FAITH. Greg Stevens and Pastor Gregory Stevens talk about Christianity and process theology
Everything you think you know about
Christianity might be wrong. Topics in this video: defining Christianity, cultural biases, religious liberty, tradition, personhood, "ultimate reality", faith, trust in knowledge, mystery,
Whitehead, process theology, co-creation, religious history, and the liberal tradition of Christianity.
If you have never heard of "process theology" before,
Pastor Gregory's approach to Christianity will blow your mind.
Key quotes:
"Christianity to me is about a tradition.
It's less about a doctrinal statement or a creed."
"The Baptist tradition was founded on the idea that we all have religious freedom and religious liberty
... not all Baptists are very good at proscribing to this tradition."
"Over the years, people have been carrying on a tradition that says: the least and the lost and the marginalized, and those without a voice, and the sick and the homeless and the widowed, all of these people... for
2000 years, my tribe of people have been saying that we want to help and care for them. And we want to do it because God has told us to do it."
(Me): "Do you believe in
God?"
G.
S.: "I have no idea what you mean by that."
"I don't use the word 'God' a lot. I can't make a lot of claims about God with certainty... so I don't say them. A lot of people want you to be certain in the things that you say, and when you say 'maybe' they don't like that."
"I have no way of conceiving of my relationship with God other than as a personal one, because
I've never had a non-personal relationship. Because I'm a... person."
"
Faith is a faith in our relationships.
Nothing in our universe could exist without being in relation to something else."
"Faith is a word--much like a poetic word, or a metaphorical word--to describe something that I can't describe."
"I grew up in a
Christian tradition, and use the language that was passed down to me."
"
If I'm going to lay claim to the idea of God, then I better have a way of thinking about it that is healthy."
"In process theology, we would say that we believe in God, and that God is not all-powerful, but God is co-creative with the world, and needs the world, and is in relation to the world, but not in domination of the world. In process theology we would say that God is personal. God is present in every moment of experience, and drawing and luring us to better and more complex and more beautiful interrelated experience. But that is something that would make sense to the people who like the idea of God, and who want to make sense of the idea of God."
"I'm going to lay claim to the idea of God. But I really need to figure out how to love my neighbor, before I philosophically understand the historical metaphysics, and how that relates to physics, and all of that sort of thing."
"There have been Christians who have, for hundreds of years, believed that God doesn't hate the world, and God didn't need to slaughter God's son to save the world, that supernatural beliefs are not the right beliefs."
"The last thing we want to do is tell our children what to believe. We want to provoke and inspire, and ignite wonder. That's the type of
Christian faith I want to carry on. That's the type of Christian faith that has been around for years and years, but nobody really knows about."
This is the full unscripted conversation.
Excerpts and highlights can be found in these other videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jlYTi08tjs : On process theology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8eNIcdfDwY : The definition of God
So what do you think?
Does this way of thinking about faith, God, and religion make sense to you? Can you be a
Christian without adhereing to specific doctrinal statements?
Check out the video, and let us know your thoughts!
If you have any questions or comments, or any suggestions for topics we can talk about in the future, let us know in the comments!
Check out
Greg's personal blog, Twitter, and
Facebook:
http://gregstevens.com/
https://twitter.com/gregstevens
https://facebook.com/gregtstevens
And check out Pastor
Gregory Stevens on Twitter and Facebook:
https://twitter.com/hellogregory
https://www.facebook.com/gregory.stevens.773
For more information about the
First Baptist Church,
Palo Alto, check out their website:
http://www.fbc-paloalto.org/