It has been said that God created humankind because God loves stories. “How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere: An Anthology of Spiritual Memoirs” (Monkfish) celebrates stories that transform our lives, theologically, spiritually, ethically. The book is the affirmation of “panentheism” as a pathway to God for spiritual seekers. Briefly put, panentheism proclaims “God in all things and all things in God.” God is the spirit of life, the dynamic, creative, and intelligent energy “in whom we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) There is, as Quakers affirm, something of God in all things; and there is something of all things in God. The poet of the universe is also the heart of the universe, receiving, transforming, embracing, and preserving all things in God’s dynamic-relational experience of the world. Panentheism is ultimately a story of stories itself; God’s story, the universe story, and our own stories in creative emergence and interaction with one another and our Creator.
Many persons are in search of an understanding God that transcends their previous, and no longer tenable, visions of God. They have found a convincing vision of God in panentheism, which creatively enables them to respond to the challenges of science, pluralism, spiritual experience, and suffering. Panentheism, as co-author/editor Andrew Davis notes, is a fourth option – and perhaps the only viable progressive option, going beyond the transcendent, distant, unchanging, and all-powerful God; the pantheistic deity, whose existence is the world as it is, and nothing more; and atheism, the denial of God’s existence altogether.
Pantheism has served as a pathway for many seekers from atheism to belief in the living God. The seekers that
Clayton and Davis portray are among the most perceptive theological and spiritual leaders of our time. For the most part they tell stories of their spiritual and theological evolution, sharing their hearts and minds, and how they moved toward life-transforming pantheistic visions. I found that the journeys of Clayton, Cobb, Ward, Suchocki, Artson, and Bourgeault resonated most with my own, perhaps because they were the most incarnational and personal of the essays, and for the most part reflect the collapse of orthodox understandings of faith and the renewal of faith through experiencing God again – in new and expansive ways – as if for the first time.
As I read these spiritual pilgrimages I recalled my own spiritual journey from small town, revival Baptist faith to abandoning my childhood faith as a teenager through the summer of love and immersion in Buddhism, Hinduism, transcendentalism, and psychedelics to process theology and an embrace of a life-giving panentheistic, inter-spiritual mysticism. In retrospect, God was always with me on the journey, especially in the mind-expanding and dangerous journey with psychedelics. Indeed, my quest for God – and God’s quest for me – protected me from the worst excesses of that wondrously mind-expanding yet ambiguous time. I am grateful that I discovered process theology in college under the tutelage of Richard Keady and Marie Fox and in graduate school with John Cobb, David Griffin, and Bernard Loomer.
To me a flexible understanding of process theology has enabled me to go beyond both intractable fundamentalism, rule-based conservatism, and rationalistic liberalism to embrace a lively spiritualty at home with naturalistic understandings of mysticism, Jesus’ healings, pluralism, complementary and holistic medicine, and cosmology, creation, and science. Process panentheism provides a truly personal and cosmic vision of God, embracing both the intimate and infinite aspects of life.
Many of my generation of “Medicare” process theologians are concerned about the future of process theology. With seminary closings and graduate school cutbacks – and a general disregard for cosmology and metaphysics in philosophy departments – we wonder if there will be future generations of process theologians and philosophers to carry on. I am delighted at the creative work of Andrew Davis – and some of my other process theology students, who spent their first semester at Claremont School of Theology in my classes – and now have become solid theologians in their own right. The future of world-affirming, ecologically-sound, and spiritually-insightful progressive religion depends on the ongoing stories of theologians, young and old, who will share the panentheistic vision from generation to generation. This book contributes to the future evolution of process thought.
+++
Bruce Epperly is a pastor, seminary professor, and author of over forty five books, including “The Mystic in You: Discovering a God-filled World,” “Becoming Fire: Spiritual Practices for Global Christians,” “Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God,” and “Process Spirituality: Practicing Holy Adventure.”
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In