Without transformation, you can assume you're at a high moral, spiritual level just because you call yourself Lutheran or Methodist or Catholic. I think my great disappointment as a priest has been to see how little actual spiritual curiosity there is in so many people.
Interpretation
True spiritual growth requires genuine curiosity and transformation, not just identification with a religious label.
In this quote, Richard Rohr expresses his disappointment with people who maintain a superficial religious identity without engaging in true spiritual exploration and transformation. He suggests that labeling oneself as part of a particular faith does not equate to a high moral or spiritual standing; rather, genuine curiosity and the desire for deeper understanding are essential for authentic spiritual development.
In practice
During a sermon, you might share this quote to discuss the importance of personal spiritual growth.
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.
Opinions which justify cruelty are inspired by cruel impulses.
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
Awareness is everything. Hallie once pointed out to me that people worry a lot more about the eternity *after* their deaths than the eternity that happened before they were born. But it's the same amount of infinity, rolling out in all directions from where we stand.
The American birthright belongs, potentially, to everyone. This is unprecedented. Other countries accept migrants on the basis of economic necessity or as a humanitarian gesture. Only in America is it the direct consequence of our foundational ideals.
There is no perfection only life
I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that's true to some degree.
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