Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that religious practices often prioritize philosophical clarity over the teachings of Jesus, particularly about mercy and grace.
Richard Rohr's quote highlights the tension between philosophical systems, represented by Plato's universal ideas, and the more nuanced teachings of Jesus Christ about mercy and grace. Rohr posits that often, people gravitate towards simplified, definitive answers to life's complexities instead of embracing the more profound, sometimes ambiguous messages of compassion and divine mercy that are central to Christian doctrine.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the nature of faith, I might say, 'As Richard Rohr reminds us, church practice has often prioritized clear answers over the grace of God.'
My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.
The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
Much of the Christian religion has largely become “holding on” instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world.
Talk with M. Hermite. He never evokes a concrete image, yet you soon perceive that the more abstract entities are to him like living creatures.
Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
I had gradually come, by this time [1839-01], to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc. and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.
Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.
If only everyone could know and live with their inner craziness. Would the world be a worse place for it? No, people would be fairer and happier.
The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom.
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