“[I]n recent centuries we often discern the most striking efficacy of the power of creative transformation in the scientist, artist, and philosopher who stand outside the churches because they have rejected them or been rejected by them, or because they have been simply too bored by the churches to take them seriously. ... In each generation much of the creative energy expressed outside the churches was originally generated within them. … One reason for the separation of the actual effective presence of Christ from the celebration of that presence in the church is that the churches lost their nerve. … Of course, the church had always intended to be faithful to its traditions, but throughout the early and medieval times this faithfulness was achieved by a dynamic process of rethinking the past in the light of current experience and of the best knowledge available. On the whole the most creative minds were the leading thinkers of the church. … It is only in more recent times that Christians have defined their beliefs in contradistinction to the most imaginative and critical thought of the day.”

-- Cobb & Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition