Rohr Shock
I have met a number of colleagues who found the writings of the Catholic priest/writer on spirituality Richard Rohr illuminating. I figured I had better find out what it was all about, so on my study day recently I read his book, Everything Belongs. It is surely unfair to draw global conclusions based on a single work a decade and a half ago, but just the same, some important questions do present themselves. Its pertinence extends beyond the question of what one makes of Rohr alone.
The title itself could be related to many things: a Zen consciousness of all of reality, a more pantheistic version thereof, or perhaps a Jungian sense that good and ill, light and dark, are a single whole. I suspect that all those influences are in our author. But let’s tie it, in a more charitable and specifically Christian way, to the affirmation in Colossians 1 that all things cohere in Christ. Rohr would surely affirm such a verse, but it is important to note how he would understand it. Christ is, throughout the world, the enlightener, the teacher, the revealer -- we would come to a consciousness in ourselves of a comprehensive coherence, one in which interests of ego and competition are left behind, and the image, example, and teaching of Jesus would be the means of our seeing it. Of course Jesus does reveal, and we should transcend our own ego. But the account of our faith that results is a truncated one. The following four questions get at how.
What is the scope of this great coherence? The answer is our own consciousness, which must find true emptiness, break through, own its body non-dualistically, etc. Rohr is not offering an account ultimately of history or the world, nor is there a role of Jesus other than the one I mentioned above.
Who is the agent at work here? Well, us, insofar as we cleanse our minds, let go of what we cling to, accept reality as it is, etc. God is a great affirmation toward which such a contemplative mind can move. But He doesn’t do much in Rohr’s account.
What exactly stops us from this? Our own deceptions and illusions. There is little sense of evil or of the distorted and sinful will over which we are powerless. In this sense one can see why it appeals to us Americans, who are after all optimists.
And what then of religion? It is, positively, the beginner’s stage, and a source of accountability. But each has its own language, no better or worse than the next, to describe this universal experience of the awakened consciousness. In this sense it is hard to see how the presence of the doctrine of the crucified and risen Christ in one makes a decisive difference. And it is hard to see how the specific narratives and doctrines of each matter. This is not good news to our religious neighbors.
Of course Christianity does mean that, spiritually, our consciousness is transformed. But this is always a consequence of something more basic -- the claim about who Jesus Christ is. In Him, not us, all things cohere -- Colossians 1 is a great Christological hymn and exclamation. Going back to the beginning, compelling forms of spirituality, which were almost orthodox, tried to speak to our personal and individual lives much as Rohr does. The great example in early Christianity was Gnosticism, which means in Greek ‘knowledge’ or ‘enlightenment.’ But the pieces they left out was no addendum, it was the treasure you find in a field, for which you pay all that you have.
Peace,
+GRS
