed to be done.

R.E. Slater
November 12, 2021

*I'll continue Part 2 when I begin to list out the pros and cons of the debate I am leaving below. Unfortunately, it sounds like it cut out at the end where it was really beginning to get interesting. For now, give a listen, and list out the things which really are "faith-breakers for you." I made my own list up many, many years ago. And though I never set out to solve this list, it eventually began to sort itself out as the years rolled by. Which is why I've put a lot of effort into Relevancy22. It's for people asking questions and looking for direction. For myself, I have found process faith a very helpful foundation for my Baptist-Reformed tradition to be set upon. It has made this faith heritage much, much more meaningful. For others, maybe not. But once the Lord taught me there is never any reason to go backwards - only forwards - it simply has made sense to go forwards in this way. But to get there it only took the dismantling of my Jesus-Creed faith; you know, "No big deal."


Process Theology Debate:
Norman Geisler vs. John Cobb
Posted: Aug 21, 2021


De Veritate Apologetics and Philosophy

In this debate, Norman Geisler defends the position of 
classical theism against the process theology of John Cobb.

Comment: "As a former evangelic I totally understand the need for evangelicalism to claim victory in this debate. But now, as a process guy, I see all too plainly the obtuseness of Geisler's claimed victories and how he argued from his own self-referential and self-reinforcing theistic system putting words into Dr. Cobb's speech as well as process thought itself that aren't there. Pleases note: Part 2 is not on the youtube video nor could I locate it anywhere except here as linked below." - R.E. Slater

Overview: Geisler defends Evangelicalism
"Process Theism versus Classical Theism" - Click here to hear Part 1 and Part 2 of a fascinating debate from the 1980s between Norman Geisler and John Cobb on Process Thought (a.k.a. Process Theism, Process Theology, Process Cosmology, Process Philosophy) and the strange, panentheistic God-world model of process philosopher A.N. Whitehead. John Warwick Montgomery was present at the debate and told Norm that he had just totally destroyed Process Thought.


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The Story of the Bible 1

"Every good theology needs a great philosophy to rest upon
even as a great philosophic-theology must rest on love."

- R.E. Slater


Classical Theism leans heavily upon literalism, biblicism, and the proof-texting of its own apologetics. Back in the 16th Century, Christianity was dealing with the same questions of faith trying to determine how one's belief is valid beyond merely believing. I share there attempt further below by roughing out Edward Herbert's epistemological approach to believing in God.


As a process theologian, let's just say, faith is a Spirit thing.

You cannot prove God. But we know God is there because, well, His Spirit has confirmed it upon our heart.

Nonetheless, our faith must be examined, and if not, it becomes a worthless thing which cannot relate to our mission field. You know... those people out there whom we meet everyday in contemporary society.

Now many we meet will like the old timey cultural mores from present church-cultural traditions and prefer to see life through a bottle as the church has always done. However, there are many more who do not prefer to look at life in this way. They wish to challenge faith. Test it out. See how it runs on the roads of philosophy, science, psychology, technology, literature, anthropology, and such like. And these are the people who are my mission field more so than the Christian church. Seekers requiring a more up-to-date, relevant, and contemporary Christian faith.

So when I listen to "Norman, the Man, Geisler," with his shirt-sleeves rolled up vigorously defending and preaching the faith, I'm also listening in a process way to all the things he is bringing up wrongly. That he is purposely saying wrong for effect while-all-the-while reinforcing his faith as the rightful faith of the Bible Belt church. His church. His Midwest religious body of beliefs.

And with a nod to process personalism, "Yes, Norman's very religious being had changed during that hour of debate" though he thought it not so as he hunkered down in his heart chalking up a victory for God by standing against the process heretics of his day." Well done, Norman. You've proved process' observation that we can, and will, change by our everyday lived experiences even as Pharaoh did before God when listening to his adopted, half-brother Moses.

Moreover, Norman's faith, as was my own faith not many years before, is the kind of Christian faith that America was built by white nationalism and exclusion, manifest destiny, ungenerous capitalism, indentured service, childhood work factories, racial slavery of  Blacks, Asians and Native Americans, and the succession of good white Christians from the Yankee abolitionist states of America.

So yes, if you're going to bail out now on process theology know that God's love goes to everyone and not to one's own self-declared religious body unwilling to listen to God while more-than-willing to break an expanding, polyplural democracy seeking civil and religious rights for all. Remember, what one believes bears the outcomes of one's faith in humanity. I, for one, chose process as much for its outcomes as I did because it made complete theological sense. Perhaps Herbert (below) will allow my faith-arguments based upon his own previous surmises of the past.  :)

R.E. Slater
November 12, 2021



De Veritate = "Truth is found in the Thing or the Object" of belief, reasoning, or proof

I.

De Veritate, is a major ecclectic work of Edward Herbert published in 1624. It approaches a kind of epistemological knowing from a number of bases:
  • truth in the thing or the truth of the object;
  • truth of the appearance;
  • truth of the apprehension (conceptus);
  • truth of the intellect.
II.

Further, the faculties of the mind may be arranged in four indisputable groups:
  • Notitiae communes - refers to the natural instinct, or a kind of intimate knowledge, or the strong emotion borne within the human soul as innate instincts of humanity borne of divine origin;
  • Sensus internus - the internal sensory perception which feels love, hate, fear, pangs of conscience borne upwards into the soul via free will and communis notitia;
  • Sensus externus - the sensory perception of external data related to rational reasoning. Example: sensus communis in the thought of Aristotle, refers to the mental faculty that takes data provided by the five senses and integrates them into unified perceptions.
  • Discursus - human reasoning, which is the least certain and only given consideration when other sensory faculties fail.


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Process Shorts - The Process God of a Process Universe




The Process God of a Process Universe
by R.E. Slater


The God of process who spoke process from His Being
into a process-less primordial void. - re slater


What if the universe, pre-Big Bang, began with the ability to create life in its potentiality as a primordial cosmic singularity? That in it's very structures it would be literally impossible not to create life?

If, underlying all of the universe's randomness and chaos, it's teleology was always conditionally set to relentlessly pursue, bring forth, adapt to, and overcome, any obstacle which denied to it's inner cosmic core the insatiable urge to create, to birth, to bring wellbeing, to any form of energy or force?

Process theology says the process God of creation breathed into (gave to) the very nature of the existing primordial soup of the (uni)cosmos, His essence, His being, His very Self, into "becoming" upon an eternally un-formed, infinitely dense, massively uniform, primordial space yet to birth time, matter, and the quantum forces we see today.

That is, God gave to the void of creation His own process Image, Nature, Self, and Being. 

Which means that from like to like, from our process God to a process universe, process is therefore all around us in its every form because process is inherent in the very structure and outcomes of creation.

That this God of process, who was the First Order of all succeeding processes, had filled the entirety of creation with orders-and-orders-of-magnitudes of endless, process-becoming, creativity. That the Creator God filled this primordial cosmic soup-of-a-singularity to overflowing with the insatiable urge to overcome all barriers, all obstacles, in its need to bring forth life, creativity, novelty, and wellbeing in all their forms and meanings.

That creation's very cosmic essence is eternally in the process of creative, spontaneous, becoming. And because its cosmocreational structure is thus, it may give birth to universes, multiverses, and create an unstoppable, infinite array of evolutionary becoming.

That the God of the possible came upon the improbable and filled the very building blocks of creation with life upon life upon life.

That this "ether-like" spirit-quality drives itself forward against all that is not life.

We may then call this urge, drive, force, or energy, the process structures of the cosmos which comes from the God who births all processes into *becoming (rather than being) from His own Being into that which was not structured like this before.

Process then is both the starting point - and inherent embedded teleology - found in every portion of creational-cosmic existence wherever we look.

In essence, life strives for life in all that becomes from being.


R.E. Slater
November 6, 2021
edited November 12, 2021

*That is, creatio continua v creatio ex nihilo, meaning God births from what's there rather than births from nothing; assuming the primordial void is as old as God Himself - or perhaps, when the primordial void came into being so did God; but the former remained as void until the latter spoke into it life.
Process theology allows for both views but it makes more sense in the science realm to apply it to the creatio-primordial rather than thinking something can be born from nothing. Science says there must be something from which "nothing" can be born.
Thus, God acted upon the primordial void as versus creating the primordial void. It makes God no less God but it definitely screws with the classic theistic mindset built upon Greek and Hellenistic philosophies. - re slater