Learning Circle: Beginning Process and Reality
2022-08-14 16:00 - 17:00, 2022-08-21 16:00 - 17:00, 2022-08-28 16:00 - 17:00, 2022-09-04 16:00 - 17:00, 2022-09-11 16:00 - 17:00, 2022-09-18 16:00 - 17:00, 2022-09-25 16:00 - 17:00, 2022-10-02 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Encountering Whitehead’s Magnum Opus for First-Timers

Designed for beginners, this learning circle will involve a close reading of Whitehead’s seminal work, discussing passages together in-depth as we work our way through the text.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Ben Bowler
2022-08-16 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Networking Toward World Unity

Presenter(s): Ben Bowler

SCobb and Friends regular Bill McLellan introduced us to Yanni Maniates, Board Chair of Unity Earth, who introduced us to Ben Bowler, its Executive Director. Ben has agreed to join us at 3 a.m. Melbourne time for our 10 a.m. gathering with John Cobb and Friends! In October 2015, at the Parliament of World Religions, Ben launched 1GOD.com, an online platform aimed at countering religious fundamentalism, relativism and western materialism. Since then he has worked to build UNITY EARTH into a global platform that can support and empower the many grassroots movements working towards unity and peace in the world.

See further information about Unity Earth and Ben Bowler here. Among the gifts brings to the table is his experience with aboriginal peoples in Australia. Ben suggests that you check out this YouTube explanation of 1God.com. Among their many projects are World Unity Week, 99 Days of Peace, and Universal Day of Peace. One of our Friends who has been much involved in the launch of the Living Earth Movement is Charles Betterton. (Read about his background at the LEM about page.) He will be able to launch our responses by sharing his experience with the kind of online networking that facilitates a Unity Earth perspective.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

Learning Circle: Process & Coffee
2022-08-17 08:00 - 09:00, 2022-08-24 08:00 - 09:00, 2022-08-31 08:00 - 09:00, 2022-09-07 08:00 - 09:00, 2022-09-14 08:00 - 09:00, 2022-09-21 08:00 - 09:00, 2022-09-28 08:00 - 09:00 | Online Event
Process & Coffee is about spiritual integration and exploration. We meet weekly to dive into books by mystics and sages. The discussion that follows helps to deepen our own spiritual lives.

To learn more or join, send an email to learninglab@cobb.institute.

Process Pop-up: Process and Religious Pluralism
2022-08-18 16:30 - 17:30
Facilitated by Bruce Epperly & Sheri Kling

Join a dynamic discussion on process and religious pluralism, using Bruce Epperly’s recently published book The Elephant is Running: Process and Open and Relational Theologies and Religious Pluralism as a springboard for conversation.

How should Christians respond to the dynamic changes in the North American and global religious landscape? What resources do process and openness theologies provide for interspiritual seekers and religious adventurers? Process theologian and pastor Bruce Epperly reflects on his latest book.

Sponsored by Process & Faith and the Cobb Institute.

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Learning Circle: An Awakening Planet?
2022-08-23 08:30 - 09:30, 2022-09-06 08:30 - 09:30, 2022-09-20 08:30 - 09:30 | Online Event
A Discussion Group Contemplating the Vision of Teilhard de Chardin

Facilitated by Dr. Ernie Tamminga, this group meets every two weeks to carefully consider how and whether Teilhard de Chardin’s hope-filled perspective on the human evolutionary future can still inspire us in a time full of conflicts and division.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Andrew Davis
2022-08-23 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Ideas in Process–Ten Whiteheadian Transitions

Presenter(s): Andrew Davis

Dr. Davis, Program Director of the Center for Process Studies, is sharing a presentation he made for Tom Oord’s ORTCON conference in July. Andrew M. Davis is a philosopher, theologian, and scholar of world religions. He holds B.A. in Philosophy and Theology, an M.A. in Interreligious Studies, and a Ph.D. in Religion and Process Philosophy from Claremont School of Theology (CST). He is a poet, aphorist and author or editor of four books including How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere: An Anthology of Spiritual Memoirs (2018, with Philip Clayton); Propositions in the Making: Experiments in a Whiteheadian Laboratory (2019, with Roland Faber and Michael Halewood); Depths as Yet Unspoken: Whiteheadian Excursions in Mysticism, Multiplicity, and Divinity (2020, with Roland Faber); and Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy (2020, Lexington). For more about Andrew’s work and research interests, visit his website at andrewmdavis.info.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

Learning Circle: Readings on Faiths Around the World
2022-08-25 08:30 - 09:30, 2022-09-08 08:30 - 09:30, 2022-09-22 08:30 - 09:30 | Online Event
Readings on Faiths Around the World is a book group that meets twice a month to read and discuss texts that deal with the vast diversity of world faiths, those that have had a very large influence for many centuries as well as those that may be newer and less well-known. The only prerequisite for this group is a desire to learn about the wide variety of religion expressions.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Ahmed Afzaal
2022-08-30 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Teaching at Twilight – The Meaning of Education in the Age of Collapse

Presenter(s): Ahmed Afzaal

Dr. Ahmed Afzaal, Associate Professor of Religion, Concordia College in Minnesota, will be discussing his soon to be published book, expressing his concern about the values taught in our institutions of higher education. A native of Pakistan, his approach to a process-relational way of thinking comes through his encounter with the thinking of Iqbal. He comes to us highly recommended by Marcus Ford, who is engaged in an innovative model of higher education at Flagstaff College in Arizona. See Dr. Afzaal’s curriculum vitae here, and also his article that caught the attention of Marcus Ford, “Education in a Time of Collapse.” To see his website and find him through social media, go here.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Sheri Kling and Doug King
2022-09-06 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: The Biblical Narrative and Universal God Identity

Presenter(s): Sheri D. Kling and Doug King

Sheri D. Kling, director of Process & Faith and the John Cobb Legacy Fund, is working on an exciting project with Doug King, CEO of Presence International, a growing network that engages emergent, integral, and interspiritual organizations and idea leaders to facilitate a “global conversation for a new earth.” Sheri and Doug are offering a course called “The Biblical Narrative and Universal God Identity: Integral Theology and Process Approaches,” co-sponsored by Process & Faith and the Cobb Institute. The course will be on Zoom, begins September 13, and will run for six consecutive Tuesdays at 4:30pm Pacific/7:30pm Eastern.

Doug King is steeped in biblical scholarship and worked alongside his father, Max King, to develop Presence to offer events, a podcast, and other teaching resources. He uses Spiral Dynamics (a developmental model of human consciousness that considers Alfred North Whitehead one of its forerunners) to approach the biblical narrative, and has developed what he calls “integral theology.” In their discussion with John Cobb & Friends, Sheri and Doug will provide a brief overview of the exciting material they plan to cover in their upcoming course.

From their perspectives, both process thought and integral consciousness provide a developmental approach to the evolution of human consciousness. Process philosophy and theology have been used as life-giving tools in interpretation of the biblical narrative and in their teaching together, Sheri and Doug will investigate the use of integral consciousness models as complementary to biblical interpretation as well. Their primary question will be whether the biblical narrative has always been evolving toward and into universal God identity. The implications of the possible answers to that question can dramatically affect the future of long held Christian views of identity. This is especially true if the biblical narrative points to something beyond separation thinking with regard to identity. For our gathering, they will introduce the use of models like Spiral Dynamics to trace biblical history, finding meaning both in its original setting and as a process story of the evolution of spiritual consciousness with regard to God identity.

To learn more about Doug King’s organization and its work, visit https://www.presence.tv/. From there you can explore videos and the Presence podcast (available on iTunes and other podcast platforms).

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Evaggelos Vallianatos
2022-09-13 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Brewing Climate Chaos and Pandemics in Our Backyards

Presenter(s): Evaggelos Vallianatos

Writing out of his experience as a scientist with the US Environmental Protection Agency (1979-2004), Dr. Vallianatos has published Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA (Bloomsbury Press, 2014), an expose of the influence of the chemical-industrial complex on the regulatory agency. He has also written several articles on climate change, including this one, published August 4, which he recommends you read in preparation for our meeting. Valliantos is Greek historian with degrees from University of Illinois (BA, MA), and University of Wisconsin (Ph.D.) is attached. At Harvard University he pursued postdoctoral studies in the history of science, and he has taught history and the politics of environmental protection at several prominent universities. Early in 2020 Dr. Vallianatos reported to John Cobb & Friends about his experience of organic farms in China and in his native Greece. See what he’s thinking at vallianatos.blogspot.com and muckrack.com/evaggelosvallianatos.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Md. Abu Sayem
2022-09-20 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Religion and Ecological Crisis

Presenter(s): Md. Abu Sayem

Professor Sayem’s newly published book, Religion and Ecological Crisis (Routledge), compares perspectives of John B. Cobb and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Sayem explores how prescriptions of these scholars, a Christian and a Muslim, can contribute alternatively to techno-scientific initiatives in environmental sustainability. Taking Cobb’s “economism” and Nasr’s “scientism” as the key concepts for surveying the roots of the ecological crisis, the book offers interdisciplinary and interreligious insights into the debates about ecological equilibrium, motivational awareness in human mind and about entanglements between religion and the environment. A native of Bangladesh with extensive global experience, Dr. Sayem is Associate Professor in World Religions and Culture at the University of Dhaka. At the University’s website you can find his biographical information, including research interests, awards and publications.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Mark VanderSchaaf
2022-09-27 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Engaging with the Soul(s) of the City: Lessons from Dallas, Saint Paul, New York and Los Angeles

Presenter(s): Mark VanderSchaaf

In the early 1990s Mark VanderSchaaf was appointed as the first economic planner for the City of Saint Paul in Minnesota. Drawing upon his admiration for the Herman Daly/John Cobb book For the Common Good, and the teachings of Carl Jung and Rudolph Steiner, Mark devised a unique approach to economic development that yielded remarkable dividends for his city and its region. Mark’s presentation will share how his ideas crystallized with the help of mentors at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, and how these ideas were then applied to the task of riverfront revitalization in Saint Paul and the entire Upper Mississippi River Valley. Finally, he will talk about teaching opportunities that subsequently materialized in Los Angeles (2004) and New York City (2013), which drew upon this experience.

Later in his career Mark became the regional planning director for the seven-county Minneapolis-Saint Paul Area (2004-2016) and upon retirement was elected national chair of the American Planning Association’s Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division. In retirement, Mark has especially focused on the role that public art can play in the process of community-oriented economic revitalization. From that perspective, he delivered a keynote speech in Qingdao, China in January of this year at the International Award for Public Art ceremony and award program.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

Process Thinking & Human Living
2022-09-30 17:00 - 20:00
The way we think and the beliefs we hold about the workings of our cosmos have a huge impact on the way we live. Often, our view of the world may rest on unquestioned assumptions that no longer reflect reality. In fact, some of our assumptions about the world work directly against human flourishing.

Since the early twentieth century, many have found life-giving resources in the work of Alfred North Whitehead and others working in what is now called process philosophy and process or open and relational theologies. Process thought often has more in common with ways of thinking that are found in the East – such as in the traditions of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism – than it does with the dominant worldview in the West. How might we apply these resources in both East and West to address the division and suffering we see in our world today?

In this 3-hour, online seminar, speakers from Process & Faith, a program of the Center for Process Studies of Claremont School of Theology will explore aspects of process thought that make a positive difference in human life and in the life of the earth. A second seminar is being planned for early 2023 on process thought and various religious traditions.

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