Richard Rohr became a Franciscan in 1961 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1970. He founded the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in 1987 in Albuquerque, New Mexico and serves there as the founding director and academic dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. In a 2011 interview for NPR, he was called “one of the most popular spirituality authors and speakers in the world.” In the first chapter of his 2019 book, The Universal Christ, he said the first incarnation was described in Genesis 1, when God joined with the physical universe and became the light inside of everything. So much for the fundamental theological distinction between Creator and creation.
Everything visible, without exception, is the outpouring of God. What else could it really be? “Christ” is a word for the Primordial Template (“Logos”) through whom “all things came into being, and not one thing had its being except through him” (John 1:3). Seeing in this way has reframed, reenergized, and broadened my own religious belief, and I believe it could be Christianity’s unique contribution among the world religions. . . .We daringly believe that God’s presence was poured into a single human being, so that humanity and divinity can be seen to be operating as one in him—and therefore in us! But instead of saying that God came into the world through Jesus, maybe it would be better to say that Jesus came out of an already Christ-soaked world. The second incarnation flowed out of the first, out of God’s loving union with physical creation. If that still sounds strange to you, just trust me for a bit. I promise you it will only deepen and broaden your faith in both Jesus and the Christ. This is an important reframing of who God might be and what such a God is doing.
With these statements, Rohr identifies himself as a panentheist, believing that the universe is God. This is distinct from pantheism, which believes God and the universe are identical. According to the New Dictionary of Theology, “For the panentheist God has an identity of his own, that is, he is something which the universe is not. On the other hand, the universe is part of the reality of God. It is God.” In other words, the creation is an overflow of God’s creative being. “God creates out of himself, not out of nothing.”
Rohr elaborated on his notion of the universal Christ in his blog for December 2, 2018, “Who Is Christ?” Rohr said he believes a Christian is simply someone who has learned to see Christ everywhere. “Understanding the Universal or Cosmic Christ can change the way we relate to creation, to other religions, to other people, to ourselves, and to God.” This so-called Universal Christ is a “Divine Presence” that pervades all of creation from the very beginning. The Big Bang is the scientific name for that idea whereas “Christ” is our Christian theological name.
Needless to say, conservative, evangelical Christians are strongly critical of The Universal Christ and Rohr’s theology. Michael McClymond, writing for The Gospel Coalition, said while Rohr covers himself in the mantle of Catholic and Franciscan spirituality, much of what he presents contradicts the teaching of the Catholic Church and historic Christianity. Rohr’s distinction of “Jesus” from “Christ” is not a new idea. It was first addressed by Irenaeus in Against Heresies, written in 180 AD. Irenaeus said it was blasphemy to separate Christ from Jesus: “They utter blasphemy, also, against our Lord, by cutting off and dividing Jesus from Christ, and Christ from the Saviour, and again the Saviour from the Word, and the Word from the Only-begotten.”
Marsha Montenegro, a former New Ager and ex-professional astrologer, critiqued Rohr’s The Universal Christ, for its support of perennialism and well as panentheism. Perennialism believes that all world religions share a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all knowledge and doctrine has grown. It does not teach that all religions are the same. Rather, it is the belief that although religions are diverse extrinsically, at their innermost core they are united phenomenologically, by shared religious experience. She referenced Rohr’s blog, which said the Perennial Tradition encompassed the recurring themes in all world religions and philosophies that say:
There is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things. There is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity and longing for this Divine Reality, and the final goal of existence is union with this Divine Reality.
I’m not clear on what Rohr’s current status is with the Roman Catholic church, but I’d like to know if his bishop has read The Universal Christ, or any of his other books. God creating out of Himself; distinguishing between Jesus and Christ; equating the Big Bang and Christ; and saying the final goal of reality is union with the Divine Reality seems like teachings that should bring him under some form of review or examination. How has he not been brought before some review board before now?
Marsha Montenegro did a 30-minute video on Alisa Childers’ YouTube channel on Perennialism. Alisa noted how perennialism is seeping into evangelical churches. Perennialists admit the practices and doctrines are different and even hold that it is okay to adhere to one religion, because you’ll benefit from that religion. But you are aware of this “truth” that supposedly unites all religions. “You kind of have this insight into the real meaning behind everything.” Montenegro accurately calls this belief gnostic.
You have people who may say they are Christian, or they’re Jewish, or their Hindu, but they follow the perennial philosophy. And so often they will say, “I follow the Christian tradition, or the Christian wisdom tradition, or the Hindu tradition. . . . But a lot of times you can’t really tell, because the person won’t say, “I follow perennial wisdom.”
Montenegro noted how Richard Rohr is very open about following and even advocating for perennial philosophy. Childers affirmed that perennialism is all over his website. “The perennial tradition points to recurring themes and truths within all of the world’s religions. At their most mature level, religions cultivate in their followers a deeper union with God, each other, and with reality or with what is.” You access this “core truth” through mysticism and experience; and through these practices, you are able to “see” what the truth of the perennial is.
In a book Marsha Montengro co-authored with Don and Joy Veinot, Richard Rohr and the Enneagram Secret, Montenegro and the Veinots said because of his Perennialist beliefs, Rohr accepted that the beliefs of Buddhism, the New Age, Hinduism, Islam, “or any other religion are valid.” Whatever their differences, Rohr believed they shared a common essence, a “Divine Reality,” where all paths end in the same truth. “Panentheism and Perennialism both lead Rohr to the false conclusion that no one needs any kind of salvation; all are ‘in’ Christ already; religions share the same core truth; and all that is needed is for people to realize these ideas.”
Montenegro and the Veinots said Rohr believed humans needed to move away from a dualistic mind-set, one that made distinctions, to a non-dual one. Rohr equated “dualistic thinking” with division and strife. He thought categorizing people into areas of their beliefs was divisive and destructive. He taught that we needed to move to a non-dual consciousness. In “A Change of Consciousness,” Rohr said:
The change that changes everything is the movement away from dualistic thinking toward non-dual consciousness. We know that if we settle for our old patterns of dualistic thought, this emerging phenomenon will be just one more of the many reformations in Christianity that have characterized our entire history. The movement will quickly and surely subdivide into liberal or conservative, Catholic or Protestant, intellectual or emotional, gay or straight, liturgical or Pentecostal, feminist or patriarchal, activist or contemplative—like all of the other dualisms—instead of the wonderful holism of Jesus, a fully contemplative way of being active and involved in our suffering world.Emerging Christianity is both longing for and moving toward a way of following Jesus that has much more to do with lifestyle than with belief. We do not want to solidify into an institution focused on certain words and the writing of documents. We want to remain, if at all possible, focused on orthopraxy (right practice), compassionate action flowing from non-dual consciousness.
Rohr would have you immerse yourself in a bottomless, shoreless sea of oneness with a Divine Reality. This seems eerily similar to transcendence as it is understood by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience and echoes the spiritual, not religious experience of Alcoholics Anonymous. See “What Does Religious Mean?” and “Spiritual, Not Religious Experience.”
In the first chapter of Romans, Paul said the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. What can be known about God is plain, not hidden. God has shown it to them, including Richard Rohr, so he is without excuse. So, although he knew God, he did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. Rohr became futile in his thinking and his foolish heart was darkened. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:23).