Ebook The Universal Christ How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See Hope For and Believe Richard Rohr 9781524762094 Books

Product details Hardcover 260 pages Publisher Convergent Books (March 5, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1524762091

The Universal Christ How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See Hope For and Believe Richard Rohr 9781524762094 Books Reviews

• The central claim of Richard Rohr’s new book, The Universal Christ, is that there is a fundamental distinction between Jesus of Nazareth, on the one hand, and the universal Christ, on the other. Jesus was a human being who lived and died 2,000 years ago; the universal Christ is an ever-present and all-encompassing presence that, while quintessentially expressed in Jesus of Nazareth, is also manifest both in and as every created thing. As Rohr repeats again and again, God (who is more or less equivalent to the universal Christ) loves things by becoming them, and not metaphorically.
  
  Although with such a claim we are obviously far afield from the unclouded waters of Catholic doctrine, this is not what is most unsatisfying about the book. That is Rohr’s response to the tacit presupposition undergirding the central claims of his book. Rohr supposes, rightly, that the Postmodern world has left human beings in a state of intellectual and moral poverty and cast them adrift in a cold and disenchanted universe.
  
  True enough, but Rohr’s solution is to say that, no, we are not isolated, and the universe does have meaning, but this is so because all things already just are the universal Christ, whose inundating presence obliterates the otherness of all things, even of God, to myself. For Rohr, this is good news. However, such a response is inherently disingenuous, for with such a solution Rohr merely swaps a lonely universe for a hall of mirrors in which ultimately there is nothing and no one that can be reflected other than myself.
  
  We see this when Rohr offers his take on the death of Jesus. In a chapter entitled “Why did Jesus die?” Rohr rejects outright, as he has done elsewhere, that Jesus’ death ransoms us from sin.
  
  According to Rohr, those who believe the death of Jesus effects our salvation ascribe to the “penal substitutionary theory,” and hold that God demands the blood of his son as the price of his love for us. Such a theory of Jesus’ death is grossly inadequate, first because it makes God out to be a bloodthirsty monster, who puts “retributive justice” ahead of love and mercy, even if it means the death of an innocent person.
  
  But Rohr notes a second inadequacy. Jesus must be seen not as a savior, but as someone who knew himself already to share the identity of the universal Christ and whose mission was to call us to the knowledge that we also are already one with the universal Christ. Thus, Jesus’ life and ministry must be understood as awakening us to the knowledge of our divine identity, not a paying a price to a bloodthirsty and far-off tyrant.
  
  Such a response in no way gets us out of the Postmodern malaise. In fact, Rohr concludes the chapter with a sort of prayer to Jesus, which turns out in the end to be, rather creepily, a prayer to oneself. Rohr wants a Christ without the cross and without the Church, but the price he pays turns out to be a weird kind of pantheism in which there is no one whom I can encounter, not even God, who in the end is not identical to me.
  
  From the standpoint of Catholic theology, what can be said in response to such a position? It is dismaying that a book on Christ would never pause to reflect that “Christ” translates “Messiah,” and that Rohr should fail to engage the rich Jewish messianic theology of the Bible. The book refuses to consider the imprint, so clear in all the Gospels, of Isaiah 53 as the key to Jesus’ own understanding of his death and ignores Paul’s theology of the cross. Such biblical amnesia is a reflection of a Postmodern reluctance to wrestle with history and theology, a refusal to allow the texts of Scripture to speak to and challenge our preconceptions.
  
  But there is something even more sinister. Rohr plays the magician throughout his book, conjuring a sweeping narrative but by sleights-of-hand misdirects our attention, allowing him to play fast and loose with both history and scripture, and in the process to look with contempt and derision upon the simple faith of all who have ever cast their hope on the cross of the Lord Jesus. We do better instead to stand in this simple faith, founded upon the friendship of Jesus our Messiah and Lord, and to gaze upon the cross in the piety of the old Cistercian hymn
  
  What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
  For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
  O make me Thine forever and should I fainting be,
  Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.
• Normally I try to write reviews that are generally helpful to a potential buyer/reader in that they point out the strong point/flaws, etc. I don’t have anything like that to offer here.
  
  What I do have to offer is this my soul seemed to recognize (or somehow remember?) the words on these pages. Like I had known it all long ago but have somehow forgotten and was now being pointed back to what I always knew-what I always was.
  
  I have always had serious anxiety-since I was a very small child. All I can say is when I read this book I did not feel afraid.
• There is something very poetic about the release of THE UNIVERSAL CHRIST on Fat Tuesday 2019. Perhaps because as I have read through the Preface and Chapter 1 (Christ Is Not Jesus' Last Name) it has already become clear in my spirit that Richard Rohr's newest book promises to bring my half century of spiritual seeking to a new pinnacle, and a new depth. What a pleasure it is to feast on such an amazingly simple, yet profound clarification of who we are in Christ and what we must now do, starting with this Lent season. The only thing the Lord requires for me to give up; my attachment to all lesser truth perhaps rolled up in the traditions of men. Thanks Richard!!
• This is arguably Fr. Richard Rohr's most important message of his career. To understand the Christ separate and apart from Jesus feels groundbreaking, while Fr. Richard is so careful to ground this teaching in both Scripture and the historical, orthodox teachings of the Church. Grasping onto this understanding, and re-reading familiar passages of Scripture again through this new lens, truly can change how we see everything. This is a total game changer!
• I'll be honest. The title made me wonder. "Universal Christ" smacks of an idea that becomes so broad as to be meaningless. In spite of that initial concern, this book was transformative. It is about holding two ideas together in dynamic tension. Christ as universal and Jesus as particular. It also draws together both thought and practice. Learning to Christ in new ways today has helped me rediscover Jesus of Nazareth.
  
  One of the other unexpected joys of this book was the new light it shed on the writings of Paul. Paul's constant use of the term "in Christ" had never stood out to me before as I always thought it entirely synonymous with Jesus. Discovering the meaning and historical roots of "the Christ" helped me see how radical of a statement it was for Paul to say "it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me," or, "Christ is all and is in all."
  
  If you've stepped away from Christianity, this book is worth a read. You might find something to come back to.
  
  If you are a Christian, it is an invitation to a deeper understanding of faith.
  
  But you don't need to be a Christian or even consider yourself a person of faith to find the history, ideas and personal insight fascinating and transformative.
• [I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
  
  A fascinating discussion. This is dense reading - not something to dig into while doing other things or to only half-focus on. Lots of thought-provoking ideas about the nuanced difference between Jesus and Christ. While I didn't get on board with all of the ideas here, there were nuggets that I enjoyed and will spend time thinking about and digging into Scripture about.