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​"People are taking their theology online with them, and they are discovering other stories and other practices, argue the authors. Living out one’s theology in the network accords new relationships in community that are flattened, less hierarchical. Geographical boundaries are crossed. Our neighborhoods are no longer easily defined, as digital relationships begin to trump spatial ones. Connectedness happens on screen. Barriers to entry are lowered if not removed, but because of the equalizing effect, appeals to authority or orthodoxy are trivialized, and with freer access safety becomes a concern. Traditions are mixed. Identities are more fluid, more performative, emphasizing story and individual experience."

Ward, Annalee (2017). Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in Digital Culture, by Heidi A. Campbell and Stephen Garner (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016) [Book Review]. 

Whitehead's Philosophical Wildfire
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​"One should, I suggest, rather approach Whitehead as an igniting “event” which has sparked nothing short of what Faber has aptly described as a “philosophical wildfire.”  Consider this metaphor. Wildfires are not easily contained; their directions are often unpredictable, and their results destructive. Yet the anarchy of flames also harbors a purifying and creative element; their chaos makes way for possibilities of rebirth, growth, and novelty.

Faber has consistently articulated the ways in which the event “Whitehead” continues to set ablaze various landscapes, not only within “process philosophy” and “process theology,” but also in a variety of disciplines, such that a plurality of new voices, interests, methods and creative interpretations continue to emerge. In this way, he has stressed that the philosophy of process must always remain in process."

- Andrew Davis on Roland Faber's understanding of Whitehead as a "wildfire" in Depths as Yet Unspoken.

One form that the wildfire can take, when controlled, is that of a campfire that sparks an ongoing conversation among those sitting around it, as they share stories and consider matters of import.  The campfire need not be physical; it can be digital, as can be the community of fire-enjoyers.  They may be sitting around a screen rather than an actual fire, with their mutual presence as the fire. What counts are the stories and the conversations.  They are one form that process theology can take in a digital age.  Call it campfire process theology.  The short note below offers a description.

- Jay McDaniel, October 13, 2021

"Campfire" Process Theology

​Digital, Informal, Open-Ended,
Conversational, Everyday
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Online Process Theology

If you are like me - at least the "me" of twenty years ago - you may think of process theology as something that is articulated in written texts made of paper: that is, in printed books and articles that you can hold in your hand like a book or pamphlet.  These texts are studied by individuals in the privacy of their homes and by groups of people who have spatial relationships.  The groups meet face to face in churches, synagogues, conference rooms, and homes.  The authority is in the text, in that the text serves as the foundation for discussion and exploration.  

But process theology in textual form exists parallel to another kind of process theology that happens online, not in books made of paper, and that is more like a conversation around a campfire than a text on a table.  Given its online nature, this different kind of process theology brings with it a different kind of community: an online or digital community analogous, say, to that of the Process Nexus and Process and Faith, or to a Facebook group such as the Cobb Institute Community. 

Process Theology as Campfire Conversation

Campfire process is open ended.  It is studied, explored, and developed by networks of people who do not meet meet face-to-face but through through various forms of video and audio conferencing (e.g. zoom) and also through blogs, forums, and chats.  In some instances the "texts" of online process theology are books, roughly analogous to the texts of paper text-based process theology in print form. The texts are e-books.  But in other instances the texts of online process theology are missed if we think primarily of books.  The texts of online process theology are analogous to communal storytelling around a campfire, albeit a digital campfire.  They are the living conversations that occur among people amid the conferencing, blogs, forums, and chats. 

Campfire process theology is more like an improvisational jazz concert than a scripted play.  It is more fluid and more egalitarian and much less "controllabe."  In these conversations, appeals to the authority of experts are reduced, leaving room for improvisation and appeals to experience.  The irony is that, in some ways, campfire process theology is more consistent with some of the inherited ideas of book-based process theology: impermanence, connectedness, creativity.  The inherited texts of print-based and text-based process theology are treated as springboards, but not as definitive, conversation-stopping authorities.  And not as resting places.

Millennials and Nones

Often campfire process theology brings with it a different image of religion often characteristic of millennials, both confessional and trans-institutional.  Typically millennials are more interested in everyday religion, ordinary theology, and bricolage than in institutional religion and formal theology. In developing their theologies, they draw from popular culture no less than high culture, and the very binary between high culture and popular culture is eschewed.  They also draw upon sources from many world religions and from science without seeing a conflict.  All are engaged in bricolage: the act of constructing theology from a diverse array of available materials. 

Confessional Millennials seek to mediate these influences through the lens of (what seems to them to be) a relatively singular tradition: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism.  Some seek to mediate the influences through multiple traditions: Jews influenced by Buddhism, for example, or Hindus influenced by Christianity.  Trans-religious millennials seek to mediate these influences without reference to a singular tradition.  They are spiritually interested but not religiously affiliated. Both groups are engaged in everyday religion.

Everyday Religion

Everyday religion is a verb not a noun.  It is the activity of forming an identity, seeking meaning and happiness, developing a worldview, participating in a community, and trying to make a difference in the world, as animated by touches of transcendence.  It can include having an "ultimate concern" of one sort of another, but such concern is not essential to religion.  A person can have multiple concerns without any one being ultimate.  Everyday Religion can unfold in constructive and destructive ways.  It is the underlying activity of all daily life.  Touches of transcendence are moments of experience in which people feel taken out of themselves into something more than themselves: beautiful, amazing, wise, tender, or terrifying.  What is "transcended" in a moment of transcendence is the smallness of the ego.

Back then to theology. Theology as such is thinking about things that matter as animated by touches of transcendence.  It can include but does not necessarily entail thinking about God.  For example, the flourishing of life on earth, or problems of social injustice, can be subjects of theology.  Popular theology created by people who remain relatively untouched by formal theology as studied in seminaries.   Formal theology studied by people in seminaries and colleges who emphasize building upon existing traditions.  Both have value but millennials are typically more interested in popular theology.  Process theology speaks to millennials, among other ways, by appealing to digital panentheism.

Digital panentheism a form everyday religion shaped an open and relational image of God which sees God as a lure toward wisdom, compassion and creativity in human life and an empathic receptacle for all that happens in the universe.  This image of God can inform the organic digital imagination.  It seeks to be responsive to the Spirit as present in life, and it includes theistic and non-theistic points of view.  In a troubled age, and perhaps in any age, the spirit-centered organic imagination -- open and relational -- forever seeking to help create satisfying connections with people, animals and the earth, is our best hope.  The organic digital imagination is where the prophetic and shamanic come together in a spirit of love.  The Spirit is its source.  A positive side of campfire theology, process and otherwise, is that it makes possible digital pentecostalism.

Conclusion

In any foreseeable future, process theology will exist in several forms.  Some of it will be print-based, some text-based, some conversational and open-ended.  Each form will have its strengths and weaknesses,  The best hope for the process movement as a whole - for the Process Nexus - is that all will be affirmed and learn from one another.  My own hope is that campfire process theology will have its place at the campfire.

- Jay McDaniel, October 13, 2021
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​Five Features of Digital Culture

"In a networked society, if we live in a place that we have more global interconnections and sense of accountability, and our traditional relationships and patterns of belief are becoming much more individualized and less tied to institutional constraints and boundaries, we get a version of religion that is much more individual."

One very helpful feature of Heidi Campbell's analysis is her identification of five features of digital culture:

Networked Community: church communities are one part of a loosely defined social network of which people are a part, but not the hub.  

Storied Identity: people's identities, religious and otherwise, are malleable and changing over time, created and performed in different contexts, not fixed.  One place where people create their identities is online with "spiritual tribes" who are part of their online network.

Convergent Practice: people "practice" their religious lives by blending practices and information from multiple sources, piecing things together in a spirit of bricolage.

Multi-site reality: people live in a bridged, hybrid space that includes online and offline realities,virtual and physical, with no sharp dividing llne.  Peoplle live in both spaces.

Shifting authority: in many people's lives there is no single source, no single authority, such as the Bible or a priest or an imam.  If authority means "authorship," there are different authors (mentors, guides, inspirations) in different context.  

-from Heidi Campbell: The Internet Challenges and Empowers Religious Institutions  November 8, 2013: Faith and Leadership, Duke University