We’ll soon be hosting an event for subscribers called What Do We Do With Richard Rohr?
The event will be a lecture and discussion surveying and critiquing both his approach to Christianity and the places where his views diverge from an orthodox understanding of the faith.
Let’s Discuss
To get the discussion rolling (and to try out Substack’s discussion feature), we thought we’d throw a question out to you, our dear subscribers, with a Rohr quote on how we ought to read the Bible.
Here is the quote (bold portions added):
Jesus consistently ignored or even denied exclusionary, punitive, and triumphalistic texts in his own inspired Hebrew Bible in favor of passages that emphasized inclusion, mercy, and honesty. He read the Scriptures in a spiritual and selective way. Jesus had a deeper and wider eye that knew which passages were creating a path for God and which passages were merely cultural, self-serving, and legalistic additions. That becomes self-evident once you know enough to see the “comparative meaning” of an incident or statement. [1]
When Christians pretend that every line in the Bible is of equal importance and inspiration, they are being very unlike Jesus. This is precisely why Jesus was accused of teaching “as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:29, RSV), and why they hated him so much. Jesus even accused fervent and pious “teachers of the law” of largely missing the point. “Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” he asked them (Mark 12:24, RSV). We cannot make the same mistake all over again—and now in Jesus’ name.
Follow Up Questions
What do you think of Rohr’s overall point? How would you respond to the two bolded sentences?
Are there parts of the Bible that are less important?
How do you think Jesus read and talked about Scripture?
What else do Rohr’s words bring up for you?
To join the discussion, leave a comment.
About Richard Rohr
The popular and controversial Franciscan priest and Christian mystic, Father Richard Rohr, has become an elder statesman for disenfranchised evangelicals and spiritual seekers of every stripe. He presents a version of Christianity that syncs with modern progressive values, but changes the meaning of almost every central Christian teaching. His unique theological mashup of Christian elements with Buddhism, New Age thinking, and modern intuitions has proved to be a “theology for the modern era” and many people find what he has to say both attractive and personally helpful.
I'm not at all familiar with Rohr or his work and I am fairly certain that these paragraphs are not intended to be stand alone statements. I am quite certain that Mr. Rohr would argue that presenting these two paragraphs is an unfairly limited presentation of his point-of-view (and I would agree with him) so my sentiments are more of a response to the statements above and not to Rohr's actual beliefs.
- What do you think of Rohr’s overall point? How would you respond to the two bolded sentences?
Initially Rohr claims that Jesus consistently ignored certain parts of scripture. This could be true, however this statement makes incredibly inaccurate assumption about our knowledge of Jesus' teachings. A (potentially) accurate way to state this is that the gospel authors present Jesus as ignoring certain parts of scripture. It is important to remember that we do not have all of Jesus' statements or teachings. Instead what we have are carefully crafted narratives that are not intended as historical documentaries but are making distinctive claims about the life of Jesus. That means the authors may well have left out much of Jesus' teachings that were not pertinent to their objective. (I Recommend How God Became King by NT Wright).
For one thing the author, rather than taking an objective stance and drawing deductions from facts, has already assumed that it is "pretend" to read scripture as inspired and equally important. Additionally there is a false equivalency made between inspiration and importance though no internal . That is to say a Christian may well believe that all scripture is equally inspired and yet believe that not all is equally important.
- Are there parts of the Bible that are less important?
It is difficult to imagine that anyone would claim that "When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments." (2 Tim. 4:13), however valuable, is as important as, "From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Mt. 26:64; Jesus referencing Dan. 7). In addition Jesus himself does not claim all of scripture as equally important. Of the 613 laws of the Torah he identifies two as the greatest. It would be illogical, however, to conclude from that statement that Jesus does not consider all of the Torah to be inspired.
- How do you think Jesus read and talked about Scripture?
One of the clearest references to Jesus' understanding of scripture is in Luke 24. On the road Jesus begins explaining "...what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." (Jesus references Moses, the Prophets and Psalms, a common way of referring to the TaNaK, i.e. Jewish Bible). It seems as though Jesus finds all of (Hebrew) scripture valuable and specifically (though not necessarily exclusively) in the way they point to Him.
This of course does not have any bearing on the NT writings as those came well after Jesus, however as a side note the author of 2 Peter (2 Peter 3:16) is of the opinion that at least some of Paul's letters are on the same level as the other scriptures.
- What else do Rohr’s words bring up for you?
First and foremost Rohr's words are a caution about drawing conclusions first... As we learned from Sherlock "Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
In addition the importance of applying logic as, at least the two paragraphs presented, are dependent on illogical arguments, i.e. that we know Jesus ignored or denied Hebrew texts when likely the large majority of his teachings are unavailable to us or making a claim that the reason Jesus was seen as teaching with authority is because he saw the Hebrew bible as unequally important and unequally inspired... it is possible that this could be true, but there is nothing in the Mt. 7 passage that makes this claim. Indeed it actually gives the opposite impression, the people are amazed and the reason Matthew gives is simply that Jesus teaches with authority, not that He is making any bold or unusual teachings. (Almost certainly his teachings are unusual for the time, but here Matthew makes no claim to that). So Rohr is making a bold leap with no textual evidence cited.
This is, without a doubt, a very incomplete critique. (we could for example discuss that Jesus himself, while he may ignore Hebrew texts that are exclusive, remains quite exclusive in his own teachings).
I am quite certain that Mr. Rohr would argue that presenting these two paragraphs is an unfairly limited presentation of his point-of-view (and I would agree with him) so my sentiments are more of a response to the statements above and not to Rohr's actual beliefs.
Very interesting! Rohr seems big for folks in my age bracket and has seemed appealing to a number of my former classmates (from a conservative Christian college).
My first thought after reading that excerpt was how protestant Rohr sounds. The approach feels very much like: "Let's take scripture on its own and take a look at what Jesus says and then make some very bold conclusions about the entirety of Holy Scripture as a result of our own personal analysis."
This is one of the dangers (in my slowly forming opinion) of studying Scripture apart from a recognition of its purpose as a liturgical book that's best understood/learned through the liturgical life/services of the Church. Not saying that we should do away with private/devotional reading at all. Just seems pretty clear (from the Bible—lol) that Scripture is not meant to be understood through "private interpretation" (2 Peter 1). In the same way that Jesus explained the Scriptures to his disciples, the Church continues to explain them.