Name: Fred Rivett's review of Universal Christ by Richard Rohr
Item: Universal Christ
Rating: 3.5
Author: Fred Rivett

Richard Rohr

From one of the world's most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called "Christ," and how this forgotten truth can restore hope and meaning to our world. "Anyone who strives to put their faith into action will find encouragement and inspiration in the pages of this book." -Melinda Gates In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus's last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understandings have been limited by culture, religious debate, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the center. Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God's constant, unfolding work in the world. "God loves things by becoming them," he writes, and Jesus's life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God--except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator's presence all around us, and in everyone we meet. Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.

How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe

Universal Christ

From one of the world's most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called Christ, and how this forgotten truth can transform everything we see, hope for and believe

How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for and Believe

The Universal Christ

Fred Rivett

This journey from order to disorder to reorder must happen for all of us; it is not something just to be admired in Abraham, Moses, Job, or Jesus. Our role is to listen and allow, and at least slightly cooperate with this almost natural progression. We all come to wisdom at the major price of both our innocence and our control. Which means that few go there willingly. Disorder must normally be thrust upon us. Why would anyone choose it? I wouldn't.

Eventually your ideally ordered universe your "private salvation project," as Thomas Merton called it—must and will disappoint you, if you are honest.

Even inside an incarnational worldview, we grow by passing beyond some perfect order, through a usually painful and seemingly unnecessary disorder, to an enlightened reorder or “resurrection.”

Foundationally, we must find a prayer form that actually invades our unconscious, or nothing changes at any depth. Usually this will be some form of centering prayer, wallking meditation, inner practices of letting go, shadow work, or deliberately undergoing a longer period of silence (as I did while writing the first draft of this book, thirty-five days largely alone and quiet). Whatever you choose, it will feel more like unlearning than learning, more like surrendering than accomplishing. This is probably why so many resist contemplation to begin with.

That the way things work and Christ are one and the same. This is not a religion to be either fervently joined or angrily rejected. It is a train ride already in motion. The tracks are visible everywhere. You can be a willing and happy traveler, Or not.

Transformation, or salvation, is so much more than a favor that Jesus effects for certain individuals in a heavenly ledger somewhere. It is a full map for a very real human journey. Not really an absolute necessity, but surely a great gift!

In the practical order of life, if we have never loved deeply or suffered deeply, we are unable to understand spiritual things at any depth.

The contemplative mind can see things in their depth and in their wholeness instead of just in parts. The binary mind, so good for rational thinking, finds itself totally out of its league in dealing with things like love, death, suffering, infinity, God, sexuality, or mystery in general. It just keeps limiting reality to two alternatives and thinks it is smart because it chooses one!…The binary mind provides quick security and false comfort, but never wisdom.

Eastern iconography—in contrast with the Western images, which emphasize flames and torture—often pictures Jesus pulling souls out of hell, not thrusting them into it.

…a phrase in the Apostles' Creed that says Jesus "descended into hell" so surely there must be one. (He went there to liberate it and undo it, like he did the temple, but few people read it that way.)

Jesus's first incarnate life, his passing over into death, and his resurrection into the ongoing Christ life is the archetypal model for the entire pattern of creation. He is the microcosm for the whole cosmos, or the map of the whole journey, in case you need or want one. Nowadays most folks do not seem to think they need that map, especially when they are young.

Remember, myth does not mean "not true," which is the common misunderstanding; it actually refers to things that are aways true!

“Resurrection” is another word for change, but particularly positive change—which we tend to see only in the long run. In the short run, it often just looks like death.

Our full "Christ Option”—and it is indeed a free choice to jump on board—offers us so much that is both good and new—a God who is in total solidarity with all of us at every stage of the journey, and who will get us all to our destination together in love. It is no longer about being correct. It is about being connected. Being in right relationship is much, much better than just trying to be "right."

Almost all people are carrying a great and secret hurt, even when they don't know it.

The crucifixion of Jesus—whom we see as the Son of God—was a devastating prophecy that humans would sooner kill God than change themselves. Yet the God-Man suffers our rejection willingly so something bigger can happen.

There's a real difference between harmless repetitive ceremonies and life-changing rituals. Scholars say that ceremonies normally confirm and celebrate the status quo and deny the shadow side of things (think of a Fourth of July parade), whereas true ritual offers an alternative universe, where the shadow is named (think of a true Eucharist). In the church, I am afraid we mostly have cerenonies.

I have often said that many Catholics have a poor theology of Mary but an excellent psychology: Humans like, need and trust our mothers to give us gifts, to nurture us, and always to forgive us, which is what we want from God.

It's no stretch to say that the New Testament faith was, in effect, written by two men who profoundly relied upon their inner experience of the ways of God despite a totally dominant consciousness that insisted otherwise. How did they get away with it? The answer is, in their lifetimes, they largely didn't. Only later did saints and scholars see that Jesus and Paul had drawn upon the deepest sources of their own tradition to then totally reframe that tradition for the larger world.

I learned that if the quiet space, the questions themselves, and blank pages had not been put in front of me, I may never have known what was lying within me.

Earlier, I wrote that great love and great suffering (both healiing and woundedness) are the universal, always available paths of transformation, because they are the only things strong enough to take away the ego's protections and pretensions. Great love and great suffering bring us back to God…

For me, mere information is rarely helpful unless it also enlightens and "amorizes" your life. In Franciscan theology, truth is always for the sake of love—and not an absolute end in itself, which too often becomes the worship of an ideology. In other words, any good idea that does not engage the body, the heart, the physical world, and the people around us will tend to be more theological problem solving and theory than any real healing of people and institutions—which ironically is about all Jesus does!

Yet to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead is actually not a leap of faith. Resurrection and renewal are, in fact, the universal and observable pattern of everything. We might just as well use non-religious terms like "springtime," "regeneration," "healing, "forgiveness," "life cycles," "darkness," and "light." If incarnation is real, then resurrection in multitudinous forms is to be fully expected.

Humans and history both grow slowly. We expect people to show up at our doors fully transformed and holy before they can be welcomed in. But growth language says it is appropriate to wait, trusting that metanoeite, or change of consciousness, can only come with time—and this patience ends up being the very shape of love.

Kaylah Rodriguez

As Rohr always is, this is a deep, profound book that speaks at a deeper level than the purely rational. Much of what he writes resonates whilst conflicting with the simple truths many of us have taken for granted.

An enjoyable, thought provoking read. Not quite as impactful for me as Falling Upward, but may well be one I revisit down the line.

As Rohr always is, this is a deep, profound book that speaks at a deeper level than the purely rational. Much of what he writes resonates whilst conflicting with the simple truths many of us have taken for granted.

An enjoyable, thought provoking read. Not quite as impactful for me as Falling Upward, but may well be one I revisit down the line.

Dana Kraft

This is not a book that you just “read”. It took me a long time to get through it and I feel like I need to go through it again. In addition, the bibliography and notes will form a pretty long future reading list for me. This is my definition of a 5 star book.

This book connected well with The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist which talks about how our mindset and attention literally affect the world around us, not just our perception of the world. That book focus much on society, art, communities and this book focuses on the presence of the divine in all of those things. How does our approach to God, religion and faith affect us and the world? Specifically, both authors provide lots of examples of the consequences an over reliance on rationality and the scientific method. I’m guilty of that. “Love affairs never just happen in the mind.”p66.

Best quotes from my first read:

All contemplation reflects a seventh-day choice and experience, relying on grace instead of effort. Full growth implies timing and staging, acting and waiting, working and not working. p. 59

In practical order, we find our Original Goodness, when we can discover and own these three attitudes or virtues planted deeply within us:
* A trust in inner coherence itself. “It all means something.” FAITH
* A trust that this coherence is positive and going somewhere good. HOPE
* A trust that this coherence includes me and even defines me. LOVE
p. 66

“Unless religion leads us on a path to both depth and honesty, much religion is actually quite dangerous to the soul and to society. In fact, “fast food” religion and the so-called prosperity gospel are some of the best ways to actually avoid God—while talking about religion nonstop. p. 89

“...we make the focus of Jesus’ Gospel what is ‘out there as opposed to what is ‘in here’. For example, insisting on a literal belief in the virgin birth of Jesus is very good theological symbolism, but unless it translates into a spirituality of interior poverty, readiness to conceive, and human vulnerability, it is largely a “mere lesson memorized” as Isaiah puts it (29:13). p. 114

“But your only real prerequisite for participation or “worthiness” is in fact your capacity for presence itself. This is not accomplished just in the head. Presence is a unique capacity that includes heart, body, mind and whatever we mean by “soul”. Love affairs never just happen in the mind. P. 131

“It is the egoic illusion of our own perfect rightness that often allows us to crucify others...We seldom consciously know that we are scapegoating or projecting. As Jesus said, people literally “do not know what they are doing”. In fact, the effectiveness of the mechanism depends on not seeing it.” P. 150

Our arguments about private worthiness reward and punishment, gender, race, and class distinctions, private possessions, all the things that make us argue and compete, largely become a waste of time and an illusion. All these lived arguments depend on some type of weighing, measuring, counting, listing, labeling and comparing. The Gospel, by contrast, is about learning to live and die in and with God - all our warts included and forgiven by an infinite love. P. 166

“Scared people remember threats and do not hear invitations.” P. 173

'I cannot put this book down'– Bono In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus’ last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understanding has been limited by culture, religious squabbling, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the centre. Drawing on scripture, history and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. ‘God loves things by becoming them,' he writes, and Jesus’ life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God – except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us and in everyone we meet. Thought-provoking, practical and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.

How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe

Neva Davies

A thoughtful look at Christ

The Universal Christ is a thoughtful look at religion and spirituality. It's also an important look at what it truly means to follow the risen Christ, as so often we go by more recent theological beliefs rather than understand the early traditions of Christ's followers.

Kaylah Rodriguez &
Universal Christ by Richard Rohr

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Kaylah Rodriguez &Universal Christ by Richard Rohr

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Kaylah Rodriguez &
Universal Christ by Richard Rohr