Has Daily Spiritual Seed found a new home now that it is no longer at Yahoo groups? If so, where is it?

I love Father Richard Rohr's "New Great Themes of Scripture" (a ten tape set that I purchased at one of the chrismatic prayer groups I attend.)

But I am worried that some of his teaching go against Catholic belief.

He doesn't believe in original sin. He doesn't believe that Christ died for our sins. (But that Jesus showed us by his example that he understands our pain) He doesn't believe that God killed the enemies of "The Choosen People" as depicted in the old testament. Rohr believes that God wants us each to be in a personal transforming relationship with Him--instead of living strickly by the law ("your in and your out"). Is Rohr a heretic? Is it ok to believe in his interpretation of scripture?

I'm not sure if I posted correctly. And I don't know how to publicly respond to another person's post. Thank you.

Hi Jay, you posted correctly, so welcome.

Daily Spiritual Seed now lives a yahoo.com and ymlp.com, which hosts the majority of the addresses.

You can subscribe using the form at the top of this page, or via dailyseed-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Re. Fr. Rohr, I wasn't aware that he had changed his views on the kinds of doctrines you speak of. Can you provide some specific quotes of his to give examples of some of your concerns?

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] Hi Jay, you posted correctly, so welcome.

Daily Spiritual Seed now lives a yahoo.com and ymlp.com, which hosts the majority of the addresses.

You can subscribe using the form at the top of this page, or via dailyseed-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Re. Fr. Rohr, I wasn't aware that he had changed his views on the kinds of doctrines you speak of. Can you provide some specific quotes of his to give examples of some of your concerns? [/qb]

Rather than try and transcribe one of Rohr's major Pointes off a tape, here is one of his pointes expressed in a similar fashion in an article that can be found on the internet:

It�s amazing how history can be regressive, but at any rate one of the great debates (and I guess one reason I am bringing it up is because of the recent movie, the Passion) was �Is Jesus necessary?� The Dominicans based their argument on many fine biblical metaphors and concluded yes, Jesus was necessary. Jesus had to offer this sacrifice, pay this atonement bill, and we didn�t realize what a terrible thing this was saying about God. You have to ask, �If God needed to be bought off to love us, what kind of God is this?� It breaks down any kind of organic connection between God and God�s creation. If God has to be talked into loving us, if God has to be convinced�you see that all reflected in the atonement theology of the movie.
Well we Franciscans never agreed with that. John Donscotis, who was our teacher, (he was never canonized like Thomas Aquinas, he was beatified, but that wasn�t the top) said no, Jesus was not necessary, and he was solving no problems. There was no problem to be solved, he was simply for Christians, the phrase from Colossians being he was the image of the invisible God. He was the icon who brought us into the lovability and generosity of God. Quite possibly that is why the Cross became that deepest icon because humanity needed an image that God was on our side, that God was given to us, that God was for us and not against, and benevolently involved with the universe: that�s of course supposed to be the transformative meaning of this image of the crucified Jesus. Unfortunately, the fixing mode engineers him into solving a problem, paying a price. This terrible atonement theology that we�re stuck with today claims that there was something to be atoned for. I think that is simply a rather horrible theological example, it's been called the most unfortunately, unsuccessful theological debate that ever happened in the church, but pretty much it's been accepted for the last 700-800 years. Jesus came to identify with the pain of the world and enter into it with that cosmic sympathy and to invite us into that identification with sadness.

[From article on the internet:
http://info.med.yale.edu/intme...04/sadness/rrohr.htm ]

Hmm. I�m not in principle against a little creative thinking, especially if one is trying to blow out the cobwebs and cut through some of the �gunk� that has built up over the years. But I think Brother Rohr gets to the heart of some of his own errors when he says:

quote:

I think that what led to this nadir of fundamentalism that we�re experiencing in all the major religions today is this overemphasis of what I would call a theology of light. In other words, needing answers, certitude, explanations, clarity, order, structure, even if it isn�t true or sound. The ego wants light, which lends a certain kind of superficial clarity. Ego wants it so bad that it seems to me it settles for satisfying untruth. Ego wants satisfaction. That�s the nature of the ego, it wants satisfaction and therefore, it will choose immediately satisfying untruth instead of what is always unsatisfying truth. Now unsatisfying truth is what I would call the theology of darkness.

Rohr has an overemphasis on postmodernism, liberalism and political correctness if you ask me�in the same search for order, clarity, structure and certitude. But such thinking tends only to deconstruct via the somewhat mistaken assumption that what has come before is inherently tainted with ignorance and that only now, in today�s light, can we see things as they really are. We are in this modern age (he says with sarcasm), so much more free from superstition, misinformation and bias. But that�s certainly not to say that we can�t offer new insights and correct old faults from today�s perspective. But I don�t think Brother Rohr is aware of even HALF his biases. He has, I think (like many others) put on the bias of �I have no biases because I care about people in a modern, enlightened, sensitive way.� Is he even aware that he has inhaled feminism and political correctness hook, line, and sinker when he makes such obsequious remarks as:

My most recent book is on the rather universal phenomenon of male initiation. Found in every known culture, it�s the oldest system of spiritual instruction and precedes every temple, synagogue, mosque, and church established religion. What historic peoples had was a system that we have given the word initiation to, a system of spiritual training for the male of the species. Maybe the women in the audience will smile at this, but man didn�t seem to �get it� as naturally as woman. He had to be taught � and as Rogers and Hammerstein might say, he �had to be carefully taught�!

Could it be, even as Joseph Campbell says, that men were initiated because their bodies did not undergo the obvious outward transformations that a female�s body did to mark one�s passage to adulthood? I think Campbell�s explanation much better than this rather silly idea that man had to be taught something that, presumably, women knew how to do from day one: how to cry. (Little boys don�t ever cry?). Such ideas no doubt flatter women in the audience, but its pretty paper-thin analysis, if you ask me.

I don�t have the answers regarding the Atonement, Jay. I�m still working on that one. I actually find it quite useful to do the very same thinking that Brother Rohr is doing. Sort of playing with ideas and see where they lead, because unless this stuff (the Atonement, for example) makes sense to me philosophically and logically, them I�m not going to swallow it as a matter of faith. Others can, but I can�t. But, honestly, the things Brother Rohr is saying don�t sound particularly useful or logical to my ear. I�d stick with the �classics� if I were you.

I see Rohr's remarks as directed primarily to "Atonement theology," which is a kind of juridical explanation for why Christ died on the cross, emphasizing such things as "paying the price" and "making satisfaction." My book, Jesus on the Cross: Why? examines this and other theological approaches, showing how there really are better ways to make theological sense out of what was accomplished by the crucifixion.

Rohr is a post-modern Christian, as Brad has noted, but I don't think he's abandoned the traditional doctrines. The references posted above don't suggest that he's gone that far, at least, and the talks I've heard him give were OK. Apparently, there are web sites like this one that would beg to differ (kind of Catholic far-right).

I'm coming across a lot of theology on these boards that differs from what I know and am used to. No bad thing. A little uncomfortable at first, I have to say, but ultimately quite challenging. With that in mind I'm planning to take up the challenge and go through some of the specialised studies, especially those concerning the crucifixion, redemption/atonement etc, and may try and read Phil's above mentioned book if I have the time.

One thing immediately springs to mind, though, when reading the above quote in Jay's post, and it's cropped up in various discussions before. It's something I can't get my head round. How does this atonement theology, the "paying the price" idea, lead to the conclusion that God is being "bought off to love us"? My mind can't grasp this. It seems twisted thinking to me. If the wages of sin are death, then surely a price had to be paid. And is Christ's paying the price not an obvious act of love? Where is the sense of God being a just God? Aren't people confusing vindictiveness with a sense of justice, seeking God's approval with a desire to please the Father? It's clear Christ's sacrifice opened the way for reconciliation and that this approach to the crucifixion is beautiful and true. But can't it go hand in hand with the "paying the price" idea? Are there other approaches I don't know about? If there are and they get too liberal I don't think I want to know . I can see how the paying the price thing can relate to aspects of the false self, but does it really have to? I don't think so. I have no sense in myself that I need to win God's approval, no sense of acting out a Christian life through fear or shame, yet I have a strong sense that a price had to be paid for my sin and that God's justice and holiness demand that sin be dealt with, AND that there is a punitive element in that? I can't see how that necessarily corresponds to vindictiveness and vengeance, only that it satisfies a need for justice. Is there a strain of inherited Calvinsim in me, in my nation, that's somehow blinding me. I can't see it .

It's got my head reeling a bit so hopefully a study of the said forum (and that with the false self topic) might do the trick. In the meantime . . . feel free to enlighten me here and now!

At-ONE-ment!

Yeah, but JUST-IF-I-cation! (Took me a week to think of that and it's still lame!)

If the wages of sin are death, then surely a price had to be paid. And is Christ's paying the price not an obvious act of love? Where is the sense of God being a just God? Aren't people confusing vindictiveness with a sense of justice, seeking God's approval with a desire to please the Father? It's clear Christ's sacrifice opened the way for reconciliation and that this approach to the crucifixion is beautiful and true. But can't it go hand in hand with the "paying the price" idea? Are there other approaches I don't know about?

There are other approaches, or emphases, that don't take such a juridical approach ("someone" has do "die" to pay the price!).

E.g., you can say that the wages of sin is death, and that we all "pay the price" for sin by dying. That's the wages, or consequences. So there's no need to have someone come along and pay it for us as we all die anyway. And there's no need to relate the crucifixion to any kind of sense of divine justice as we are already experiencing this justice (what we have "coming," or what is "due") through all the suffering and dying we do because of sin.

Nevertheless, I'm not denying the orthodoxy of "substitutionary atonement." Obviously, it's there in the NT and is a favored traditional way to explain what was accomplished by the crucifixion.

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I much prefer other emphases, however.
1. Breaking the hold of Satan, who is the prince of death and darkness.
2. Jesus' at-ONE-ment with us, as MM noted: traversing the way we do via his absorption of our sin and descending to Sheol, where he opens the gates of death and a path to heaven.
3. Jesus as the New Adam, whose risen body/sacred humanity becomes foundational for the life of the soul, replacing its dependence on the "flesh," which is dead to sin (this one points up the significance of Eucharist).

I go over these and a few other explanations in my book and have some comments on it in the Christian Mysteries forum.

Yeah, I like all these approaches. I like to meditate on them, especially the at one ment. Plenty of wonderful Lectio type scripture relating to reconcilition:

Colossians 1:21,22
2Corinthians 5:18,19,20.

"I much prefer other emphases, however." - Why?

Do you not find the "substitionary atonement" theology creates a real love bond, relating to themes of mercy and thanksgiving? - "Greater love has no man than this than to lay down his life for one's friends."

I see the love in Jn. 3: 16, but it just doesn't make sense to me that the reason he laid down his life was to "take the rap," as it were, for us. As noted above, we were already dying and under divine justice. His "laying down his life" was a supreme sacrifice in that he forfeited all his "rights" as the Incarnate Word to connect our fallen human nature to his, and thus to introduce an infusion of divine life into humanity through his risen life.

I do agree with this, Phil. "Taking the rap" doesn't do much in itself, but, to me, is only part of a greater, unified understanding of the manifold achievements of the cross, most of which you mention.

The "taking the rap", however, would refer to that other wage of sin, the second death, going into Sheol for us etc., and not just physical death - divine justice in an eternal sense.