Chapter Four, "the boxing ring", again pits law and grace against each other. Rohr stresses that it is necessary to have the match and that it is crucial that grace wins - as it does. The challenge is big because morality is "a common counterfeit for religion" and "the idolatry of law" seems an ever present temptation.
Rohr expresses amazement about how "the three classic divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures (Law, Prophets, Wisdom) also parallel the normal development of spiritual consciousness and even human growth" as follows:
Law
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Prophets
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Wisdom
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order
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criticism
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integration
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thesis
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antithesis
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synthesis
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"Now if you think that is rebellious talk, it probably means you have not studied much of the second section of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Prophets or the birth of criticism."
Now, I don't think it "rebellious talk" - I think it is ridiculous. It is no surprise that Walter Brueggemann whose Theology of the Old Testament worked with the categories of testimony and counter-testimony would be sympathetic to the picture of development of spiritual consciousness presented in this book but I still find it odd that he would endorse Things Hidden (even if his endorsement makes no reference to Rohr's credibility as a reader of Scripture): "Things Hidden is an invitation of gospel proportion to move on into the life God intends, a life of joy and obedience." Maybe it is but this chapter is driving me to the edge of what I can bear as a biblical scholar.
Where do biblical prophets challenge "the idolatry of law" or an over-emphasis on morality? Where do we get a picture of the people of God being caught up or stuck in the "container" (Law/Torah)? It is noteworthy that Rohr does not discuss a single passage. It is also noteworthy that Rohr's list of wisdom books fails to mention Proverbs which for many might be the first book that comes to mind. Presumably it does not fit easily into the category of "non-dualistic thinking."
What about the New Testament? If you were looking for a snappy summary of Paul's letters to the Romans and the Galatians, Rohr offers this line from the Dalai Lama: "You must learn the meaning of the law very well, so you will know how to disobey it properly." I am not convinced this sits easily with, say, Rom 2:17-27 where Paul elaborates on the problem with relying on the law.
Rohr is on more secure grounds when he says that Paul teaches us that "laws can only give us information, and even helpful information, but they cannot gives us transformation." Maybe it is because I grew up in a Lutheran church but this comes across to me as a common place rather than as the much neglected insight Rohr claims it to be. Rohr's Paul is very Lutheran: "Give them the law until it frustrates them to hell!"
Rohr's experience is that "instead of tackling that frustration and moving people toward union with God, what we have by and large done is trivialize the law into small issues that we could obey by willpower, determination and a certain kind of reasonableness, still trying to find salvation through the law." I can detect a faint echo of this in my context but most ideas of "being good" which I come across seem to have only the most tenuous relationship to biblical law or church teaching.
I am left wondering whether it is worth persisting with the book. Rohr offer kernels of theological as well as psychological truths, e.g. in the observation that "our unconverted and natural egocentricity ("sin") uses religion for the purposes of gaining self-respect." But none of these are new to me and when it comes to the Bible he is untrustworthy, a charlatan who pretends to insight which he does not have and, whether deliberately or not, seems to shield himself against criticism by casting aspersions on anyone who might ask for hard facts, proper analysis or logical coherence as if scholarly exegesis is "law" to the "grace" of eisegesis flowing from "inner experience".
