Book Review by Ellen Haroutunian:
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe. New York: Convergent Books, 2019.
It is timely that I write this during Holy Week, as we lean into the Paschal Mystery, which focuses us upon the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There’s no question that the world is a hot mess right now, with rapidly increasing greed, divisions, violence, and cruelty. It seems that the Paschal Mystery should have something profound to offer such a pain-filled world, yet the pain of the world and the confessions of the church seem to rarely meet. And so, Fr. Richard Rohr begins his newest book, The Universal Christ, with the tender words of a pastor, speaking first to those who are alienated and lonely. This Mystery, he says, is the indwelling of the Divine Presence in everyone and everything, and the reality of this oneness in Christ is the cure for human loneliness and strife. It is the pattern of Reality and the path of transformation. This book is theologically challenging but highlights and resurrects a larger hope that has long been in our tradition. It deserves to be read slowly, like Lectio Divina, allowing our weary souls to soak deeply in its riches.
Before I delve further into this book, however, it is important to say that Fr. Rohr speaks from a solid, Catholic Christology. His magnanimous view of the heart of God is misunderstood by some to be counter to Christian tradition. To be clear, Rohr teaches that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, begotten not made, the second Person of the Trinity, the Word of God incarnated in human flesh, fully divine and fully man. He died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins and was bodily resurrected, demonstrating God’s victory over sin, death and hell. Catholics have long taught, as Rohr does, that the Paschal Mystery, which involves actual events in time through Jesus, is always happening still, over and over again.
Fr. Rohr calls us beyond theology into a beautiful and transformative Reality which is the Universal Christ. He contends that much of Christianity’s focus has been on salvation as merely an evacuation plan, being good, and the promise of heaven. Indeed, the faith has become privatized and “time and culture-bound, often ethnic or overtly racist, excluding much of humanity from God’s embrace.”[1]This is because, Rohr writes, we have in effect taken Jesus Christ out of the Trinity and have lost sight of the larger Christ story, which is what God is doing universally throughout all Creation.
This is actually not new stuff. From the beginning, the whole cosmos has been infused with the presence of God, specifically the Word through whom everything was brought into being and who sustains everything in being. The ongoing unfolding of the universe is the work of the Word of God, the Christ, and Christ will bring everything to its ultimate telos: the consummation of everything in God at the end of time. Rohr insists that the implications of having eyes to see and embrace that the Christ is the pattern of Reality itself changes everything. Our notion of faith in the West, he says, has been “rational assent to beliefs instead of a calm and hopeful trust that God is inherent in all things, and that this whole thing is going somewhere good.”[2]To see in this way is what Rohr names as an incarnational worldview. Essentially, it opens our eyes to see transcendence again, after the disenchantment and secularization of the modern era.
Most importantly, to see Christ in all things is to view ourselves as participating members of a common identity in Christ who is calling us forward to ultimate union in God. Once again we see a Christ-infused world, and can care for it as such. In this light, it makes sense that Jesus Christ makes a moral equivalence between himself and those we reject, ignore, and persecute as well, as he taught in Matthew 25, and to Paul on the road to Damascus. In a world permeated with the presence of God, nothing and no-one is left out. Everyone has a universally shared, inherent dignity. Imagine what it would be like if the Church everywhere behaved in a way that honored Christ in everyone and everything?
Rohr cautions that he is not speaking of a cheap universalism. However, he says, we resist such wholeness, “as if we enjoy our arguments and divisions into parts.”[3]Clearly, our sinful nature is far more comfortable in those states. Of course, Rohr addresses the reality of sin and restorative—not retributive—justice, with a healthy understanding of how we, in our darkened minds, divide and fragment reality by projecting our own darkness outward onto others and ultimately onto Christ, our scapegoat. Moreover, Christ reveals the true pattern of things, that death and resurrection are the way to transformation and new life. Rohr teaches us the cruciform pattern of what it means to come to life as the new humanity.
To follow Jesus then, he teaches, is to “soften our hearts towards all suffering, to help us see where we ourselves have been ‘bitten’ by hatred and violence, and to know that God’s heart has always been softened towards us.”[4]It is to trust that this life, this Earth, this Creation matters. Matter, matters. It is to move away from climbing over each other to escape like crabs in a bucket, and to embrace the preciousness of this Earth and one another, as we cooperate with God in our renewal and re-creation. That will require a lot of “dying” on the part of each of us. Thankfully, Christ has a way of bringing dead things back to life.
There’s plenty in this book to challenge some of our theological strongholds and certainties, such as the idea of emphasizing original goodness over original sin, questions as to whether Jesus fully understood his Divine nature as he sought to obey his Father, as well as strong pushback to penal substitutionary atonement theory. Whatever the case, our egos will be challenged and by the grace of God, dethroned. But in this rich book, I see a vision of the whole Story of God that Jesus came to reveal and evoke. The real question for us is, how big is our God?
Ellen Haroutunian
[1]Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (New York: Convergent Books, 2019), 36.
[2]Rohr, The Universal Christ, 22.
So glad you reviewed this book, Ellen. Thank you for posting this. I’ve been listening to the podcast that goes along with Rohr’s new book, and have found it to be deep, challenging, and encouraging. My faith has been stretched and deepened through his thoughts on the Universal Christ, and I have felt such a stronger connection to God as a result, knowing God is everywhere – beyond, inside, outside, past, present, future, all around. It’s not that I didn’t know that before, but…well, did I really? This teaching has been eye-opening.
The last line you have here in this review is so profoundly accurate! “The really question for us is, how big is our God?”
Ellen — Why did you write: “To be clear, Rohr teaches that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, begotten not made, the second Person of the Trinity, the Word of God incarnated in human flesh, fully divine and fully man. He died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins and was bodily resurrected, demonstrating God’s victory over sin, death and hell.”
I just read this book, and Rohr does not teach this. I don’t see this affirmation anywhere. Read especially the chapter entitled Why Did Jesus Die.
This is a frightening book and well outside the traditional teachings of Christianity. I am uncertain why Rohr would want to identify himself as a Christian. Most who read the first chapter and have read the Bible and any orthodox creed might readily ask this question. I think your comment is an error.
Thanks for the question, R. Buddemeier. I actually put that paragraph in for the very concerns that you state! He is building on a biblical foundation and our ancient Christian tradition. Rohr is a Franciscan, a Catholic priest, and his theology is consistent with both Franciscan and Catholic doctrine. (Actually, a concerned person reported him to the Vatican, and he passed their inquiry easily!) Of course, the Catholic view of the atonement precedes Luther and Calvin, so it may not be as familiar to Protestants and others. The Franciscans in particular emphasize the incarnation as evidence even before the cross that that God loves and reconciles with the material creation, which counters the falseness of Greek dualism. He also connects us with the Girardian view of the atonement. There’s not new, heretical stuff here. Though the assertions in my paragraph are indeed in the book and have been in his teaching over his many years, he does not dwell on them at length in this book because he assumes that you already have that foundation.
Thanks for the question, R. Buddemeier. I actually put that paragraph in for the very concerns that you state! He is building on a biblical foundation and our ancient Christian tradition. Rohr is a Franciscan, a Catholic priest, and his theology is consistent with both Franciscan and Catholic doctrine. (Actually, a concerned person reported him to the Vatican, and he passed their inquiry easily!) Of course, the Catholic view of the atonement precedes Luther and Calvin, so it may not be as familiar to Protestants and others. The Franciscans in particular emphasize the incarnation as evidence even before the cross that that God loves and reconciles with the material creation, which counters the falseness of Greek dualism. He also connects us with the Girardian view of the atonement. There’s not new, heretical stuff here. Though the assertions in my paragraph are indeed in the book and have been in his teaching over his many years, he does not dwell on them at length in this book because he assumes that you already have that foundation.
Ellen Haroutunian
Me too, Ellen. What Jessica said!
I agree about this not being cheap universalism. It occurs to me that having had our hard hearts softened by the Holy Spirit that none of us could endure the suffering of ANY created being. Is this why there is much weeping and wailing. I like the analogy of God being a consuming fire. His judgement consumes our rotten flesh, much in the way old physicians put maggots on a wound that dead flesh was consumed or if you prefer Lewis’ analogy loosening dragon scales from our body TIL the real person is restored. By the way if you are looking for another truth bearing myth as an analogy check out the purification of the giant in Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant where the giant carries Thomas and walks through Molten Rock. Getting back to the point, I doubt any of us could stand watching the purification process of a person upon their being consumed by the love of God. Let’s not forget the image of Christ suffering on the cross as the cost of such universal salvation, Christ died once and for all and rose triumphant over death that we might know Him and He who sent Him.
1) It’s not solid Catholic Christology to say Jesus and Christ are not one and the same. Ask a Catholic about Rohr. I did. They don’t think much of him.
2) Rohr conveniently ignores the Jewish origin of the title Christ (messiah) which is a much more ancient usage than any of his sources. Conflicts with his premise. Until he can square that circle. (Maybe it can be done) the rest of his musings are foundationless. Long forgotten fiddlesticks.