In this episode we talk about Jesus with the Franciscan friar and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr.
Fr. Richard believes Jesus is the personification of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. Consequently, he sees faith as being less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognise the Creator’s presence all around us and in everyone we meet.
So we ask Fr. Richard how his faith has been reshaped by this discovery, what the implications of the loss of this worldview have been for the Church and the world, where the atonement fits in, whether there’s still any need for religion, and many more questions.
Following the interview, Nomad hosts Tim Nash and Nick Thorley reflect on how the idea of the Cosmic Christ challenges the evangelicalism they inherited, and might be a foundation for their reconstructed faith.
Interview starts at 17m 53s
WEBSITE
Center for Action and Contemplation
BOOKS
The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe
Falling Upward: A Spirituality For The Two Halves Of Life
The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder
Every Thing is Sacred: 40 Practices and Reflections on The Universal Christ
QUOTES
“The only thing that keeps you separate from God is your humanly manufactured thought that you’re separate from God.”
“Whenever you hear religion become transactional – quid pro quo, tit for tat, this much sin this much punishment, this much grace this much reward – you’d do well not to trust it. When you find religions’ messages are transformational – that they ask a change of consciousness, of growth in consciousness on your part – that’s the road you want to go down.”
“Once you legitimate acceptable violence in God, that God has to be violent – ‘God has to kill,’ as we put it very piously, ‘His own Son to save the world’ – we’ve legitimated violence all the way down.”
“[Jesus] is what we do to ourselves, he is what we do to one another, he is what we do to the Earth: we kill what we should love. Jesus-the-crucified is a code word for the human pattern of self-destruction.”
Love this! Can I ask a question. John 3:16 is about how much God unconditionally loves the whole world. All humanity are already loved, even before Jesus came. Then it says Jesus came not to condemn but to save the world. Richard says the world does not need saving. But it seems John says the world does need saving. Wondering how to reconcile this?
Hi Seamus,
Glad you enjoyed the podcast.
I guess it depends on what we mean by “save”. The world clearly needs healing and transformation, so perhaps that’s what the word means here?
I can’t speak on behalf of Fr. Richard though, but if you do a bit of Googling you can find stuff he’s written. Here’s one example…
https://cac.org/savior-of-the-world-2019-04-15/
The real gold in the pod wasn’t in the interview. It was Nick talking about how he fell asleep on a stool. It nearly killed me. Seriously, I was working on a roof while listening to that bit and was laughing so hard, I nearly fell off.