Reading Richard Rohr 2

Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (London: SPCK, 2016; originally published in 2008 by St Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, Ohio) is based on a set of talks given in 1998 on “The Great Themes of Scripture”.

The title (“things hidden”) is from Psalm 78:2, quoted in Matthew 13:35. The subtitle seems to relate to the other verse (partially) used to preface the book, 1 John 2:21.

“It is not because you do not know the truth that I write to you, but rather because you know it already.”

The introduction (“connecting the dots”) speaks of “thin-slicing” the (biblical) texts which refers to sifting, throwing off all that is irrelevant, focusing on “what really matters”. Once these prime ideas of Scripture are uncovered, others might re-cognise them as truth that had lodged in their own hearts but not yet risen to consciousness.

“My assumption throughout this book is that the biblical text also mirrors the nature of human consciousness itself. It includes within itself passages that develop the prime ideas and passages that fight and resist those very advances. You might even call it faith and unfaith ­– both are locked into the text.”

Faith is associated with “the Unfamiliar” – breakthroughs we may call “revelations” within the Bible, to be sifted from the familiar (small mind) terrain of unfaith.

“It might first feel scary, new or even exciting, but if you stay with the unfolding texts, you will have the courage to know them also as your own deepest hopes or intuitions. Such is the dance between outer authority and inner authority, the Great Tradition and inner experience.”

Rohr stresses the need for both, the external contribution of Sacred Scripture (“It takes all of the Bible to get beyond the punitiveness and pettiness that we project onto God and that we harbour within ourselves.”) and inner awareness (“We have far too long insisted on outer authority alone, without any teaching of prayer, inner journey and maturing consciousness.”)

My initial response: I sympathise with the observation that we have paid too little attention to “prayer, inner journey and maturing consciousness” and that this harms our reading of Scripture and ourselves. The idea of “sifting” between the wheat and chaff of Scripture, however, sounds very much like old-fashioned liberal Protestantism. I find the Christian tradition which hoped and even expected to glean goodies from every little crook and nanny of Sacred Scripture far more exciting.

Reading Richard Rohr 1

Ian Paul comments that Richard Rohr is “something of a ‘Marmite’ theologian—people either adore or loathe him” and cites Edward Dowler’s Church Times review of Richard Rohr’s Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe (London: SPCK, 2019):

“Many will warm to him who think that theological language and concepts grown stale and fusty will benefit from being thrown up in the air so that we can be excited by seeing where they land. And they often do land in interesting places, thus yielding a wealth of striking aphorisms and insights.

Others, however, who value plodding virtues such as accuracy and attention to what the scriptures and teachers of the tradition have actually said, will find difficulty with the sweeping generalisations, questionable assertions, and Aunt Sallys that Rohr frequently sets up, so as then to be able, triumphantly, to knock them down.”

In a review of the same book George Sumner, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, claims that  “to say that Rohr is outside the bounds of the mainstream Christian theological tradition is not a harsh attack on him. Rather it is to simply take him seriously.”

I have friends who like Rohr’s writings and commended them to me. I read much of Falling Upward: A Spirituality For The Two Halves Of Life (London: SPCK, 2012) but I did not get on with the implied author who came across to me as pompous and patronising. All this makes me hesitant to spend time with another Richard Rohr book. But for various reasons I think it might be useful for me tor reflect on my response to Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (London: SPCK, 2016).

Not interested in writing a critical, detached review, I want to explore possibilities for learning (recognition, retrieval) as well as note where and maybe why Rohr rubs me up the wrong way.