Tuesday 30 April 2019

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.