Theology Beer Camp Thoughts

I returned last night from Theology Beer Camp 2026 in Kansas City. The event was held at Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church, which is a wonderful facility. Theology Beer Camp itself was a 3-day event preceded by a 1-day pre-event conference on Open & Relational Theology. I was a newbie to the whole beer camp thing, and I really enjoyed myself. The beer provided by local microbreweries was absolutely fantastic. I would recommend going to this event in the future if the reader has the ability to do so.

Wonderful local microbrewery offerings at the event

In this blog, I thought I would put down a few concepts that I heard during Theology Beer Camp / the Open and Relational pre-event. My list of concepts is not exhaustive. These are the ideas that I found fascinating / intriguing / motivating.

A- Jonathan Foster had a wonderful quote that I wrote down during his talk at the pre-event: “Love is patient; anti-love is impatient.” He is a good follow on Substack, by the way.

B- During the pre-event, there was a discussion as to if creatio ex nihilo makes sense in the setting of 1) eternal creativity / novelty as seen in process theology and 2) eternal creativity / novelty through love as seen in open & relational theology. In this setting, God would have created the universe out of nothing with “nothing” being very poorly defined. I have posted about my problems with creativity and novelty in the setting of denying creatio ex nihilo in the past. Really, my problems are minor. Simply put, what we observe is refined over time in the setting of science. Examples include the progress made in the known realities of biological evolution, quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the spectrum of human sexuality. On the other hand, what we cannot observe also can be refined over time, but lack of observation invites a spectrum of subjectivity. Examples include angels, demons, heaven, hell, the multiverse, cyclic cosmology, and string theory. Some of these ideas listed that cannot observed also may be extremely valid and should be studied; some may be more steeped in cultural intermixing of myths. I cannot go beyond creatio ex nihilo without some clear evidence from the field of astronomy. At this point, the multiverse and cyclic cosmology are interesting theories based on zero evidence. I am willing to change my mind here, of course.

Hanging out with old and new friends

C- During a main stage talk titled “America at 250: The Genealogy of Religion’s Dissent”, the speakers Bill Leonard and Diana Butler Bass emphasized something that I have found problematic in much of American Christianity. Specifically, U.S. politics and its dangerous mixing into religion is now even a bigger fight than how we baptize Christians. Baptism fights have always been dumb; political fights in Christianity (“Are you a Republican?” or “Are you a Democrat?”) are even dumber.

D- I learned about Primitive Baptist Universalists located mainly in Appalachia. Wow, the spectrum of Christianity is surely fascinating!

E- Reportedly Samuel Beckett’s favorite word was “perhaps.” Now, chew on that idea for a while when considering process theology and open & relational theology.

F- Cornel West. There is not much to say here. He is one of the best speakers that I have ever heard. Even if you do not agree with him theologically or politically, his ability to have a crowd pay attention to him is nothing less than amazing. I wrote down a few of his quotes from the conference.

“Courage is a prerequisite for love.”

“The history of Christianity is of one organized greed and weaponized hate.”

He also made some good points about Plato’s influence on Christianity in the setting of Plato being a slave owner. In other words, Platonic writings and their influence on Christian thought is based on a historical figure (Plato) who was wealthy and owned slaves. Plato was a far cry from Jesus. I like to read Plato occasionally so I am going to have to remember this aspect.

Cornel West and Gary Dorrien speaking (moderated by Tripp Fuller)

G- Ilia Delio, the Franciscan sister and theologian, also gave an amazing main stage talk.

She thinks we are entering a second Axial Age likely due to social media and AI. This sounds interesting, but the whole idea of an original Axial Age is controversial.

“We went from orthopraxy to orthodoxy.” This is a great Delio quote as she emphasized that the love of the “other” is slowly being de-emphasized in many quarters of Christianity today. Further, she emphasized that 1) ancient Greek thought, 2) the Augustinian interpretation of “original sin”, and 3) Constantine’s incorporation of Christianity into the state apparatus have caused much of Christianity to lose its way. I very much agree with her.

Ilia Delio talk moderated by Dan Koch

H- I went to a talk about Reinhold Niebuhr. It was very interesting as he is a theologian with well-documented good points and bad points. In other words, I think it is helpful when we can all be shown to be simply human, even if we are great theologians. As I listened to the talk, I could not help but find a parallel between his ideas of Christian realism and the absurdism movement when it came to when and where force for social ills should be applied. It seems that inconsistency abounds here…but that is just my opinion.

I- On the last day, I went to a conference on how to preach about process theology in church. I’m not a pastor, but I have given sermons in the past when asked by clergy. I came away with the helpful idea that many pastors, ministers, etc. know what process theology generally is composed of and how it can be helpful. The laity, however, have no clue about this subject. A bridge is sorely needed here.

J- In a prior Substack post, I stated that my good friend, Chris Hanson MD, and I gave a talk at the event on why Christians should consider childhood vaccinations a gift from God. On the same day as our talk, Westboro Baptist Church protested outside our church building. Weird coincidence. Westboro appears to not be experiencing God’s lure for the good. I said a prayer for them.

Westboro protesters. They weren’t very nice.

The light cone. Perhaps one of the best metaphors for process philosophy and process theology. Image generated by Gemini Advanced.

Reading Some Hartshorne

I’m heading off to Theology Beer Camp in two days, and “yes,” there is a thing called “Theology Beer Camp.” Theology plus beer — sounds amazing. I have never gone to this event before, but I hear it is a great time. I believe that in-person tickets are now sold out, but individuals can still buy tickets for on-line participation.

I will be doing a talk with Dr. Chris Hanson at the Theology Beer Camp “Pregame.” Chris (a pediatrician from Memphis, Tennessee) and I (a pediatric gastroenterologist from Salt Lake City, Utah) will be doing a talk titled “Open & Relational Theology and Vaccines.” Chris and I are pro-vaccination as we are pediatricians. We also are Christians who believe that God lures us to perform good science to keep children safe from infectious diseases.

I have been practicing my talk, but I also have done some reading from Charles Hartshorne’s book, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method.

I thought his paragraph here was extremely interesting. I especially like the sentence in regard to Buddhism, “It tends to affirm both the relative and the absolute as in principle…” Hartshorne was mainly a philosopher of religion, so the reading here should not be offensive. He is simply performing comparative religious studies.

In short (and as part of a larger chapter), Buddhism may fit more into his concept of God.

What does he mean? In other writings, Hartshorne has described God as “dipolar” (not “bipolar” — that would be problematic). God is one God, but God has two natures.

Charles Hartshorne

God is both infinite and finite.

God is both whole being (constant) and becoming (changing) in real time.

God is outside of time and also in real time.

Alfred North Whitehead had previously used the term “dipolar”, and it appears that Hartshorne and Whitehead may have come up with the term independently!

Alfred North Whitehead

Whitehead, in Process and Reality, writes, “Thus, analogous to all actual entities, the nature of God is dipolar. He has a primordial nature and a consequent nature.”

Moving on in the book, we find this beautiful passage.

Thus, Whitehead and Hartshorne strike upon an interesting interpretation or perhaps interpretations of God. I tend to like such ideas and find them helpful for my daily walk as a Christian.

Going back to Hartshorne’s writings about Buddhism, I believe we can make some connections here. By the way, process theology and open & relational theology have much to say about this issue (see my previous posts).

I think he is saying that Christians tend to emphasize the “infinite” aspect of God at the expense of God’s real experience in the world. Likely, this belief has been influenced by Greek philosophy for better or for worse.

Hinduism, on the other hand, typically emphasizes change or cycles of impermanence. Certainly, there is Brahman, but Brahman is not always considered a personal or supreme deity. Brahman can be personal in the setting of the many faces of Hindu gods; however, it is unclear in Hinduism if change through time or the cycles of birth and destruction of all reality are guided. However, there IS permanence in the eternal cycle of birth and death, creation and destruction.

Image from the Rubin Museum

Buddhism…Well, that is different. I’m not a Buddhist. I’m also not Hindu.

I’m a Christian, but I think we can learn from other religions. Buddhism is essentially (in my opinion) about change and impermanence. Nothing lasts. The change is eternal. This is the finite pole. On the other hand, if the Buddha is interpreted as God who is eternally present and without beginning, then this is the infinite pole.

I think Hartshorne is saying the following: The dipolar nature of God, simply put, has an infinite aspect and a finite aspect. The “infinite” aspect of reality and thus God as described by all of the “omnis” of classical Christian theism (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent) lack a finite aspect or an ability to change. On the other hand, the “finite” aspect of reality and thus God as has been described in the realm of Hinduism (cosmology of infinite cycles, and thus, change) lack emphasis on infinite permanence.

Buddhism (again, I think Hartshorne is saying) has an infinite aspect (the deification of the Buddha as God or a manifestation of God) and a finite aspect (recognizing the preeminence of change in reality). However, this interpretation, I think, is based on the Mahayana tradition.

No Change + Change = God

This totally makes sense to me in the setting of the Christian Trinity. God is infinite. Jesus experienced the world as a finite being with the Holy Spirit continuing the finite experience of all humanity in the continuing progression of infinite time.

Fascinating ideas to consider whether one is Christian or not and whether one is religious or not.

Top image: The Crucifixion of Christ by Hans Baldung

Bottom Image: I created this image on Gemini Advanced of the primordial nature of God breaking into the consequent nature of the universe.

Passing the Peace at Church (While Reading)

Short post today.

I have a bad habit of reading during the sermon on Sundays. Honestly, I can get bored.

In my opinion, church sermons typically go against the ideas of adult learning theory especially in the age of social media. Also, I think sermons often retread ground as they go over the same issues over and over again.

Our new pastor at the PC-USA church that I attend does give good sermons. She has led our congregation for 2 years, and I think her preaching ability is a rare exception of thoughtfulness and presentation

I’m also not a fan of “passing the peace” at church. I think it is tribal (friend groups just talk to each other), too long, not healthy for people who are visiting a church for the first time, and not healthy for introverts (like me). Good posts about this issue are here and here and here.

Anyway, today I listened to a great sermon about Exodus 17: 1-7. Our pastor made some open & relational adjacent points about this Old Testament story. Good stuff.

Great read but the publisher (Open Court) misspelled the last name on the book.

I did, however, convert to reading during the passing of the peace. I greeted the folks directly around me and then read this wonderful passage from Charles Hartshorne’s book, “Creative Synthesis & Philosophic Method.”

One may agree with what Hartshorne is saying here or not, but the writing is glorious. It was like receiving a good second sermon today.

Hope you have a wonderful week!

Image made Gemini Advanced

Letters from Home

It has been a while since I last posted. Honestly, life has been hectic. I have a job that understandably takes up much time. I also had to go back to my mother’s house in Texas to clean out some things for her. Early fall in Texas is basically the Sahara Desert in regards to the heat, and my working in her garage for a few days wore me out.

While I was there, I picked up a few items for safekeeping.

The biggest things that I kept had to do with my father. He died in 2015 due to a car accident in the setting of dementia. He had suffered from dementia for probably over 10 years when I look back at it. It took me some time to work through his death. He was a very well-known military historian in the United States, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. It was terrible to see his decline especially since he was a loving husband, father, father-in-law, and grandfather. He lost not just cognitive ability over time but also his emotional control. These difficulties have haunted me for many years, and I bet there are readers who have experienced similar things within their families.

Texas State University – San Marcos

I DO remember my father at his peak — always interesting, always funny, always protective of his family with all its mainly positive but sometimes negative aspects. I loved the man.

As I cleaned out his last remaining boxes of various items, I found letters that I had always heard about. My father had correspondences with Francis Crick, C.P. Snow, and James Michener. Some of the letters were quite short; some were rather long in his lifetime.

Here is a letter from Francis Crick. The story goes that my father heard a radio broadcast or perhaps a TV interview in which Crick was disparaging about the study of history. My father got it into his mind that he should write Crick to correct him of his error here. The study of history is profoundly important. The reader may know that Crick was known to have a prickly personality. He wrote my father a short letter back (1992).

The funny thing is that my father was not offended. Crick called my father “Mr.” knowing full well that he was a tenured full professor. It was hilarious! My father told me, “I’m not insulted! I got a signed letter back from Francis Crick!”

Then there was C.P. Snow.

It is a long story, but C.P. Snow was invited to give a talk at my father’s university. I have written about this visit before in God and Nature Magazine. Afterwards, Snow and my father carried on a long letter correspondence as this was a time before email.

Even though he was “Lord Snow” at the time, C.P. Snow still signed his correspondence to my father as “Charles.” I love that.

I also found my father’s oral history which has been preserved at his university’s archives. The oral history project isn’t available online yet, but my father had saved a paper copy which I read through and took home.

I knew quite a bit about my father, but I DID NOT KNOW that he wanted to be a historian of science initially and not a military historian. However, he apparently was quite gifted with military history when he was getting his PhD, and that is the direction he went for career. I do find it interesting that much of his historical work had a science-y flavor to it (gallons of fuel, tons of ammunition, angles of army maneuvers, exact timetables).

My father and C.P. Snow (from https://godandnature.asa3.org/pohl-third-culture-in-church.html)

I guess all of these things make me think of the ideas contained within process philosophy. I like to think of this process as the multitude (perhaps infinitude) of past events coming together (a “concrescence”) into a single reality (an “occasion of experience”) in real time. That moment of reality then becomes the past which is part of the multitude of past events which affect all future events. Time is essential here.

Image from Open Horizons (https://www.openhorizons.org/twenty-key-ideas-in-process-thought.html)

Now that I have my theology degree, I have come to look at so much of life — joys, tragedies, successes, failures — as simple points of experience that become part of one’s background as one moves forward in time and in life. I believe this idea is much more true than any idea of a static reality.

It was nostalgic to find all of these old letters as well as my father’s preserved oral history. These small things influenced his life just as much as these letters and my father’s life have influenced me.

In keeping within the ideas of process theology, I do think God lures for us to be creative. God does not force but instead desires or wants us to be more loving / caring / creative / novel. In my father’s case, I think this lure was exemplified by how much his students loved him (he received many teaching awards). I think this lure was exemplified by how he treated his family. He was never perfect, but he was a damn good man.

I’m hoping some of that lure continues to persist in me.

We Are Still Searching

This week, I read the Ryan Burge Substack post titled “The Two Dimensions of Religious Belief in America.” This is a good Substack to follow, by the way.

In the post, he looked at data from the Pew Religious Landscape Study to see how Americans tend to look at their faith from an overall view. By an “overall view”, I mean he looked at the very basics of faith. You can read the post to see how his statistics were obtained.

The “10,000 foot” view

As someone who has done some survey research myself (not with the same expertise as Dr. Burge), I do realize the limitations of getting accurate responses, at times, from surveys.

The full article is behind a paywall. I would recommend paying for access. However, to summarize… It seems that Americans fall into 2 big categories: Those who are very doctrinal (i.e., absolutely sure God exists); those who are existential (i.e., may certainly believe in God but have lots of questions). Existential — Me, me, me!

His findings show that although Americans are becoming less doctrinal and existential over time and thus less religious (again, you have to trust the survey), the younger generations in our country are drifting into more existential beliefs.

The weird thing is that the existentialism is occurring in groups that I would not expect to be thinking in such a way — for example, Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslims. That being said, my Muslim friends are fairly existential so I speak from ignorance when I state I am surprised. I’m not a Latter-day Saint, but I live in Utah. I often am surprised at the number of my Latter-day Saint friends who are very existential in their beliefs. Again, I speak from ignorance.

The other interesting thing that he found in his study was that people who are more religious (such attending church services more frequently) tend to be more existential than doctrinal.

What do I think? I am starting to believe that world religions are not going away but are changing dramatically. I base this opinion strictly on what I am seeing in Utah where the LDS faith is really changing. However, such disruptions have been noted on the world scene. See here and here.

Perhaps some of these changes are based on what we see when we look at data on the “nones.” Most nones believe in some type of ultimate reality. Understandably, the ultimate is and should be poorly defined. The hardcore orthodox no-change-allowed religions are declining. The hardcore “new atheism” ideas are declining. I do think new ideas are sprouting in theistic and atheistic crowds that are not so combative. I am 100% willing to admit I am wrong.

Why is there change? I made this list.

Social media: I hate social media although I am on it. However, a benefit of social media is that it is making the world “smaller” with people’s exposure to other religions.

Mixture of cultures with migration: I think this is a good thing. I enjoy exposures to other cultures that are healthy.

AI: I’m not an AI doomer who thinks we are going to end up with a Terminator future. I think AI will provide exposure to other belief systems far more than even social media does currently.

Evolution: There is no “religion gene.” There is no on/off gene for complex ideas like religion or philosophy. However, we may have many, many genes working together in a complex manner that make humans necessarily religious most of the time. I would emphasize “most”, not “all”, because religion is not always beneficial. See here and here.

Epigenetics: Culture surely is an epigenetic phenomenon on a grand scale. Religion could be epigenetic. Religion also could be just an accident in human evolution that has no adaptationist advantage.

Science: It is very clear that as we learn more and more science, our view of divinity changes. As a simple example, think about how ideas surrounding God have changed as we have gone from thinking about 1) the Ptolemaic idea of the Earth to 2) heliocentrism to 3) the single-galaxy universe to 4) now knowing that we live in a universe (at least, the observable universe) with billions to trillions of galaxies. Quantum mechanics has changed how we think about God. Modern medicine has changed how we think about God (we are living longer and not as exposed to death). Unfortunately, military science has changed how we think about God.

I have no idea where all of this change is leading to. I do think, however, that we need to recognize this change and to start coming up with new ideas to help our species land in a relatively good position for long-term. H. sapiens is very warlike which is a tragedy. Maybe we can use the tools of change in a positive way to make our future metaphysics more peaceful and loving.

Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas

Ireland and the Ground

I apologize about the delay in blogging. I was on an extended trip to Ireland. I would like to say that I was being very cultural and immersing myself in Ireland’s rich history (I did quite a bit of this), but I really went there for a college football game in Dublin.

What I always appreciate about Europe, including Ireland, is its rich and very old history. The United States where I live is such a young country, notwithstanding the ancient presence of Native Americans in North America which is incredibly important.

I want to talk about some old artifacts (one quite ancient) that I saw in Ireland.

In Galway, I visited Saint Nicholas’ Collegiate Church which was built around 1320. Although now a Protestant church, it has an amazing array of overlap in its Catholic and Protestant history that still exists today. That overlap should be a blog post in itself.

While at the church, I visited its graveyard. I like visiting old graveyards simply as a reminder of one’s mortality. Some of the graves at Saint Nicholas’ Church were centuries old. As a result, the grave markings and headstones often were very eroded to the point that the words on the grave markers were very eroded and difficult to make out. Some of the graves, I assume, had completely dissolved away through time.

A picture from the graveyard behind the church. You can see the weathering on the headstones.

The other place that was interesting was my visiting of the geology building at Trinity College in Dublin. I was on a tour of the university (highly recommend), and the first floor of the geology building had a few fossils and crystals. One of the fossils belonged to the Ediacaran Period (around 635-541 million years ago). The Ediacaran Period existed before the Cambrian Explosion. Some people playfully consider this time period a “Garden of Eden” as it is very unclear what type of predatory behavioral was occurring during this stage of early life on the planet. Helpful references are here and here. I also recommend this well-written book.

Specifically, I was looking at Charnia masoni which I think is the first Precambrian fossil ever to be recognized.

The Ediacaran fossil (Charnia masoni) that I saw at Trinity College.

My understanding is that Charnia sp. probably were very ancient animals. They stuck to the ocean floor and used their “fronds” to filter feed. These animals eventually went extinct, and the cause of their extinction is unclear.

Charnia diorama, from the Smithsonian.

Can I make some sort of metaphysical connection here in the setting of the church graveyard and with the Charnia fossil? Perhaps. I have come to think that the persistence of experience is an essential part of nature. I’m not talking about the possibilty of an afterlife or ghosts. I’m stating that there is always experience throughout nature and throughout time.

From the first nucleosynthesis and star formation in the early universe to progressive entropy potentially in the setting of dark energy expanding our universe forever, there is always some type of experience. The universe experiences all such things.

I’m also not talking about consciousness necessarily. Yes, animals such as H. sapiens have consciousness, and experience contains consciousness. In this setting, I am simply discussing experience.

Perhaps I would agree with Friedrich Schelling that experience is an essential part of non-rational nature. Schelling would probably say this “ground” leads to self-manifestation; I would argue that the “ground” is experience itself. Experience is always present — everywhere and in real time.

So, I (John) experience in real time. I experience in my short life span as the universe experiences. Basically, the universe experiences me, and I experience it. I will die, but my life on this little planet will be a part of the overall experience of the universe.

I also think that most phenomena in the universe only experience for a short period of time compared to the universal whole. Animals don’t last forever. Plants don’t last forever. Stars go away. Perhaps there are some exceptions such as protons and black holes, but knowledge is limited here.

Black hole image from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

In the setting of my trip to Ireland, I saw two entities that demonstrated the short-lived experience contained in the expansiveness of all creation — a graveyard and a fossil. The people in graveyard once experienced life in Ireland. The Ediacaran fossil once experienced life in an ancient sea.

When I walked the grounds of the graveyard and saw the Charnia fossil, I wondered if my walking through the graveyard and seeing the fossil was a continuation of this experience. I experienced the names on the grave markers. I experienced seeing an extremely rare fossil. Did the graveyard and the fossil provide a continuation of experience from the past, even from the distant past? I think so, mainly in the setting of my senses (touch, sight).

Experience: It exists. I don’t know if we can scientifically prove that experience continues throughout time. Also, I don’t mean immediate experience. I mean a long-lasting potential for experience of all entities to continue in certain settings. The universe or overall nature always experiences. We get to be a small part of this experience.

The entities contained within the universe / nature have the possiblity of experience to continue. Is this panexperientialism? I think so.

There also is potential for our limited experience. I had the potential to eventually walk in an Irish graveyard. I had the potential to see a fossil that was hundreds of millions of years old. I could have missed my flight to Ireland. I could have just forgotten to look at the graveyard. The Charnia fossil was somewhat tucked away in a display. I could have skipped over it. I just happened to see it and experience a small bit of what early life on our planet was like. This ground is not dumb luck or synchronicity or determinism or human free will. This ground is experience itself as well as the potential for experience.

Readers of my blog know that I work in the area of process theology and open & relational theology. As a potential part of my genetics / epigenetics / upbringing / society / culture, I obviously will put a theological pin into the cause of this ground.

However, if you think about it, experience can be ingrained in nature and does not need God for it to be important.

I need to think more about this subject.

The Long Room at Trinity College with the Gaia installation. A quite beautiful part of campus.

A Friend Died

I had a friend pass away last week. He wasn’t a close friend, but he was a friend nevertheless, and I went to his funeral this weekend.

When Susan and I went through a somewhat pessimistic period regarding church attendance, this guy came around.

We had churned through 2 churches that made statements about being open and affirming (i.e., wanting LGBTQ+ people to attend — no strings attached) but didn’t follow through. The process was extremely painful since we had two gay children.

One church was part of the “emergent church movement” which was initially open and affirming until the majority of the movement became pretty hostile to the expansiveness of human sexuality. It’s a sad thing that I have talked about before on this blog. A great podcast series that goes over the whole history if here.

Long story…but we eventually did find the next church which is a tale in itself. We walked in and met our friend. He was quiet but friendly. He was reserved but welcoming regardless of one’s background. Simply put, he was the face of this church that took everyone in. Susan and joined as members one year later and have been members for a while. It’s not a perfect church (far from it), but its merits outweigh its deficits.

One thing that I liked about my friend is that he was a long-time greeter and talked to anyone who walked in on a Sunday morning — literally anyone, including people off the street with poor hygiene. He never cared where anyone fell on the sexual spectrum (and we all fall somewhere on the sexual spectrum). He would talk to them, tell them his name, and would be very open to their needs and concerns. After my friend died, I found out that he would visit many of these people. He would bring them things that they needed such as food. He would also just bring them presents simply as acts of joy.

At his funeral yesterday, the following poem was in the program:

I like this poem very much.

Our friend was not put in our life directly by God, but as someone who thinks process theology provides a better explanation of God in the world, I think God lured but did not force processes in place over time to give our friend the ability to be present that day we first walked into church. This luring is no different than the trillions or quadrillions or infinite number of callings by God throughout the cosmos in real time to make the world beautiful.

Image from Science News

I love this part of the poem:

“So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured? What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built,
not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.”

Our significance, metaphorically, is like gravity. Gravity’s influence is infinite. Every macro-object in the universe has an effect on other macro-objects. This effect is seen through the curving of spacetime. Ah, time…one of the backbones of process theology.

Gravity causes an effect between two entities, no matter how far away they are.

Newton’s Law of Gravitation

In this equation, F is the gravitational force in Newtons, G is the universal gravitational constant (approximately 6.674 x 10^-11), m1 and m2 are the two masses, and r is the distance between the center of those two masses.

As an example, here is a table of the gravitational pull of the various planets in our solar system.

Image from Study.com

You can see that the sun has a huge gravitational pull; the Earth’s moon has minimal pull. Keep in mind that all objects have a pull on each other. We, as humans, don’t feel it, but all objects have a gravitational effect on each other.

For example, Gliese 12 b is an Earth-sized exoplanet 40 light-years away (235 trillion miles) from us. Earth and Gliese 12 b have an incredibly minute gravitational effect on each other, but they have an effect.

Can you see how I am going to proceed with a metaphor here?

You will have an effect based on your actions to animals and to other humans in this world. You can’t stop wars raging around the world. You can help decrease world hunger, but you will never eliminate it. Calling our U.S. political parties “Nazis” or “Communists” doesn’t help homelessness or stop drug abuse.

However, you can be good to your neighbor, and your neighbor can be and should be everyone. I have taken this idea more and more to heart as I have become older. If there is any ground of reality in the Christian message, it is “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). The virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, the resurrection — I think all of these stories fall to the wayside compared to Christ’s command to love each other.

If you love a world neighbor and treat them with kindness, I believe that the act of kindness spreads out in a manner similar to the force of gravity. The act may be felt even on the other side of the world through people passing on that act of love or kindness…even if the effect is minimal. If we all practiced this idea, the effect would be greatly magnified. We would have no war, no hunger, no homelessness. We would have more creativity (à la process theology). Of course, such ideas are not possible since we are essentially a violent species.

We should at least try since God is calling us to treat the “other” well.

Image generated by Gemini Advanced

I can try to emulate my friend who was a constant pull of love and kindness even to the least of these.

Theology Journal Club!

This past week, some of the graduates of Northwind Theological Seminary got together to do our newest journal club. The members of our book club are mainly graduates of Tom Oord’s Open & Relational Theology center.

The latest article chosen to review was “Another Day at the Office? Near-Death Experiences in Their Procrustean Bed of Nothing-Buttery.” Here is the open access link.

What do I personally think about near-death experiences (NDE)? I don’t believe in them. I have heard second-hand NDE stories from friends. I have read about them. I just think the evidence for them is so poor that I can ascribe no credence to them.

Here are some of my personal thoughts about the article:

A. The author points out that almost no negative-experience NDEs are described. Why is this? We exist in a world filled with religions that have hell or hell-like entities associated with the afterlife. Personally, I grapple with the true existence of hell due to the Greek and Persian influences on Christianity regarding this subject. The Old Testament is filled with references to Sheol which doesn’t sound like a great place to hang out when one is dead, but it isn’t hell. One of the contributors in our journal club told me that about 20% of people do have a negative NDE experience per the literature. I don’t have that link, unfortunately. However, if there is a major brain neurotransmitter dump during an NDE, this percentage would come close to the percentage of people who have a “bad trip” while taking hallucinogens. Perhaps the NDE experience is strictly gross neurotransmitter changes while dying, no different than taking psilocybin.

B. Psychological experiences: I very much agree with the author of the article here.

Karo rightly states, “Let me now highlight how this stalemate figures in Greyson and colleagues’ list of NDE theories. Starting from the psychological explanations, these authors divide the theories into four groups: (a) those based upon expectations (the idea that NDEs reflect culturally acquired expectations about death and are essentially a psychological defense mechanism against the threat of death); (b) those based upon depersonalization (the idea that alienation from one’s body helps alleviate the stress of death); (c) ones relating NDEs to birth experiences, and (d) ones based upon specific personality traits (the idea that people with NDEs have personality traits that favor vivid fantasies).”

Of note the author provides the bolded words. Yes, I very much agree that if NDEs are neurological in nature, then they will be associated with one’s psychological profile. There is a large amount of literature on childhood trauma and long-term psychological outcomes in later life. A good review is here. In fact, even the trauma of being a premature infant may cause some long-term behavioral issues in terms of feeding. A good review is here. My point is that human brains and inherent psychological backgrounds may be influencing the ability to produce an NDE.

“The Nightmare” by Henry Fuseli

C. Dualism: Let’s consider the proposed separating from one’s own body during an NDE. Seeing a tunnel of light… No longer being contained in the mortal flesh… All of these experiences suggest dualism. The problem here is that dualism is highly debated as a truly helpful philosophical, and therefore theological, entity. I could provide tons of references about this issue, but I did find two helpful ones here and here.

Rene Descartes

My biggest complaint about substance dualism is that Rene Descartes thought the soul was located in the pineal gland. The soul…”captured”…in a small part of the brain.

The fact that the pineal gland (called “gland H” by Descartes) has absolutely nothing to do with the soul makes the premise already faulty.

Pineal Gland, from the Cleveland Clinic.

A good review about the function of the pineal gland is here.

Also, as one who is attracted to the ideas contained in process theology and open & relational theology, it would make more sense to consider our bodies as a complete connection with God and not as separate human and divine entities. I lean towards panentheism. In other words, humans, bacteria, galaxies, the universe…all are in God. God is present in, around, and throughout my body and my experiences. God incorporates all of these aspects as I live and when I die.

What does this mean about the afterlife? Well, I certainly believe in the afterlife. I just think some things are not provable, NDEs and the afterlife included. I also think H. sapiens will never be able to understand all aspects of reality which also included the possibility of NDEs and the afterlife. By the way, here is an interesting conversation by Brian Greene and Sean Carroll in which they talk about humans having limits to understanding all of reality.

D. Here is a big one for me… If NDEs are real, then why are they not emphasized in my Christian tradition via the Bible? You think it would be a very big deal in Holy Scripture. So, is God trying to mislead us? Are NDEs not important in God’s existence? My interpretation in this setting is that NDEs have a big psychological and societal aspect associated with them.

Think about the Witch of Endor in First Samuel. Samuel is dead. He comes out of Sheol, He does not come out of a happy heaven which are associated with so many NDEs. Think about Matthew 27. Jesus dies on the cross. The dead came out of their tombs for a while — no NDEs. I think this scriptural aspect should be considered from a theological perspective.

The Witch of Endor Summons the Shade of Samuel by Nikolai Ge (1857)

E. NDE research is poor. Very, very poor. There is this scale called the Oxford Levels of Evidence. The scale is helpful as it differentiates low quality from high quality research. Look at the scale below.

The work in NDEs is quite poor when it comes to the evidence. One may ask the question, “Well, what would you want as evidence?”

My response. Look for actual objective evidence of NDEs. See if a separated spiritual body can be seen floating above a dying person by infrared imaging, ultraviolet imaging, radio waves, or hyperspectral imaging. One might argue that such imaging is expensive. However, you just need ONE CASE of NDE to be verified scientifically, and immense amount of funding would come in via the NSF, NIH, and lots of wealthy private donors. This lack of any firm evidence reminds me of people who have seen UFOs (now UAPs) and ghosts. We just need one actual image that proves aliens or ghosts exist. Just one. We never seem to get there. I don’t think there are government conspiracies out there preventing the discovery of ghosts, UAPs, and the afterlife.

What do I believe? Well, I do believe in an afterlife. My belief is admittedly subjective. I just think some ideas are so difficult to comprehend that scientific experience of humans will never prove it. I do like Whitehead’s idea of God and the non-perishing of all experiences. Perhaps this is a good metaphor of the afterlife:

“The revolts of destructive evil, purely self-regarding, are dismissed into
their triviality of merely individual facts; and yet the good they did achieve
in individual joy, in individual sorrow, in the introduction of needed contrast,
is yet saved by its relation to the completed whole. The image-and
it is but an image-the image under which this operative growth of God’s
nature is best conceived, is that of a tender care that nothing be lost.”

I have no idea if his ideas are true, but they sure seem helpful, yet poetic.

I also think that if we are connected to the universe in the setting of panentheism and panexperientialism, then perhaps our consciousness extends on eternally in the universe even after we die. The experience of the atoms in our brains being in communion with our failures and triumphs, loves and sorrows, and all of our experiences would live on even in the setting of the proposed heat death of the universe. I have no idea if this idea is true, and it probably makes no sense in the setting of physical laws. But perhaps…just perhaps…we communicate with God eternally in such a way.

Finally, when I look at images such as the Hubble Deep Field, I find it quite possible that our species will never know everything about everything. This unknowing includes NDEs and the afterlife. We will never be able to know it until we die (and we still may not know it). I am fine with that mystery.

Hubble Deep Field photo

Religion in Public Schools: Please NO.

Before I write this post, I want to announce that the manuscript for my potential next book has been sent to Tom Oord for his consideration as a book to be published through SacraSage Press. So far, Tom thinks the manuscript looks pretty good.

Ok, here we go. I grew up in Texas, and I spent half of my life there. In my opinion, Texas has become very difficult in regards to its politics. It makes me quite sad as I have fond memories of growing up in that state. Of course, Texas was a member of the Confederate States of America at one time, so it has been problematic for some time.

Picture of the Texas Hill Country — one of the prettiest places in the nation

One of the current issues in Texas is people who are trying to get more religion into public schools.

Having kids read the Bible in class. Putting up the Ten Commandments in school.

Now, some school districts are allowing children to miss school time to take a bus to private religious instruction.

Screenshot

The article (above) comes from the San Antonio Express News.

I live in Utah, and we have a long history of children being able to leave public school and attend Latter-Day Saint (LDS) seminary buildings. Weirdly, these buildings are typically built right next door to public schools. Children can just walk across the parking lot and attend private religious education. Just like Texas, I find this Utah idea pretty awful.

Readers of my blog will know that I am a Christian. I am a Protestant, Trinitarian-believing Christian if that makes any difference to the reader.

I am Christian, and I absolutely DISAGREE that children should be allowed to leave class or school to attend private religious education.

There is nothing in the Gospels to support such a stupid idea. If anything, Jesus would tell people to get out into the world and care for others (Matthew 25:40). Jesus would not tell Christians to isolate themselves from other people.

I have many reasons to state this:

What religion? In other words, what religions are wanting to have children leave their school education time? At least in the USA, I am pretty sure this issue is mostly coming from Christians. But what type of Christian? In the Texas situation, do parents think that the theology that their children will hear in some private setting during public school will match their own belief system? For example, what if Catholic parents think this is a good idea, and they send their child to some Evangelical religious education that they are not aware of. I am a parent, and I can recall other parents who fell for this trap when my kids were young. Protestant. Catholic. Orthodox. LDS. There are so many permutations here where parents may be exposing their children to ideas they do not ascribe to. Talk about seeing the forest for the trees.

What Bible? If children are going off campus to learn about their faith, what Bible will be used? Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians have different books in their Bibles. LDS folks have a “Joseph Smith Translation” of the Bible although they also use the King James Version. All of these different versions can contain different ideas.

Who can leave? So, can Jewish children go to Synagogue and miss class? Can Muslim children go to Mosque and miss class? Can Hindu children go to their local temple and miss class? Can atheist children go to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and miss class? Something tell me that political leaders had not even begun to think about this issue.

Your children always will be exposed to the secular world. Oh, and as a Christian, I think the secular world can be quite fine most of the time. I work at public university. It is mostly pretty awesome. All humans have their good traits and bad traits — religious or not. What are these parents scared of? Also, if their children need to leave public school to attend private religious teachings, then how poorly are they being taught in their regular church setting? How poorly are these parents teaching their own children about their religious beliefs?

Education is important. Stay in school. Don’t leave class.

Taxpayer money: Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for empty classrooms, electricity, and the precious time of school teachers just so that some children with anxious parents can leave class to go to listen to religious teachings. When my children were young, my spouse and I had them in private school. We moved them to public school in junior high and high school for many reasons. One of the big reasons was that the private school they attended (Evangelical, sadly) taught really dumb anti-evolutionary ideas (readers know that I am religious and also have no problems with biological evolution). However, when my children were in private school, I never complained about paying taxes for public school. We were privileged enough to put our kids in private school for a while. I paid taxes to help those children who needed a hand up in life to learn in public school. By the way, my two children had a FANTASTIC public school experiences.

No, this never happened.

Pilot study? Despite the fact that I imagine these school districts will be sued, can someone actually do a pilot study here? One could control for income, grades, zip codes, etc, and then look at outcomes long term. Are these children more likely to graduate? Are these children more likely to go to college? Are these children more likely to get into legal trouble? Someone might say that we should study if these children are more likely to be “saved.” Really?!?! I don’t know how you objectively quantify “saved.” My Christian belief system is that Jesus loves everyone — regardless of their belief system. I’m a big believer in grace. Romans 8:38-39 and Hebrews 11:13 suggest that it a probably better to hang out with everyone — no matter their background. In the end, I think no one would dare do a true objective, well controlled pilot study. I bet the results would show there is no difference in outcomes of these children except for less education noted in the children who leave class.

No, your kids are not being persecuted for their faith. If they attend class and learn history, they will learn how lucky / blessed they are to be able to worship in the United States in comparison to many other countries.

Getting kids out of public education in order to attend church-like teaching is simply a risk factor for development of Christian nationalism, which is not Christian. Christian nationalism is a heresy.

Those of us who consider ourselves Christian and are against Christian nationalism need to continue to speak out. Speaking out for everyone and not for the select few is where God exists.

**By the way, secular folks can be just as idiotic at times when they push politics into basic education. A GREAT editorial is here.

Image generated by Google Gemini

What Are The Percentages?

I know my posts are a bit infrequent right now. I am extremely busy at work and my new theology book seems to be coming along very quickly. I am in a big editing stage which absorbs so much of my time.

One of the reasons that I have enjoyed learning about process theology and its close relative, open & relational theology is that it helps me deal with theodicy or the problem with evil. When a child dies or a when a family member dies or when humans try to exterminate a minority human population or when a natural disaster kills thousands, I have never found determinism to be a helpful answer.

Image of cyclone near Indonesia

For example, if a child dies from cancer, an explanation of the death being caused by the initial particle and forces at the beginning of the universe or being caused by God’s Will smack of determinism and seem problematic.

Have you ever seen a child die? I work in a tertiary children’s hospital so I have seen such an event many times. In the setting of a little body who has lost their body temperature and all metabolic function surrounded by crying parents and family, it is hard to see that this event was “determined” by the universe, by God, or whatever. If the child’s death was determined, then was the emotional output by the parents additionally determined? Would you walk into the room of the dead child and say to the parents, “Don’t worry. This was going to happen anyway. Also, quit crying unless the particles in your body are deterministically making you feel sad.” That would be ridiculous. The statement, “God needed an angel back in heaven”, also is obscene.

In this setting, I have found process theology / open & relational theology helpful, especially since I do believe in God. Process theology would suggest that God lures or calls for creativity or novelty. Open & relational theology would agree, but such creativity and novelty is based on love. I do believe God essentially is love, but the child has still died in the scenario described above.

Well, process theology / open & relational theology can respond here. God calls for the creative to occur in real time. Thus, God can lure for the child to be healed. For example, the cancer potentially can be healed by medication. The cancer cells potentially can respond and die from medication. The medical staff potentially can work at the best of their ability. Society potentially can eliminate pollution that causes cancer.

God lures or calls here for the good or the creative so that there is a chance for healing. There is a chance.

However, again emphasizing the components of process theology / open & relational theology, every level of nature can ignore or go along with the lure. This is pure openness allowed by God. There is some degree of free will throughout all of nature. Previously, I have published work on obvious limits to libertarianism in nature (at least limits to me).

Hairy cell leukemia microscopic image (from the National Cancer Institute)

Here is my question: What percentage of outcomes in which God calls for the creative or for the good has a true, creative result?

I have no idea.

I guess if one thinks there is a lure for the creative / good as seen in the observed lack of proton decay in nature, then perhaps the percentage is pretty high.

Stars begetting new stars also would suggest the percentage is pretty high.

Stars (image from Scientific American)

Biological evolution produces new life forms to fill changing niche space in the environment. Evolution suggests novelty and also suggests the percentage is pretty high.

From the human perspective, I worry that the percentage of hearing God’s call is horribly low. We seem to be a very violent species, possibly similar to our close relatives, the chimpanzees. We probably have been violent for thousands and thousands of years. I worry about how much all of us (yes, including me) ignore the environment, other humans, and other animals and plants around us in the setting of violence. In other words, we can be uneccessarily cruel to our planet at times. In the setting of our species, the percentage seems awfully low.

What about death? Death is part of entropy, and entropy is natural. So, is entropy a refusal to listen to God’s call for novelty / creativity / love? Does entropy make the percentage exceedingly low and perhaps zero? Is nature, in the end, always refusing God’s lure for creativity?

That is a good question. I have no clue. However, in the setting of infinite time moving forward and a universe forever expanding, I have wondered if the randomness of particles in a cold universe in the far, far, far future will lead to new structures? The philosophical idea of a Boltzmann brain in the setting of extreme entropy would be an example.

If a “brain” theoretically could form in the setting of ultimate entropy, could particles come together to eventually form a new universe? Think about this aspect. We are talking about infinite time and infinite space. Perhaps, in the end, creativity still wins. In the “end” (although there may be no “end”), the metaphysical percentage for ongoing creativity seems rather high. Perhaps 100%? Again, I have no clue. I am just theorizing from a theological perspective.

The question is if our species want to play a small part of in Divine creativity for the short time our species will exist in the universe. I would argue that for the total universe, there may be a great percentage of events that are potentially creative.

Human nature, which is just a blip in the history of the universe, so often seems to be mostly failing despite God’s call for us to love. I always assume that we have the potential to be better creatures. We just have to hear this call, if the call indeed exists.

Image made from Gemini Advanced