WISDOM RARELY SURPRISES. More rarely does it shock or scandalize. Yet, with The Universal Christ, Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, aims to do both.
He starts with the Incarnation. Was it a startling, once-in-eternity event that explains Jesus Christ’s holiness? Rohr suggests instead that the Incarnation is the fundamental pattern for all creation. We live within, and are ourselves a party to, this ongoing incarnation—people, pets, and poppy seeds alike. Nothing lacks the divine impress. In this worldview, “a mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone.”
To underscore this view, Rohr provocatively disentangles the modifier “Christ” from “Jesus.” He reserves “Jesus” for Jesus of Nazareth. “Christ” is for the Divine Presence that has existed in all things since creation, both before and after Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated total, unrelenting acceptance of the divine.
Rohr suggests that, following the great schism of Eastern and Western Christianity in 1054, Western Christendom advocated a restrictive view of incarnation, limiting the broad, beautiful Divine Presence to “the single body of Jesus.” By focusing almost exclusively on Jesus of Nazareth, at the expense of other emanations of the Christ Mystery, Rohr suggests we continue to unduly limit the divine. “To help us recognize and recover the divine image in everything” is, according to Rohr, “the essential work of all religion.”
Rohr’s theology is not groundbreaking but its implications are significant. A theology of incarnation urges us toward a view where all is seen as one and embraced in love. Belief in the fundamental presence of the divine in all might put an end to triumphal nationalism whereby some claim God as their own. This also has ecological implications. If we truly believed this earth was imbued with the divine presence, could we continue to exercise unrestrained dominion over her, exploitation for short-term gains?
People unacquainted with the great mystics of the church, or raised on a conservative, literalist Christianity, may feel that pointing to the divine presence in all of material reality diminishes Jesus’ stature. Of course, others will hear Rohr’s words not as a bolt from out of the theological blue but as a welcome reminder of a truth they’ve long felt, if not often heard preached.
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