Praying with Process Theology : Spiriitual Practices for Personal and Planetary Healing

We need to move from individualism and consumerism to simplicity of life and a sense of the common good. We need a worldview that inspires transformed spiritual practices as well as personal and community commitments to justice and ecological healing. We need to align ourselves with God’s vision of planetary healing.The fifty days of devotional readings and spiritual practices offered here, grounded in the insights of process theology, are designed to do just that.

Process theology provides a practical, life-changing vision for our pluralistic, postmodern, and planetary age. Our theological visions can cure or kill. Images of God emphasizing power, domination,and predestined privilege have led to planetary destruction and the eradication of indigenous people. In contrast to life-destroying theologies, we need theological visions that empower, heal, and inspire us to become God’s companions in changing the world. Theology—and process theology, in particular—can be understood as a series of affirmations that can change our minds and change the world, if held sincerely and practiced consistently. These affirmations are intimately connected with spiritual practices that can be used by laypeople as well as religious and academic professionals to enable an experience of the profound interconnectedness of life and our intimate companionship with a loving, living God.

Bruce Epperly is a professor, pastor, and author of over sixty books, including The Elephant is Running: Process and Open and Relational Theologies and Religious Pluralism, Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed, Process Theology and Politics, Praying with Process Theology, and Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism. Now retired, he lives in Potomac, Maryland, where, in addition to teaching and writing, he is an active grandparent, walker, and contemplative activist.