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This moving faith odyssey chronicles one man's journey from Christian fundamentalism to the form of progressive Christianity known as process theology. Macallan, a church leader and professor of theology, shares his shock at being diagnosed with cancer, and how that shock challenged him to confront his beliefs about God and the world. Prior to his diagnosis, Macallan had ignored the implications of evolution for the traditional doctrines of sin and theodicy (the problem of evil in relation to God), and historical Jesus scholarship. "I had always felt," he writes, "that if I could just hold on to the core Christian doctrines and how they are traditionally understood, I would be alright." But to do so required a range of mental gymnastics that collapsed under the weight of his diagnosis. And, as aspects of his traditional beliefs collapsed, so did his faith. Forgiving God describes Macallan's journey toward a different understanding of reality, one informed by process philosophy, which then led him to a different understanding of God. In these pages, Macallan guides readers along the path he took from understanding God as an all-powerful and all-knowing being to a divine reality that participates with us in the unfolding of creation. This God does not stand outside the flow of reality, but within it, experiencing all that every moment of reality experiences. The book further shows how this perspective on the divine not only impacts one's self-awareness, but one's awareness of all creation. It becomes a call to ethical choice and charts a way of living that, as the subtitle suggests, is a risky adventure with the divine.

For 50 years, John B. Cobb, Jr. has been teaching readers that theology is not confined to biblical and doctrinal exegesis but rightly includes economics, politics, education, and science. His prophetic warnings about climate change date back to the early 1970s; his critiques of higher education and American foreign policy are incisive. But for all the pertinence of his views, Cobb has refrained from giving them full expression-until now. In the preface to this book, which he aptly names his "confession," Cobb writes: "My original intention was to write this manuscript primarily for myself. I felt that all my previous writings were written from the perspective of, or directed to, the church community, the theological community, the process community, or a particular organization. I did not state anything in those writings that I do not believe, but not everything that I believe came to expression. My personal priorities were not often clearly expressed. "Before I died, I wanted to write once to state, if only for myself, what I really felt most keenly about, without worrying about whom I might offend. That primary concern has, for many years, been the global crises and the policies of my own country that, on the whole, speed up the move to the destruction of civilization and the physical world that supports life. I have felt called by Jesus' Abba to do what I could for the healthy survival of the biosphere and for an ecological civilization for humans."In these pages, a "here I stand" near the end of a long and prestigious career, Cobb declares his faith, tells us his view of the world, names the dangers we face, and urges us to act.

The authors of these essays examine core dimensions of the human condition in light of biophilosophy and process metaphysics, which they apply to such core anthropological issues as the survival of both the human species and the biosphere as a whole. With a general focus on the unique capacity for symbolization as marking an important and influential factor in human evolution, the authors address key issues in biophilosophy, such as the specific ways we differ from other species, our capacity to symbolize and create a helpful or dangerous distance from life, and our playfulness and proclivity for mythmaking. Questions addressed include the following:How did symbolic thought shape the evolution of the human species? How did symbolic systems shape human experience of and reasoning about space, time, matter, life, and natural processes?How do our unique forms of power relations distinguish humans from other species?How do our spiritual and metaphysical belief systems influence human rationality and morality?How can we balance our spiritual needs with our rational abilities, and how could this influence our future evolution?How should we respond to the trends towards transhumanism and bio-technocracy?Our intellect is troubled by a consciousness of its own evolution, by the ecological and ethical challenges of a severely degraded environment, and it wields great symbolic and mythic fictions with the power to influence the bio-social evolution of future humans. Despite all our unique qualities, we cannot set ourselves apart from the natural heritage we share with every living being on planet Earth. Somewhere between transhumanism and cosmohumanism, we must find an ethical guide, an organismic and cosmic consciousness, and a speculative framework to manage our knowledge and our spontaneous actions towards the future.

In 1934, Confessing Christians in Germany declared that support for the Nazi regime violated the basic principles of the Christian faith, thereby creating a status confesionis(confessional situation), requiring a binding doctrinal stance on sociopolitical questions. In this book, the result of a lifetime of engaged religious, philosophical, and critical inquiry, David Ray Griffin declares that with regard to American Empire, the church in America is in a similarly dire situation and must stand up for the integrity of the Gospel. Chapter by chapter (in some cases, verse by verse) Griffin argues that Christians in America must deal with the darker side of their country, especially its imperialism, racism, and nuclear and climate policies. With clarity and insight, Griffin points out ways in which the American Empire is similar to the Roman Empire-the empire that crucified Jesus-and urges Christians, "publicly and unequivocally" to reject it.Written from the perspective of process theology, the book is "liberal in method and conservative in content." "Liberal in method" means that all appeals to authority to establish truth are rejected. Theology, like philosophy, can argue for the truth of its doctrines only on the basis of evidence and reason. So although the reality of revelation can be affirmed, theologians cannot make claims for the truth of events or doctrines by claiming that this truth was revealed. It is "conservative in content" by virtue of employing a constructive postmodern worldview, based on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Being "conservative in content" does not mean affirming the types of conservative theology that allow secondary and tertiary doctrines to distort the gospel's primary doctrines. It means reaffirming primary doctrines of the Christian gospel, such as God's creation of the world, God as actively present in us, and divinely given life after death. American Christianity is in crisis. In this timely book, David Ray Griffin preaches the Gospel-not interpreted for the convenience of Americans, but to remind Americans of what the Gospel actually says and what it calls us to do.

The present trajectory of life on this planet is unsustainable, and the underlying causes of our environmental crisis are inseparable from our social and economic systems. The massive inequality between the rich and the poor is not separate from our systems of unlimited growth, the depletion of natural resources, the extinction of species, or global warming. As climate predictions continue to exceed projections, it is clear that hopelessness is rapidly becoming our worst enemy. What is needed-urgently-is a new vision for the flourishing of life on this planet, a vision the authors are calling an ecological civilization. Along the way they have learned that this term brings hope unlike any other. It reminds us that humans have gone through many civilizations in the past, and the end of a particular civilization does not necessarily mean the end of humanity, much less the end of all life on the planet. It is not hard for us to conceive of a society after the fall of modernity, in which humans live in an equitable and sustainable way with one another and the planet. This book explores the idea of ecological civilization by asking eight key questions about it and drawing answers from relational philosophies, the ecological sciences, systems thinking and network theory, and the world's religious and spiritual traditions. It concludes that a genuinely ecological civilization is not a utopian ideal, but a practical way to live. To recognize this, and to begin to take steps to establish it, is the foundation for realistic hope.

The essays in this volume are not limited to any single theme or subject. Some of the chapters are focused on the impact of various philosophical perspectives on environmentalism. Others roam into issues of Western philosophy stretching all the way from Plato and Aristotle to Bergson and Whitehead. Notwithstanding this diversity of topics, all of the authors attempt in varying ways to draw conclusions that are relevant to a renewed commitment to the health of planet Earth. It is the underlying contention of these authors that philosophy can help us respond imaginatively, constructively, and creatively to the ecological issues of our age. How? For one thing, our deep-seated and often unnoticed presuppositions about the nature of reality have direct bearing on our attitudes and actions, and philosophy can help us bring those presuppositions to light and think critically about them. What is more, philosophy can help us formulate and defend more adequate, plausible, and beneficial outlooks on the natural world and the place of human beings within the community of all earthly creatures.The shared goal of all the chapters is to find new philosophical and theological inspiration as we human creatures seek to respond imaginatively, constructively, and creatively to the ecological issues of our age, recognizing that we desperately need to conceive an alternative to the pervasive worldviews that have led our civilization to the brink of catastrophe.