Mystic Monday: Richard Rohr [1943-] and The Cosmic Christ

"The Cosmic Christ is not simply a Christian idea, but a Christ who is revealed in all of creation, in every person, and in every moment."

[The quotation above is from Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ, published in 2019]

There are particular seasons in a newspaper reporter’s professional life:

1.] The summer when sharks bite people.

2.] Anytime near religious holidays.

During these times it is the job of a reporter and headline editor to write something seasonal that grabs the attention of potential readers, regardless of strict accuracy.

Thus, we have things like this:

Two of Jesus Christ’s biggest miracles may be science, not divine, new study claims

“May be” is the clue that this is filler. That, and in the body of the article we learn that there is a “plausible scientific basis” for this claim.¹

Way to commit, journalists.

The first, perhaps only, question from a true believer is, “Why can’t it be both?”

Or, more formally in clergy-ease, “Why can’t miracles be both scientifically consistent and also divine, since it is Creation and all of its aspects of which we speak?”

Since we live in a post-Christian age and our culture’s “thought leaders” tend to have concluded their sacred education around 4th or 5th grade Sunday School at best, there is always this bizarre assumption that there is some inviolable wall between science and religion, or between nature [or Nature] and the Divine.

This, in spite of Christians acknowledging that the Divine is found in all aspects of Nature. After all, God = Creation. We understand and accept the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, who encouraged the study of Nature as it leads to a greater understanding of God.²

Even a cursory examination of the beginnings of The Age of Science will lead us to faithful and practicing Christians such as:

Nicolaus Copernicus, a church canon known for his heliocentric model of the solar system.

Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk known as the father of modern genetics.

Richard of Wallingford, another monk and a mathematician who designed an early astronomical clock and contributed to the study of astronomy.

John Ray, a naturalist and theologian who is one of the early fathers of biological classification.

Isaac Newton, mathematician, physicist, and Biblical theologian. He did something with apples, too, I seem to recall.

Robert Grosseteste, the Bishop of Lincoln and an early contributor to scientific method.

Francis Bacon, a theologian and scientist who also managed the foundation of the scientific method.

Galileo Galilei, a devout lay person and the progenitor of modern physics who larked about on the top of Pisa’s famous tower.

I could continue with this list for some pages, especially considering that the Western university system was created by the Christian Church and formed around aspects of monastic life, including living arrangements and apparel.³

Monastic habit

Oxford University graduation regalia

Thus, scientific thought and its subsequent accomplishments were enabled by Christianity.

In the late 20th century, observing this trend of separating Nature and God, Richard Rohr, a priest and Franciscan friar, regarded by some as a contemporary mystic, attempted to address the increasing isolation of individuals from the institutional church as well as the confused relationship between Nature and the Divine.

Rohr, in habit, with friend

Rohr observes the need for an individual path to holiness that is outside of church structure and the fixtures of dogma, one that would respond to our increasingly pluralistic world, as traditional cultural barriers began to evaporate only to be replaced by new, perhaps more resolute ones.

Rohr does so through his writings, sermons, and work as the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, a Christian community dedicated to appreciating what he describes as “the Cosmic Christ”, a figure who transcends even the Gospels, of influence unlimited by the historical being of Jesus.

In Rohr’s theology, Christ is a figure who is beyond the measure of time and space. Thus, through him, all of the cosmos are holy and imbued with deep spiritual meaning. This obviates any barrier between science and religion.

None of this was born in an intellectual vacuum, of course. Rohr builds upon St. John the Evangelist’s formulation of Christ as Word, or “Logos” [λόγος], as presented in the opening verses of the fourth Gospel.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being….⁴

The early church theologian, Origen [c. 185 – c. 253], also extended this view of the Logos, creating one of the first of Christianity’s controversies. Origen saw Christ as Logos as “eternally begotten of the Father”, a theological point ratified by the greater church when it became included in The Nicene Creed.⁵

In other words, that portion of his Being that is the Christ is as eternal and far-ranging as is God.

"The Son is the Creator of all things; and as the Father is Creator, so the Son is Creator of all things, and the Son is the one who made all things."⁶

Using this antique substructure, Rohr expanded and refined his argument as to the nature of Christ, with a multiplicity of applications possible as there is no longer a physical limit to Jesus Christ’s portion of spiritual reality.

Thus, Christ serves as a universal presence, a transformative force in creation, and the center of the spiritual life.

"Christ is the eternal pattern of all things, the invisible force that holds the entire universe together and gives it its meaning and order."

"The Christ is not just the central figure of Christianity but the center of the entire world, the center of the universe. Christ is in everything, and everything is in Christ."

"The Cosmic Christ is a presence that invites us to see with new eyes, to see the world as it is: deeply sacred, deeply interconnected, and deeply loved by God."

"Christ is the divine blueprint, the template for the whole of creation. Jesus revealed to us what the eternal Christ looks like in human form, but the Cosmic Christ is much larger than Jesus of Nazareth alone. It is the eternal Word of God manifest in all things."⁷

This vision clearly transcends dogmatic denominational thinking [much to the alarm of theologians at the Vatican, we should add] and eradicates any notion that science, the laws of physics, or the rhythm of galactic thermodynamics are beyond religious acknowledgment or consideration. They are all holy.

To build further awareness, and as is consistent in ascetical [that is, mystic] thought, through Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, he and his staff have organized a program for personal spiritual growth. It includes:

• Emphasizing the importance of contemplative prayer and promoting an awareness of the multiple paths to God.

• Marking the mystical aspects of faith that transcend dogma and encourage a personal experience with the divine.

• Revealing the importance of having a community of faith that nurtures spiritual growth and individual transformation.

• Acknowledging the role of suffering in spiritual development, leading to deeper understanding and a sense of compassion.

• Seeing beyond binary thinking about good and evil, or suffering and joy, acknowledging that we experience them together in a way that leads to a further connection with Christ.

"In the true mystical view, the opposites are often joined rather than separated, not seen as a problem to be solved, but as a mystery to be lived."⁸

This program has proved popular, albeit with the weakness that often develops, ever since the days of Antioch and Alexandria, of unnaturally dividing Jesus Christ into two beings, Jesus and Christ. This fulcrum can be unbalanced if we concentrate too much on the spiritual and are neglectful of the physical.

That is why part of Rohr’s theology of the Cosmic Christ always includes a “social justice” element. While much of what he speaks of in this regard is specific to educated Roman Catholics and their concerns, really any mystical platform in use by individuals or groups can maintain a grounding in the physical nature of the mystic if it pursues some form of practical service to the greater community.

Richard Rohr, for one so unassuming, is a sometimes divisive figure in contemporary Christianity, and I find some of his ideas subsequent to his early work to carry the slight quality of crackpottery⁹, but he has contributed significantly to the ongoing and linear call to expand our understanding of God’s work, of granting access to the spiritual for those who find institutional religion a challenge, and for encouraging us to look at the Holy Trinity and its elements in a new way.

In other words, he is yet another inheritor of that ancient call to always explore our relationship with God and Creation, even risking error, as exploration inevitably defines what and who we are as spiritual beings.

1. There is a plausible basis for the city of Atlantis, too, but no one is really expecting to find it.

2. This theme is reiterated throughout the Summa Theological and is also found in his Commentary on Aristotle's Physics.

3. Actually, my monastic cell was better appointed than my college dorm room.

4. John 1:1-3a

5. The best contemporary translation may be found in The Book of Common Prayer, page 358

6. from Origen’s On First Principles, Book 1, Chapter 2

7. All quotations are found in Rohr’s The Universal Christ [2019]; a complete list of his books still in print may be found here.

8. from Rohr’s The Naked Now [2009]

9. I am an expert on being a crackpot as I’m often accused of the same