Quotes & Sayings About Process Theology

Religion does a lot of good, especially the loving kind, like at Grace Church. I know people who went to a more liberal kind of Christianity and were happy with that. The problem is, for me, there was a process involved in moving from Pentecostalism to a more liberal theology, like Grace Church. What makes me different is that process didn't stop, and it took me all the way. In the end, I couldn't help feeling that all religion, even the most loving kind, is just a speed bump in the progress of the human race. — Jerry DeWitt

No sensitive Christian can be satisfied with a distinction between righteousness and unrighteousness drawn only between communities, with each individual belonging unambiguously on one or the other side of the line. The behavior of "the righteous" is often very disappointing, while "the unrighteous" regularly perform in a manner that is much better than our theology might lead us to expect of them. Thus the need for a perspective that allows for both a rather slow process of sanctification in the Christian life and some sort of divine restraint on the power of sin in the unbelieving community. These theological adjustments to a religious perspective that might otherwise betray strong Manichean tones provide us with yet another reason for openness to a broad-ranging dialogue: Christians have good grounds for believing that their own weakness can be corrected by encountering the strengths of others. — Richard J. Mouw

Our dreams are a window into our theology. We are a proud people, the inheritors of the American Dream - the pursuit of happiness is our inalienable right. Like bratty, self-involved little kids, we push past the Giver to grab for the gift. Can you see it? We use God for health, wealth, and emotional well-being, and in the process, we miss out on relationship with our heavenly Father. — Tullian Tchividjian

Real comfort is found when I understand that I am held in the hollow of the hand of the One who created and rules all things. The most valuable thing in my life is God's love, a love that no one can take away. When my identity is rooted in him, the storms of trouble will not blow me away.

This is the comfort we offer people. We don't comfort them by saying things will work out. They may not. The people around them may change, but they may not. The Bible tells us again and again that everything around us is in the process of being taken away. God and his love are all that remain as cultures and kingdoms rise and fall. Comfort is found by sinking our roots into the unseen reality of God's ever-faithful love. — Paul David Tripp

The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality. He will think that the eyes of the Church or of the Bible or of his particular theology have already done the seeing for him, and that his business is to rearrange this essential vision into satisfying patterns, getting himself as little dirty in the process as possible. — Flannery O'Connor

The church has contributed nothing to civilization. It has progressed somewhat, and it has become a little more decent, in reflection of the movements of civilization that have taken place outside of the church and usually in the face of the strong opposition of the church. But the church has always resisted the process of civilization. It has struggled to the last ditch, by fair means and foul, to preserve as long as it could the vestiges of ancient and medieval theology, with all the puerile moralities and harsh customs and medieval styles of belief. — E. Haldeman-Julius

My concern with this is not about who owns the trademark. If a label is used chiefly to lionize "us" and demonize "them," we'd be better off without it. Rather, my concern is that the richness and breadth of Reformed faith and practice are being reduced to a few doctrines. In the process, even those doctrines lose much of their supporting rationale. In fact, their meaning changes at crucial points. For example, I believe that the doctrine of election is inextricably bound up with covenant theology and with the covenantal life that is shaped in the New Testament by the means of grace. As I have argued, even "eternal security" is different from the doctrine of perseverance. — Michael S. Horton

Neoclassical theology corrects misconceptions about God that are neither experientially true nor biblically grounded. If God were "omnipotent" in the sense of absolute determinism, then creation, and especially humans, would have no freedom. Freedom and absolute determinism negate one another. From the perspective of process metaphysics, if God were fully deterministic, then one could not speak of freedom of the will, the ability to choose to participate in God's creativity or not. God is in control, but God is not a control freak! God is not a "tyrant," puppeter, or robotic engineer! — Karen Baker-Fletcher

This is the process of Self realization about which Eastern mystics have written. It is the process of salvation to which much Western theology has devoted itself. This is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, moment-to-moment act of supreme consciousness. It is a choosing and a re-choosing every instant. It is ongoing creation. Conscious creation. Creation with a purpose. It is using the tools of creation we have discussed, and using them with awareness and sublime intention. — Neale Donald Walsch

So we speak of a Black God, Mother God, Worker God.
This de-mystifies what's been passed on to us! In our process of organization and liberation of our people, it's important to meet a God who is more like us. (Silvia Regina de Lima Silva, p. 105) — Mev Puleo

The fundamental question pertaining to voting ethics which Christians must ask at this presidential election is this: "What are the binding principles established by God in the Bible for selecting a civil magistrate?" All other questions are secondary or irrelevant. Once this standard is determined it is our duty to wisely apply the principles and precepts to our American context and to obey. All attempts by Christians to obfuscate our duty to repair to "the standard" by sprinkling the debate with the theology of pragmatics and partisan politics is a loss to the Church because it means that we are more concerned with manipulating a political process then simply obeying the sovereign God — Douglas W. Phillips

Consistently, [Yves] Congar emphasized the distinction between Tradition and traditionalism. The latter was an unyielding commitment to the past. The former was a living principle of commitment to the Beginning, a process that required creativity, inspiration, and a spirit of openness to the present as well as respect for the past.
Two of Congar's works, on reform in the church and on the theology of the laity, proved especially controversial ... Congar believed that reform was a vital and necessary dimension of the church. This was rooted in the distinction between the church and the kingdom of God and in the intermingling in the church of both divine and human elements. In light of the church's constant temptation to revert to institutionalism, it was always necessary to allow room for the prophetic voice, issuing from the margins, even though this might mean attending to uncomfortable truths. — Robert Ellsberg

The characteristic common to God and man is apparently that: the desire and the ability to make things. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Well, it's because I gladly acknowledge some ideas that are part of process theology, but which I think are not tied to all the details of process thought, and are very illuminating and helpful. — John Polkinghorne