The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe

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Francis himself was not a theologian, he was not an academic, he was not highly educated. He was just a sincere spiritual genius who intuited these things. When the next generation of Franciscans, including St. Bonaventure (1221–1274) and John Duns Scotus, came along, they created a philosophy and theology to substantiate Francis’ intuitive vision. They homed in on the first chapters of Colossians, Ephesians, John’s Gospel, Hebrews, and the Letter of 1 John which say the Christ existed from all eternity. The universal Christ is a totally biblical notion. Monotheism — whether Jewish, Christian, or Islamic — takes God to be separate from the created world in His being; He is transcendent, unchangeable, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and wholly good. The cosmos possesses none of these qualities because it is contingent, finite, changeable, and marred by sin. Christianity affirms that despite this Creator/creation distinction, humans are made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26; 9:6; James 3:9) and that God Himself incarnated once-for-all in the person of Jesus, the Christ, to redeem fallen creatures (and the whole universe) through His perfect life, atoning death, and space-time resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). At his Second Advent, He will purge, judge, and redeem the world (Acts 1:8; Romans 8:18–23). Moreover, God is with us (Matthew 1:23) and in His followers (Colossians 1:27). But this hardly makes creatures one in essence with God, since creatures remain contingent and finite beings and can never become infinite as God is infinite. 15 Rohr’s position amounts to a doctrine of self-salvation—and completely eclipses the historical reality of Jesus.

The Chalcedonian Definition,” The Westminster Standard, https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-chalcedonian-creed/. Rohr denies a hard break between God and creation and claims that the incarnation began at creation, when the “Infinite Primal Source” poured itself into finite things (14). Jesus was really the second incarnation. Whether we consider Rohr to be a pantheist or a panentheist (he many not even know), he certainly is an emanationist. That is, God “creates” not by bringing the universe into existence out of nothing ( ex nihilo), but by extending His being into things, which become divine. The cosmos is the emanation or externalization of God. Because Christians must not be deceived by “fine-sounding arguments” (Colossians 2:4; see also 2 Corinthians 10:3–5), we need to compare this view to monotheism. It's a simple, if radical, idea. And one that some critics of Richard Rohr, the 76-year-old Franciscan who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque 32 years ago, have described as "dangerous" and even "heretical." In his book "Acequia Culture," historian José Rivera describes how the aqueducts play an important cultural and even spiritual role in New Mexico, where annual blessings of the irrigation ditches often combine Catholic and pagan elements. In summary, the concept of the Cosmic or Universal Christ is a profound misunderstanding of the biblical view of Christ. It emphasizes the oneness of all things. The entire cosmos is good and beautiful. Sin and brokenness are not a problem. Christ is simply present and sustaining all things, but He is not the judge of all things and preeminent over all creation. Forgiveness is not needed. The man Jesus Christ is not the exclusive Savior, but Christ is present and working in all religions, just under different names.We cannot know this mystery of Christ as a doctrine or an idea; it is the root reality of all existence. Hence we must travel inward, into the interior depth of the soul where the field of divine love is expressed in the “thisness” of our own, particular lives. Each of us is a little word of the Word of God, a mini-incarnation of divine love. The journey inward requires surrender to this mystery in our lives and this means letting go of our control buttons. It means dying to the untethered selves that occupy us daily; it means embracing the sufferings of our lives, from the little sufferings to the big ones; it means allowing God’s grace to heal us, hold us and empower us for life. It means entering into darkness, the unknowns of our lives, and learning to trust the darkness, for the tenderness of divine love is already there. It means [being] willing to sacrifice all that we have for all that we can become in the power of God’s love; and finally it means to let God’s love heal us of the opposing tensions within us. No one can see God and live and thus we must surrender our partial lives to become whole in the love of God. When we can say with full voice, “you are the God of my heart, my God and my portion forever” [Psalm 73:26] then we can open our eyes to see that the Christ in me is the Christ in you. We are indeed One in love.

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. Creation: God—from the Big Bang onward—was already “incarnate” in all things: “This self-disclosure of whomever you call God into physical creation was the ‘first incarnation’ (the general term for any enfleshment of spirit), long before the personal, second incarnation that Christians believe happened with Jesus” (12). Rohr writes that “God loves all things by becoming them” (16, 20). Fr Richard helps us to see and hear Jesus of Nazareth in what he taught, what he did and who he is - the loving, liberating and life-giving expression and presence of God. In so doing he is helping Christianity to reclaim its soul anew. This may especially be true if our damage to our planet home continues to lead to the dramatic changes for humanity that have been widely predicted.

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I take four horse pills every day that amount to oral chemotherapy," Rohr told Religion News Service on a chilly morning as he strolled the grounds of the CAC in late March. "That I could have two things that would normally be fatal and still be sitting here? I am nothing but grateful for the miracle of modern medicine." The acequias, which are run by the individual communities through which they flow, have gates that control the levels of the water that comes from the Rio Grande to help irrigate farmland. Likely originally dug by Native Americans, the acequias system was expanded during the Spanish colonial period in the 17th and 18th centuries. Revelation: not a distinct, self-disclosure of God, occurring in history. Instead it happens everywhere at all times: “This book . . . [seeks] to reground Christianity as a natural religion and not one simply based on a special revelation, available only to a few.” Rohr’s spirituality is naturalistic, and “the mental distinction between ‘natural’ and supernatural’ . . . falls apart” (7).

See Walter Martin, “Scaling the Language Barrier,” Kingdom of the Cults (1965, reprint, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Press, 2002).

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References:
[1] Visit universalchrist.org to learn much, much more about the Universal Christ. Or read my book, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Convergent: 2019). As noted, Rohr doesn’t accept special revelation. Nature (read: God) is all we need. “Christ” isn’t only a label that can be plastered everywhere, as in Rohr, but a label that can also be applied nowhere, if one so wishes. Culturally sophisticated people today might want to avoid identification with or reference to “Christ.” And if “God,” “Christ,” and “Jesus” language can all be jettisoned, then why not? Why not say “the Universe is guiding me” or “I go with the cosmic flow”? 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. The Cosmic Christ or the Universal Christ is a false concept of Christ being mystically in all things. It is supposedly based on Colossians 1:15–17, which states, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and Him all things hold together.” John 1:1–3 is also referenced in relation to this concept: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”

He calls the Universal Christ part of the “perennial tradition.” Many great spiritual teachers of the last 75 years (Aldous Huxley and Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, to name two) have pointed to the perennial tradition to refer to a common source for great spiritual ideas that are shared among religious traditions. Rohr most of all wants you to learn to “see” that spider web. To do so is to build reverence for all creation, realize oneness, and see the essential inter-connectivity of all things. These principles are indeed of that perennial tradition, in that one could find them in other traditions. But for Rohr, it is all due to, and existent in and through, the “Christ Mystery.”

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Rohr became ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1970 and earned a master's degree in theology from the University of Dayton the same year. In 1971, he founded the New Jerusalem Community (an intentional community that, for a time at least, managed to combine the charismatic and social justice movements) in Cincinnati, where he lived and worked for 15 years before relocating to New Mexico. Though Rohr wraps himself in the mantle of Catholic and Franciscan spirituality (21–22, 65, 129, 239), much of what Rohr presents contradicts the teaching of the Catholic Church and historic Christianity. (I was recently interviewed by a Catholic radio station about Rohr’s book.)