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

Thursday, March 10, 2022

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




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


Questions for Open and Relational Theologians


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


Where is God for the Dying Giraffe?

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

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

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

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




* * * * * * *



Does God Love Animals?


Dear Dr. Jay McDaniel,

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • How does the giraffe feel God's presence, even if in an unconscious way? Is God's presence what process theologians call an initial aim: that is, a lure to live with satisfaction relative to the situation at hand?
  • Do crocodiles also feel God's luring presence? Do they, too, feel God's immanence as a lure to live with satisfaction? Is their hunger a response to God's lure?
  • If God lures the giraffe and the crocodiles toward these competing aims, is God conflicted? Or does God take sides?
  • Nita Gilger writes:
"The giraffe was so very vulnerable. It was not a fair fight or in any way merciful. It almost seemed like the crocodiles were taking delight in the suffering of their prey as it struggled to free itself from their grasp. Instead of just chomping the juggler, the crocs took turns maiming and drowning the giraffe as it cried out."

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

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


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

Need help,
​Delores






Pluriform Love: An Open and
Relational Theology of Well-Being


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

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

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





Why Isn't Divine Love Enough?

by R.E. Slater


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

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

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

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

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

  • A creation which is physically conflicted - human disabilities for instance or those "tweener" stages of evolutionary development responding too slowly or too quickly to the conditions around it?
  • Or a creation which is psychologically conflicted - something along the lines of the Apostle Paul who said, "We/It wishes to do good but cannot do good."
Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? (Romans 7.13)

  • Or a creation which is spiritually conflicted? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So has God. Not by fiat but by love.


Small Ukrainian Child


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen and Amen,

R.E. Slater
March 10, 2022


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A Covid19 molecule


An Unsolvable Paradox

Should this help...
This is what I was going to write...


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace,

R.E. Slater
March 10, 2022

 

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

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



Bill Leonard - The Fundamentalization of American Religion






March 8, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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




Check out these books by Dr. Leonard:

Previous Podcasts w/ Dr. Leonard:


01:33:24

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


Monday, March 7, 2022

Jesus De/Constructed for Lent - Introduction




JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT
AN INTRODUCTION


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

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


Class Outline

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

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

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

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

Reading: Guide to Jesus ch 2-4

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

Reading: Guide to Jesus ch 5-7

3/24 SESSION 4: Freeing Jesus from Christendom Capture

Reading: Freeing Jesus ch 1-3

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

Reading: Freeing Jesus ch 4-6

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

Reading: Freeing Jesus conclusion & Guide to Jesus ch 8

SPECIAL BONUS SESSION: After Jesus Before Christianity

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


Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp


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 JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED RESOURCES


Amazon Link

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.
Christianity has endured for more than two millennia and is practiced by billions worldwide today. Yet that longevity has created difficulties for scholars tracing the religion’s roots, distorting much of the historical investigation into the first two centuries of the Jesus movement. But what if Christianity died in the fourth or fifth centuries after it began? How would that change how historians see and understand its first two hundred years?
Considering these questions, three Bible scholars from the Westar Institute summarize the work of the Christianity Seminar and its efforts to offer a new way of thinking about Christianity and its roots. Synthesizing the institute’s most recent scholarship—bringing together the many archaeological and textual discoveries over the last twenty years—they have found:
  • There were multiple Jesus movements, not a singular one, before the fourth century
  • There was nothing called Christianity until the third century
  • There was much more flexibility and diversity within Jesus’s movement before it became centralized in Rome, not only regarding the Bible and religious doctrine, but also understandings of gender, sexuality and morality.
  • Exciting and revolutionary, After Jesus Before Christianity provides fresh insights into the real history behind how the Jesus movement became Christianity.
After Jesus Before Christianity includes more than a dozen black-and-white images throughout.


Amazon Link

The award-winning author of Grateful goes beyond the culture wars to offer a refreshing take on the comprehensive, multi-faceted nature of Jesus, keeping his teachings relevant and alive in our daily lives.
How can you still be a Christian?
This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church and its leadership. But while many Christians have left their churches, they cannot leave their faith behind.
In Freeing Jesus, Bass challenges the idea that Jesus can only be understood in static, one-dimensional ways and asks us to instead consider a life where Jesus grows with us and helps us through life’s challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.
Freeing Jesus is an invitation to leave the religious wars behind and rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Jesus beyond the narrow confines we have built around him. It renews our hope in faith and worship at a time when we need it most.


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


Amazon Link

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

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

What They're Saying...

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

"Tripp Fuller masterfully engages the crucial Christian question: Who do we say Jesus is? Engaging history, philosophy and theology, Fuller offers a vision of Jesus that weds evangelical convictions with progressive insights. His work stands alone side that of John Cobb, David Griffin and Elizabeth Johnson for required reading in Christology."
-- Monica A. Coleman, Professor of Africana Studies, University of Delaware, author of Making a Way Out of No Way: a Womanist Theology


Saturday, March 5, 2022

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




Summary of the "International Open &
Relational Theology Online Conference"
February 19, 2022




SUCCESS!
February 19, 2022


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

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

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




Schedule of Speakers

~ This was a paid conference and videos can only
be posted if they are present on YouTube ~

9am Eastern
Rory Randall, An Open Theist Renewal Theology: God’s Love, The Spirit’s Power, and Human Freedom
Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord- Panelists: Joshua Reichard, Steve Harper, Chris Baker, Monte Lee Rice

10am Eastern
Sharon Baker Putt, A Nonviolent Theology of Love: Peacefully Confessing the Apostle’s Creed
Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord - Panelists: Brian Felushko, Deanna Young, Travis Keller, Annie DeRolf


11am Eastern
Matthew Korpman, Saying No to God: A Radical Approach to Reading the Bible Faithfully
Hosted by Brian Felushko- Panelists: Eric Seibert, Scott Spencer, Tammy Wiese

Noon Eastern
John Sanders, Embracing Prodigals: Overcoming Authoritative Religion by Embodying Jesus' Nurturing Grace
Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Mark Umstot, Ryan Lambros Janna Gonwa, Michael Brennan

1pm Eastern
Andrew Davis, Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy
Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: Andre Rabe, Austin Roberts, Sheri Kling, Fidel Arnecillo

2pm Eastern
Catherine Keller, Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy, and Other Last Chances
Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: Dhawn Martin, Andrew Schwartz, Elaine Padilla, Jea Sophia Oh

3pm Eastern
Matthew Segall, Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology
Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: John Pohl, Tim Miller, Michael Epperson, Tim Eastman

4pm Eastern
Bruce Epperly
, Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Clemette Haskins, Steve Watson, Tim Reddish, Clarence White

5pm Eastern
John Cobb, Salvation: Jesus’s Mission and Ours
Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Tripp Fuller, Thomas Hermans-Webster, Donna Bowman, Shaleen Kendrick, Krista E. Hughes

6pm Eastern
Andrew Williams, Boundless Love: A Companion to Clark H. Pinnock’s Theology
Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord - Panelists: Chris Fisher, Shawn Ryan, Linda Mercadante, Sharon Harvey



ADDENDUM