Reviewed by: Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed Wayne Lott Bruce G. Epperly. Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T&T Clark, 2011. Pp. 192. Paper, US$24.95. ISBN 9780567632555. In Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed Bruce Epperly presents process theology in a manner that is not only accessible to academics but also students, laypeople, and clergy alike. He writes as “a pastor-theologian, committed to spiritual formation, social justice, confessional pluralism, and the healing ministry of Jesus” (vii). Without a doubt, this is no small undertaking. Process theology owes much to the complex thought of Alfred North Whitehead, whose writings were not intended for lay audiences. The task of applying process thought to Christian theology since Whitehead first presented his process metaphysic has been taken up by esteemed theologians such as Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, and David Ray Griffin; reflection on Whitehead’s work has produced some unique perspectives on various theological topics. Epperly introduces these important thinkers and their respective thoughts while providing the reader with his own unique theological perspectives. Insofar as he presents process theology to a lay audience [End Page 337] in a comprehensible and attractive manner, Epperly is to be commended for a not inconsequential success. Epperly identifies several important themes within process thought that demand a reinterpretation of certain Christian doctrines. First, reality is ultimately dynamic, not static. The world emerges from an interplay between God and creatures in which God finds his relevance through his relationship with creatures, whose existence is marked by change; meanwhile, the creature finds its completion by contributing to the evolving world that is embraced within God’s own experience (21). Second, Epperly points out the theme of dynamic interdependence. Here he advocates process thought’s rejection of substance-oriented thinking, which views individual things as isolated atoms. Such a perspective fails to recognize how interdependent all things are to each other: body, mind, and environment, for instance, all play a role in our experiences and choices (22). Third, Epperly explores the universality of experience. Human beings alone do not share in experiences; included are all individual things, down to the simplest essences such as electrons, atoms, and molecules (24). A fourth theme is creativity and freedom. All things can create, since they are capable of experience. All things are guided by God’s vision for each thing at each moment, as well as the influences of the surrounding environment. However, each individual thing can creatively and freely synthesize and integrate these data in its making of itself and its environment (26–27). Finally, there is the theme of a process-relational God. God is not “wholly other,” but the “wholly present one” (28). God stands in continuity with the world. Like the world, God too is a subject of dynamic process, interdependence, universality of freedom, and creativity and freedom. Epperly applies these basic process themes to his understanding of various Christian theological themes ranging from Christology to pneumatology, spiritual formation, sin, soteriology, eschatology, ethics, revelation, and immortality. In addressing these themes Epperly is keenly aware of the creative tension between process theology’s treatment of them and the classical theistic understanding of them. In much of the book, Epperly criticizes the classical theistic understanding of God as an immutable, omnipotent, and omniscient being who stands outside of time. Such a God cannot possibly stand in an intimate relationship to the world. How can there be any human freedom when God knows all that will come to pass? Can a God who is unable to suffer truly love God’s creatures? In process thought, God needs creatures just as much as each creature needs God. God’s future is open to the future as much as each creature’s. God is moved by our sufferings and seeks to remedy them through persuasion, but never through coercion. As Epperly treats the various theological themes, this dialectical encounter with classical theism is ever present. However, Epperly’s rejection of the classical theism comes at a price. In Epperly’s account of process thought, many traditional understandings of Christian doctrine must undergo a radical revision. Epperly transforms historically foundational doctrines such as creation ex...