Richard Rohr - A Contemplative Look At The Bible

hello everybody welcome to the podcast our topic today is a contemplative look the Bible whatever that is and we're going to find out because Richard Rohr is going to help us find out yeah and Richard is the founder of the Center for action and contemplation out in Albuquerque written a lot of it was it is not a meth lab sure yeah I asked him his leader Chuck because where I didn't want all kinds of people infect us yeah not when we're right left left people but he did write a book called things hidden Scripture as we mentality that's the name of midlas okay didn't I knew it I knew it Netflix was ruined me but scripture had spirituality and I think it's going to be important but maybe talk a little bit about roar and the impact he's had on on your journey well roar came into my life so to speak really Jesus came into my life a Richard Rohr came into my life at a time when I was just rethinking a lot of stuff about the bible old paradigms were not working they were sort of falling apart and I just didn't really know what to do and he was one of several people whose writings and and lectures that I just opened up a window of understanding where I had never really thought about thinking about the Bible differently than I was used to thinking about it which is you know historical or you know not literal but but very much trying to figure out what happened and what's going on back then in time and Richard's way sort of incorporates that but there's a lot more to it not there's a lot of depth which I think takes into account the history of the Christian Church actually which is read the Bible in various different ways for spiritual benefit and that's really what I was looking for and he was just a huge help to me and still is yeah I would I would echo that especially with falling upward and helping us out of it he does a lot with bringing out a kind of dichotomies that it has to be this either/or in a really constructive way of getting us out of just critiquing each other all the time but what are constructive approaches using the Bible constructively and not defensively or not just to prove this or that but actually for spiritual justice which you know oddly enough for people in a Protestant tradition to say that's new to me there's a problem right there so maybe we need a Roman that's probably a good idea with the even-even Richard who's probably had a very good roam ago that's right again he will save us and in that conversation with Richard Roy in our understanding of who God is God becomes less violent less punitive more inclusive less tribe on that to me is pretty obvious and I think it's what we meant when we said that we read the scriptures in the light of Jesus well Richard it's great to have you here on the Bible for normal people you are a normal person right great way to start I heard rumors I'm not sure okay well anyway you're here coming to us from Albuquerque and we're just honored to have you here we're going to have some fun talking about the Bible so you know first off let me just ask a very innocent simple question um what is the Bible Wow okay there you go let's just do that for about two hours and then we'll hang up well all I can do is give you my perspective but I think it is a history of the inspired writings of the Jewish and the Christian peoples over maybe as much as um in all 1500 year period that we have chosen and selected to be normative in other words to give us a touchstone for what we believe a touchstone it sets a trajectory that we can build on if you don't have that of course the field is so open that you have no home base so this is our home base our home base so normative and it's interesting you put two words together there that aren't normally put together in this conversation at least with let's say a Protestant audience especially evangelical protestant all these the Bible is normative and it sets trajectories and those two things are know and put together so help us understand that how can something be normative and yet trajectory implies movement and norms aren't supposed to move are they you know I'm highly formed by things like spiral dynamics and evolutionary consciousness and and developmental psychology and I look at the Bible and I clearly see that there are writings that represent very primitive levels of consciousness that's not to say they're uninspired but they reflect you know a pretty violent dualistic punitive wrathful notion of God let me pull out books like Joshua and judges I'm not saying they're uninspired but I certainly wouldn't put them in the same category as the Gospel of John so I just have to be honest about the text that the evolution of religious consciousness for me is exemplified in the Bible itself which gives us all kind of permission and that's why I use the word projectory it sets the trajectory that puts us in a direction mm-hmm okay now I have 17 follow-up questions I'm just kidding you use the word inspired and again I mean I know how people in traditions that I'm familiar with would define that term what what is inspiration mean for you what is it term connote you know the most common phrase used in in Catholic biblical theology and I know it'll sound like a cop-out but it really isn't is the Word of God in the words of men or women and that seems like a sellout I'm sure to an evangelical because it's hard to hear that these are in the words of men or words of humans but I think I pretty much hold that that we have to recognize that God's invasion into human consciousness albeit a positive invasion was always filtered through our capacity to hear it and our capacity to receive it and so we have to honor a good understanding of human nature anthropology psychology to see that our filters were also growing in in contact with this divine invasion that God broke into history and little by little changed us and I see the Bible as charting that growth and that change so it is inspired but uh I guess this sounds radical to an evangelical but I can't say that every line in the Bible is equally inspired there's clearly a growth in our understanding of who God is God becomes less violent less punitive more inclusive less tribal that to me is pretty obvious and I think it's what we meant when we said that we read the scriptures in the light of Jesus and I would that would be my hermeneutic now I look at Jesus how he interprets the Bible and it's pretty clear there's large books of his own Jewish scriptures that he never quotes once uh and we can't deny that at least in the text we have of Jesus recorded statements and he has preferred prophets and he has preferred fiends in the Bible and he has other themes in his own Bible that he actively disagrees with and so Richard can you talk a little bit more about these filters because I think that's a that's a concept that makes a lot of people uncomfortable we talk about things not being equally inspired now we have to adjudicate and Jesus has a way of doing that but you also mention things like psychology and other truths that have come out can you talk about how you filter the Bible and how you read it let me step back for a minute and see how I think as long it's just my opinion but now I think we got into the pit so deep that it's very hard to get out of after the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries particularly in the german-speaking countries the english-speaking countries and the french-speaking countries where the Enlightenment was most active we started feeling we Christians both Catholic and Protestant started feeling very stupid we felt like we were out of the conversation with intelligent people who had all become extremely rational and so we created if I can say this our own form of rationality and that took two different directions we Catholics said okay we need a salute Supreme Court and we made our Supreme Court the Pope and the bishops you Protestants needed the same thing one absolute authority one supreme court and you made that the written Bible which for us as Catholics was already one step removed from the Living Bible which is the risen Christ or the Bible of creation which has existed for billions of years and so coming from a Catholic theology perspective we feel and please don't take this in a negative or critical way but you may overemphasize the written Bible so much so that from our perspective it became idolatrous but I would be the first to admit that we did the same thing with the Pope and the bishops and the priests we became idolatrous in regard to the church and in my opinion we both created a false idol and that's the pit that we can't get out of now that we put all of our appeal on to extrinsic authority ah because no matter how you interpret the Bible it's still you aren't reputation which is why we have 30,000 Christian denominations excuse me a second so we Catholic thought we would solve that problem by saying okay the Bible will be interpreted by the Pope but again what that denied both of us in different ways was any reliance upon inner experience an experience of the risen Christ the the indwelling Holy Spirit I know that sounds dangerous to most Western people because we've so relied upon extrinsic Authority that now to pull that back at least a little bit it sounds pretty scary and I really understand that in the school here in the living school we speak of our methodology being a tricycle and the tricycle has three wheels the first wheel is experience the back wheels are Scripture and tradition and I believe those three wheels have to move together forward and if any one of them is missing you don't have a very holistic reading of the moment or you don't have any deep Christian experience and so I would say the Protestant tradition over did the scripture peace we Catholics overdid the tradition peace and in fact define traditional very limited way not the great perennial judeo-christian traditions but usually very recent tradition and that we were being rightly criticized for by the Protestant Reformation but both of us underplayed the absolute centrality and importance of experience so under what's behind that right I mean what is it that might lead to these traditions developing the way that they did are they afraid of something or you know what what it's psychologically spiritual what's what's happening in these traditions that makes experience such a problem to hold on to an external authority well you know for religion to have authority in a moving culture moving history it feels and I understand this it has to appeal to an absolute source it's the only way to start stop the argumentation I want to hold yourself together at least in some kind of tribe or some kind of coherence so I think that need to speak with one voice to speak with the United Front gave both of our groups a different kind of bias toward absolute outer authority and allowed us to underplay what you know I mean Jesus himself Paul himself this is undeniable they trust their own experience of God against their own scriptures that's true in Jesus and that's true in Paul now there we make them the writers of are the main figures in the New Testament but we don't dare follow their pattern both of them were highly critical but how their scriptures were being interpreted well we don't follow them because you know I mean the rnd argument usually goes you don't follow them because they're writers of the Bible exactly and of course the irony is that well no actually maybe that's why we should follow them and there you go there you go writers poked it wide open didn't we though yeah and yeah we always make an exception well they were different well are we supposed to imitate Jesus and Paul are not they both told us to and I think we should now again I want to repeat so you don't think I'm some kind of terrible heretic I do believe that we have to have the touchstones of Scripture and the perennial tradition to test and verify our experience if our experiences really eccentric are egocentric are idiosyncratic there's no saint there's no mystic there's no Bible quote that ever had anything comparable to what you're saying I think you need to call your experience into question so so go more into that Richard so that we don't have to call you a heretic no but go go into more you know you have this tricycle and I think the danger were but it's hard to wrap our minds around accountability or like Yoda more practically how do you you know you said if you have an experience that doesn't match these you should call into question but I think there's a fear around that that if you know what's the what's the path that you found to being able to hold these three things that are all in some sense and authority but maybe not the authority well yeah well I'll be honest with you I'm about to turn 74 this has been a lifetime of practice and spiritually directing people who are also trying to hear the voice of God in their life and so it doesn't come glibly quickly or easily I think you learn this methodology by a trial and error by doing it wrong by over emphasizing your eccentric experience by using the Bible merely looking for proof texts to prove what you already experientially are traditionally have decided to believe and for me that was the big giveaway that as I directed people both Catholic and Protestant I would again again see that they led with experience anyway but that experience was not accountable and that's why I put experience as the front wheel of the tricycle I think Protestants de facto trust their own experience and then they find scriptures to validate it I think you have the right same thing and then we find a saint or a mystic or a pope or a bishop who who will agree with us so I don't even think this I know I'm prejudiced but I don't think this takes a lot of proof it is obvious to me that we all lead with our own experience and let's start being honest about that it's got a pretending that we started with some magical scripture quote that fell from the heavens and this gave us the gift of faith our gift of faith came through our human anthropological cultural and religious human experience okay well um you're not a very good Roman Catholic or unit you know we're not good products in this so we're we should start a denomination which one of us is going to be the ruler there you go that's well anyway um yeah Richard in your book things hidden you there was one point I got to the book early on and it just sort of stopped and I said my goodness gracious this is such common sense you cite a rené girard well yes about the Bible as a text in travail I think that was then explain that is that's just a wonderful is an amazing idea when you come when it comes to the Bible that just simply rings so true I think to anyone who really reads it if you're on that well I like to phrase - because he's saying as I understand it that the text itself reveals the problem mirrors the human psyche we get it we lose it we get it we lose it we edge forward I will see these wonderful highly inspired passages already in the book of Exodus for example you know which show real breakthrough a boli's spirit you have only to stand still God will do the fighting for you I think that's Exodus 14 14 that's high level understanding of grace already early in the Hebrew Scriptures but if you very often stay with such an enlightened passage in the very next paragraph they'll pull back its you can almost see the interior soul fighting such freedom fighting such enlightenment um it contradicts itself again and again in the same paragraph you'll have contrary statements ah so that's what I think rené girard means by a text in travail a suffering text you know X that moves three steps forward two steps backward and yet that once that three steps forward mine has been stated it's very hard for the soul ever to forget it and it operates as an allurements and attraction that pulls consciousness forward but we fight it every step of the way sure because we want a book that just works simply that and and everything stays on the same page but I guess what you're saying and where's your artist saying is that paying attention to the contours of the text perfect it's actually pretty enlightening yeah right you watch it you watch how it behaves and this the fact that it's a text interval teaches us something about the spiritual life and we see that model force already in Scripture rather than scripture being a rule book or a cookbook or an owner's manual or something like that perfectly said you're understanding what I'm trying to say I'm just mijung you here from ups over the years Richard so I appreciate that we better agree because I get this from you so uh yeah you know the thing is - you mentioned before another thing just I think it's so fascinating maybe you could talk about um I think you mentioned the evolution of religious consciousness you see that in the Bible itself yes with fits and starts three steps forward one step backward that's you um do you see that evolutionist primarily uh let me ask the question I mean the accusation times happens especially with Protestants as activation to anti-semitism where the Old Testament is the problem and the New Testament is a solution Wow but do you see in the New Testament also let's say maybe a need for an evolution of religious consciousness or is all of the old New Testament simply the last word excellent thank you for asking I am NOT a believer in supersessionism you know that that Christianity made Judaism obsolete Jesus died good Jew and all of his major themes in my opinion were learned from his Hebrew Scriptures from his Jewish Scriptures but that's because he knew how to read them and he he knew in an inspired text with one's leading you forward and he didn't quote the punitive exclusionary imperialistic texts he in fact he actively avoids them that's that's provable that's demonstratable that Jesus does not call his own scriptures as if all of them are of equal importance so that's why I mentioned for example the Exodus 14 14 that I see a capitalized form of every point that Jesus makes already found in his Hebrew Scriptures mm-hmm I cannot accept this disjunction between what we called unfortunately the Old Testament making us think it was out of date I think the trajectory starts and is set by the Hebrew Scriptures but the key of course is to learn how to read the prophets and very frankly most of us didn't read the prophets we in any intelligent way we just saw them as passages the prophesy Jesus that misses 95% of their message right yeah so we a good hermeneutic are critical understanding of the profits I can see why people said well there's a complete disjunction and we got to this supersessionism that Christianity uh you know replaced the Jewish religion the very fact that I often hold up the physical Bible before my class and I say now just look at this physically two-thirds of our Bible is the Jewish Bible so this is a structural physical statement about inclusivity and we can never be an exclusionary religion again because we've already included another religion at least one and so I think this is crucially important or we get into what you're talking about like anti-semitism when you know we could already look at John's Gospel which I just highly praised and I think largely represents mystical non-dual high level religion but there are hints of anti-semitism remaining in John's Gospel so we already have we already have a little two steps backward or at least one step backward hinted at in John's Gospel sort of scary isn't it yet so so there's a I hear a little bit of a hint of these things that maybe need some correction or a closer look in the New Testament and the same in the Hebrew Scriptures can you talk a little bit more you touched on how the prophets really allow for us to see them non-dualistic Lee it's not Old Testament God New Testament God but there's a there's a nugget of something in the prophets can you talk more about what you see in the prophets and how it furthers what you're thinking can you give me two hours yeah yeah actually we can go ahead let me think if you break there's two things that jump out first the the profits are the birth of self critical thinking and it is - I probably say that I hope I say that in the book things in but no other religion incorporates into its inspired text passages that tell that religion that they're phonies and hypocrites and wrong and prostituting themselves you know except the Jewish people had the courage to do that so when you don't have self critical thinking in a religion you always lack the prophetic instinct the other element that I think they bring now we frankly we just didn't have the consciousness to see it till the last 50 years is they didn't read Jewish history in terms of retributive justice but they read it in terms of God's restorative justice that it wasn't quid pro quo - for tat thinking as the the superficial reading of the Bible will allow you to think that when God is in the smiting and wrath and and drowning everybody on the whole planet because a few people sin there's something if you just stay at that superficial level you do think God is a God of retributive justice but the prophets especially Ezekiel Jeremiah Isaiah Hosea they introduced an idea that it's taken us frankly 2,000 years to comprehend Jesus exemplifies it but we still couldn't get it and that is restorative justice that again and again if you read the full historical context in which the Prophet is writing or speaking he again and again says you've done wrong you're terrible you're sinners you're hypocrites you're prostitutes you're phonies but you know what Yahweh is going to love you anyway but it's going to love you into wholeness I mean the dry bones of Ezekiel 16 it's there all the way through the prophets but I think we were so you use the word PTSD before I think a lot of the early passages that reflect very primitive consciousness where God is always smiting his enemies and forgive the unkind word that pissed off most of the time when you have God being pissed off most of the time people who start reading those texts especially as most of us did as children I think we suffer from a kind of spiritual PTSD that we are afraid of this God we don't like this God we don't feel safe around this God and those early retributive justice passages so froze us in consciousness that we just couldn't hear the passages about universal mercy forgiveness compassion ah it was it was just too hard to believe it was too good to be true put it that way good to be true well Richard how I mean in terms of a specific example or two from the New Testament that people always pick up on things like Ananias and Sapphira well yeah and you know what I mean I I agree with you and I think we have to make judgments about what we think the Bible is doing based to you know to a large extent on our experience of God so we have to evaluate these texts that's part of our job I think as theological beings is to evaluate them but so help us evaluate something like Ananias and Sapphira or even no a fair amount of the book of Revelation yeah where you go some attributive in places doesn't it boy it sure does well let's try this that of course actually the apostles where we hear the story of Ananias and Sapphira still being written in the first decades of the Christian revelation I would think most are still highly carrying this primitive notion of God being in immediate causality connection with everything that happens and so I don't know the historical setting but if they happen one of them did happen to die or whatever of course we would naturally I probably would have to immediately attribute that to God's immediate intervention in history of punishment it's just real easy for human beings to read historical events that way even though Jesus was said do you think when the tower fell in Silla wom or that means those people were more sinful than anybody else so we see Jesus reflect a very high level of consciousness but he's always been so far ahead of most of human history that we just pulled him right back into our dualistic mind right come ah I mentioned before and I don't mean to teach this now I couldn't possibly but I use a spiral dynamics a lot to understand the levels of consciousness and if most of history was written at what we call the purple or the red levels where everything is magical tribal God is in immediate causality with everything that's the only way you can read in exams and I understand that but I can't go back to that and if other people were honest I think they admit that they themselves cannot go back to that and that is not the way they think because geez pointed this on a trajectory beyond that and again you know the passage I'm referring to of the tower falling where Jesus says does that mean they were more sinful of course it doesn't but we we've never been ready for Jesus you've just always running ahead of us in the Galilee there is no right so you know what don't hear anything I'm saying as any kind of minimization of the risen Christ the the presence of the living spirit the living Christ the Living Word in history that's where I'm placing my bet and that's where I believe we have to learn almost we have to be retrained to recognize to honor to be obedient to this Living Word and then once you learn how to discern the living where the living presence the risen Christ then we can put the Bible in your hands and you won't abuse it then we can make you a good Catholic who loves the Pope and loves the bishops but you're not going to treat them in an idolatrous way so so Richard to tie I think this might tie into the side the idea of the Living Christ and what this consciousness idea but I think going back to the Bible and what it is and how we read it I think a lot of people would say something like what what the Bible means to us what it means is what the authors meant and I hear you not you talking about it in a very different way about what the Bible means to us today isn't necessarily what it meant to the original author can you talk about that idea of what how do we what does the Bible mean to us how do we read it and look for meaning given some of the concepts you talk about well let me say what you just said is a very good starting place and the four Vatican two that was our primary Catholic approach what did the author mean when he or she wrote the text what was the message he or she intended to communicate that's a good place to start but you know like I just did with Ananias and Sapphira my assumption would be if Luke wrote Acts of the Apostles okay Luke still saw history that way I can respect that I can work with that I can move with that too but you can't stop there let me throw this in I hope it contributes to the conversation you know already origin and Agustin we're talking about the early centuries of Christianity they had already pretty much come to the conclusion there were at least four to eight levels and different fathers of the church had different levels of Ian the inspired level of a text the literal was the least helpful and the least inspired do you see if that was the I think more or less the consensus the first four centuries we went backwards they saw the symbolic or what you just called the meaningful level as the highest level of inspiration not the only but the one that would be more fruitful to the soul the one that would open up the heart and the mind and the soul to to God experience we actually went backwards you know we had four to eight levels of inspiration and then after the PTSD again of the Enlightenment we Christians went into such paranoia we didn't want to appear stupid we didn't want to be outside of the university level of conversation and so we said we wanted to find one certain absolute always true level of interpretation and you know we did we settled on the one that was least inspired in my and the least fruitful to prove that Jesus for example was really born in Bethlehem on in the year 0 is is fruitless I that doesn't expand the heart the mind or the soul yeah it's the least helpful level of interpretation we go out I'm not going to throw it out but I'm I'm going to say to to head down that road is not going to bring many people to the experience of the risen Christ right and I think what strikes me Richard in what you're saying is how I think the Bible itself deconstructs that kind of thinking that's right because it's so diverse because you have four Gospels that contradict each other you have two histories of Israel that contradict each other it's almost as how much more obvious does this have to be that the eye literalist ik is store assist accreting is 80 yeah maybe not all I mean right in front of us we have the same healing story and Mark presented in one way Matthew another Luke another and sometimes John for Andrew so who's telling the truth so you just said it it's already deconstructed from inside the Bible that the literal historical is not the important message yeah yeah so talk about I think I heard a little bit of what we might call a hermeneutic principle for you maybe it was intentional so you can expand on it but talking about this idea of truth I think a lot of people go to the Bible looking for truth meaning an opinion that corresponds to reality that I can sort of put in my bank of things that are true but you you twisted that a little bit in talked about that's not going to help us experience the risen Christ it sounds like that's maybe a more primary thing you're after in the Bible is that experience over the quote-unquote truth of it sure when that's our primary concern is is the proving that it literally historically how I think that narrows our lens I think it limits our capacity for open heartedness open-mindedness open spirit where which is how the spirit gets out us because we we are so dang determined to prove that it really happen that way and even if we could succeed at that a night I'm quite convinced many things in the Bible are historically true or at least historically based so I'm not interested in being a deconstructionist I tell my students always I'm very much a reconstructionist and that is ok spend a few years playing the game that every sophomore plays of being excited about your new critical knowledge but then get over it and say ok I want to build something I don't want to just Deacon stress so my hermeneutic is I hope one that can open people to present tense experiences of God of love of consciousness of freedom of joy ah and I my Bible is marked up it's sitting here right next to me I've added since 1965 uh that if the Bible it gives me the self-confidence to talk the way I talk and I suppose that seems shocking to some people I think what's shocking is that you're Roman Catholic and you read the Bible oh yeah that's what I heard maybe this is a caricature my products are caricatures oh well I'm afraid you're right see just to be a little chaotic to my Catholic ancestors just remember that Martin Luther is coterminous with the invention of the printing press right so we had Christianity enduring for 1500 years largely with people who could not read and write but Protestantism has to be much more patient with that and recognize the reason we change the Bible to the wall is it took a monastery monks a whole year to copy it and and we had one copy in town and so we chained it to the wall but the more important thing I'm saying that God's revelation of God's self could not possibly depend on people being able to read the Bible right and ya know I would agree with you right now that's uh you know I really do understand that you you good Protestants must understand where are we Catholics coming from no and it's just that we our trajectory started in a non biblical way because most people could not read and write and so we developed a what we thought was a parallel reading of the scriptures the clergy hopefully relied upon it at least a little bit although it often seemed like they didn't but here was the the one plus we created an awful lot of mystics we could not rely upon Bible we had to go to experience to understand yeah and that's our gift that we have a lot of first-hand knowledge of texts that became for us parallel text to the Bible now maybe you would rightly think we overemphasize many of them and that's probably true but now at this point in history let's get back to the tricycle if we can equally let experience tradition and Scripture regulate balance and complement one another I think we have a good approach hmm yeah I mean the bookishness out of which Protestantism was born has had a significant effect and and the irony of course is that with all the 40 of the book we don't agree with each other yeah that random Protestant Frascati heart it doesn't work I know so and and this is why I think you know I mean my own experience for I'm sure you've had many more than I have but I know a lot of people who walk away from any sort of faith because the book doesn't work anymore now now right and that's that the shame of that is exactly what you're saying is an absolute izing now that book that that reading and the need to get it right and the fixation on history and all that sort of thing and that's all it fired book in the hands of unconverted people directly dangerous if they're still egocentric if they still need to be right if they still need to triumph over their enemies don't give them the Bible because they'll find a hundred texts to justify it truly astre now proves that that reminds me of thinking about you know when you think of the wisdom literature like the Proverbs and you know in classes sometimes I would talk about how to read proverbs actually takes wisdom so it's a little bit ironic you have to be a kind of person that it can interpret it and apply it rightly and it sounds like you're extrapolating that to the whole Bible saying it takes a certain character or a certain kind of person perhaps one that's had an experience with the risen Christ in order to handle the Bible properly which is totally a backward way from how I would have been taught growing up so it sounds like the experience comes first the reading comes after and just so you know I'm trying to be fair I would say the same thing to Catholics about tradition yeah that you better not put the Catholic tradition in someone's hands who has not undergone at least a basic conversion or they will use it to create Catholic flock I don't know that's a word but it is now haha it's just a waste of time it's pious devotions that have had no corrective from Scripture right you know so can you can you talk a little bit more you use this word earlier that I thought I really liked was the the Reconstructionist because I like how its non-dualistic in this way like we've talked about the evangelical or the more literal approach and how that can be constraining but there's also you know when you talked about the destructive or deconstructive a lot of my progressive friends their faith is really built on being anti evangelical or they're always critiquing our be critical of and you're kind of positioning this another way a reconstructionist way what's a vision for how the bible fits into this reconstruction how can people use the bible again in a really positive way wow you know this is going to sound almost infantile but i use it with the students and they find it helpful I tell them almost in the very first class but I want them to picture three boxes the first box is called order the second box is called disorder the third box is called reorder and then I tell them there is no nonstop flight from the first box to the third box now our Christian way of saying that I don't know if you use this phrase but we often say in Catholic theology we are saying by the death and resurrection of Jesus yeah so death and resurrection the end is the important word what conservatives do is they remain trapped in the first box just the insistence on some kind of order usually a false order that they were given as a child it always falls apart if you're at all observant or honest about your experience but the trouble is in this postmodern era where we've educated a lot of people entirely in the second box of disorder most my liberal progressive academic sophisticated former Christian friends they live their entire life in the second box that's no way to live if to constantly be deconstructing everything why you don't believe this why you don't agree with that this is half of America and it lives entirely in a kind of cynical skeptical worldview about life this is no way to build life on what you don't believe what you don't agree with there the the full passage of death and resurrection is to allow Greece and life and love and friendship and forgiveness to lead you through the second box now remember when I talked about the prophets before the prophets were the Masters of the second box they knew how to lead you through deconstructed Israel deconstruct a temple religion priesthood religion law religion like Paul does to end of the third box but that's our goal is the experience of the risen Christ where you don't have time and I hope no one has heard me here wasting and what I don't believe I know it could have sounded like that that could have sounded like I'm being dismissive of the Bible but it's the Bible that has given me the courage to talk the way I talk about the third box so if conservatives are trapped in the first box most liberals and former Christians are trapped in the second box and you and I I can tell by the way you ask your questions you and I are happily living whether we know it or not in the third box where we've gone through the the cynicism the sarcasm the deconstruction but that's only to take away the idols the false idols of the first box this is what Thomas Merton who's a hero for many of us Catholics he called your private salvation project right your private salvation project is where we all begin our childishly understood transactional understandings of religion and what else could you understand except that a child Islam but you have to let God deconstruct that because you're not really in love with God it's like Paul in Philippians 3 where he says I obeyed the law perfectly I was a perfect karisye but I didn't love God I love myself and my interpretation of my religion so in my book falling upward I call this discharging your loyal soldier right beyond the remotest album depend on a lot of people substitute the first box for the third box that's my major point here in the vendée the goal is to stay in that first box as a matter of faithfulness to God yeah if the all-time religion just man you know it works when you're a teenager it really holds you together gives you focus and direction and zeal and righteousness I was there once as the young Catholic but when you confront the real issues of the world it doesn't work at that simple level you what I'm saying is you have to grow up you have to suffer reality you have to suffer the text you have to get on the cross with Jesus and move from dualistic arrogance to non-dual compassion and a lot of people don't want to hang on that cross I admit who does does it's it's you know it's but it's the only way you grow up and again who gives me the courage to talk that way is not modern psychology it's the life of Jesus and the life of Paul for most of the New Testament and you know Richard that I mean the trick I think for I mean I think Jared and I can both speak to this from our own experiences but the trick is that people are raised in the faith to stay in that first box that's what we were too and so you know what is it asking some of rhetorically because I don't think there's an easy answer to this question but you know the future might depend on creating cultures where you don't live to do that yeah right and but that's hard to do because you know who aren't happy with that they want the box right and life doesn't work that way and then and it's a pedagogical problem which we both understand how do you still hand on the faith to the child I don't know if your father's to your own children and you want to give it to them and you you can't start in the second box of deconstruction although liberals have mistakenly tried to do that you have to start in the first box there has to be a basic order focused direction and purpose to life and conservatives do that much better than liberals they do yeah can you can you say more to that because I think that hits on a lot of things where I am in my life I have young kids eight seven year-olds well I'm often pushing against my progressive friends who want to begin their sounds religious education in that disorder box and I see just given some background in you know psychology and developmental psychology that for a kid that can be really disruptive but I'll go to you it's hard for me who no longer reads the scripture in that way to endorse it for my kids even though hey for me it worked because it gave me structure and order what are ways is it just kind of will do it and will be constructed later it feels disingenuous you know I think for a lot of us it's I've been saying lately it's a matter of taking a literature 101 course hmm realize that great truth is taught through stories and GK Chesterton said you know big truth can only be seen on small stages I think it's the way you tell the story to your children but I think they still are fat and you know this I'm sure you read to your kids when they were little they need to move around inside of an exciting story that they can visualize so I would still do that I really would but it's it's the way you preface the story and tell them this is a story by which God is going to tell you something you know you can teach the story in a dogmatic literalistic mechanistic way and you can tell the story in a way that invites them to move around inside and just knowing what you guys already clearly know I think you know how to do that but don't throw the story out a highly conceptual highly abstract theology does not inspire people right yeah and I think actually funny enough I think my wife is much better about that when we read stories I think there's nothing she can't stand more than when one of my kids say did that really happen she calls herself and says well I'm not sure it matters because it's true perfect perfect you're not probably better at this looks good it doesn't really matter because it's true now yeah creating I guess a climate in the home where they can ask questions like that children right and and you know I remember you know when when my son was six and we were reading the Garden of Eden story he was getting very irritated with me I'm just reading it and kept sighing and then huffing and puffing I said it what's wrong and he goes dad animals can't talk right so to try to go with that and say well yeah you're right they don't so what is this story telling us right rather than what was my I mean I was a young seminary professor at the time and in a fairly conservative place and my instinct was don't talk like that he may hear you you don't want to had to give I didn't side I think the spirit muzzled me for the first time in my life but it was it was a good moment but you know to create that culture and that space for children to to be human and ask the questions that maybe not God is inviting them to be asking to begin with you know children that first box born into a postmodern world they can say animals don't talk my generation we didn't allow ourselves to think that way right right yeah but you don't want to deny them the world of awe and wonder and mystery either you know correct right hard to pull off though isn't it it's like very hard to pull off there we might my children are all in their 20s mid mid to late 20s I sort of want to start over now you get it right Sheldon that but I'll kill that now anyway well Richard is another issue here that I mean maybe even come in on briefly we're moving towards the end of our time and I don't want to keep you longer but I want to get back to the word trajectory and I think you like to use the word surprised how do I in Scripture I think you do and how there is you know basically the Bible's full of surprises and that's a really hard thing for some people to accept but it probably has some spiritual value for it for us doesn't it well you know you're illustrating the boxes right there if people who think religion is about maintaining the first box don't like the language of surprise because they've they've been told that religion is all about certitude and order and when you've been taught that it's all about certitude and order then there's really no room for surprises now that's what has to be undone you know I think it was Einstein who said that the foundational religious intuition was the experience of awe and awe allows you to be surprised you're always programmed for it you let God be free you let God out of his box of order you know the line that I love to say that shocked some people is I say you realize every time God forgives you God is breaking his own rules and saying okay I know I made that commandment but I would prefer a relationship with you to be right that's what God is saying but when God forgives so that's a great surprise now if you don't let God operate incoherently surprisingly outside of his box outside of his rules you're never going to experience forgiveness all of the great theophanies our God being a major surprise gods in the business of surprise and not writing legal briefs that there you go well Richard listen this has been absolutely wonderful we a respectful of your time that we want to happy I could talk to guys like you all day yeah well so could we yes thank you later for coming on Ritchie but there's one last question are you working on anything now any books that you're working on are going to be coming out soon oh well I just finished one on the Trinity yes yeah and the sequel to that if I can call it that and on this April May I've set aside time to write it is I want to write on the Cosmic Christ hmm because as you probably if you've heard myself you know ah I I don't believe Christians have been told that there's a very real difference between Jesus and Christ right we were told to follow up with Jesus and I'm glad many people did but the reason that we've had such persistent problems as racism sexism classism the militarism is because we weren't really given the more universal notion of the Christ so I pray that I can make that clear in the next book that's great do you have any idea when that might be finished I mean you're out Jordan I hope to finish it by the in middle of May and uh you know I don't come out next spring I guess well yeah that's fantastic now we're going to Richard's life fantastic well now I'm sure it will be so have confidence in yourself Richard this is the first note you know how to do this beautiful all right Richard thank you again we printed for both of us thank you for spending some time with us and we we had a wonderful time we did my privilege and you're welcome to New Mexico if you ever come this way I'd love to meet you face-to-face thank you wonderful have a good night god bless you bye thanks again for listening and we hope you can check out Richard Rohr online it's organization again at the Center for action and contemplation CAC org I also check out his latest book the divine dance with Mike Morell on the Trinity for more conversations about the Bible please head to the Bible for normal people calm read some of the blog posts interact with some of the comments and join us for our next episode with Rachel held Evans [Music]

Channel: JesusExclusiveSavior

Views: 101,249

Rating: 4.5702481 out of 5

Keywords: God, Jesus, Christ, Gospel, Truth, christian, salvation, redemption, Lord, Christianity, Word, Word of God, Bible, Spirit, Life, Grace, Cross, teaching, humanity, inclusion, oneness, freedom, etermal life, victory, mankind, Adam, new creation, Holy Spirit, power, anointing, prayer, cross, holy, blessing, sin, righteusness, faith, healing, shalom, peace, love, love of God, Good News, Kingdom of God, incarnation, resurection, Trinity, Church, religion, sermons, trinitarian, Orthodox, Richard Rohr, A Contemplative Look at The Bible

Id: jjlygdoF2g0

Length: 63min 59sec (3839 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 24 2017