Richard Rohr Quotes

52 Sourced Quotes

The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem, our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the scene of our crime.

Richard Rohr
Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God.

Richard Rohr
Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.

Richard Rohr
If we don't learn to mythologize our lives, inevitably we will pathologize them.

Richard Rohr
What we know about God is important, but what we do with what we know about God is even more important. Too often people think it is necessary that we all see God in the same way (which is impossible anyway), but what is really necessary is that we all follow God according to what God tells us. The fact that God has given us so many different faces and temperaments and emotions and histories shows us how God honors each unique journey and culture. God is not threatened by differences. It's we who are.

Richard Rohr
We have defined freedom in the West as the freedom to choose between options and preferences. That's not primal freedom. That's a secondary or even tertiary freedom. The primal freedom is the freedom to be the self, the freedom to live in the truth despite all circumstances. That's what great religion offers us. That's what real prayer offers us. That's why the saints could be imprisoned and not lose their souls. They could be put down and persecuted like Jesus and still not lose their joy, their heart, or their perspective. Secular freedom is having to do what you want to do. Religious freedom is wanting to do what you have to do.

Richard Rohr
God is always drawing us closer, blow by blow and bit by bit. And most of the time we do not even know it is happening.

Richard Rohr
The most common one-liner in the Bible is, "Do not be afraid." Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times.

Richard Rohr
We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.

Richard Rohr
We all remain who we are. But on the way to healing or liberation we have to do what the Romans called agere contra: we have to act against the grain of our natural compulsions. This requires clear decisions. Because it does not happen by itself, it is in a way "unnatural" or "supernatural"... (we) simply have to cut loose now and then, and in the process... make mistakes.

Richard Rohr
Group-think is a substitute for God-think. The belief is that God is found only by our group. The next step is to establish that identification with our group as the only way to serve God.

Richard Rohr
If unconditional love, loyalty, and obedience are the tickets to an eternal life, then my black Labrador, Venus, will surely be there long before me, along with all the dear animals in nature who care for their young at great cost to themselves and have suffered so much at the hands of humans.

Richard Rohr
Much of my criticism of religion comes about when I see it not only affirming the system of normalcy but teaching folks how to live there comfortably. It just increases our stuckness in the old world. As does a lot of poor psychotherapy. Cheap religion teaches us how to live successfully in a sick system.

Richard Rohr
Prayer must lead us beyond mind, words, and ideas to a more spacious place where God has a chance to get in.

Richard Rohr
The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo – even when it's not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future.

Richard Rohr
There are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments-and it is we alone who desecrate them by our blindness and lack of reverence. It is one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it.

Richard Rohr
God does not love you because you are good, God loves you because God is good.

Richard Rohr
If you try to assert wisdom before people have themselves walked it, be prepared for much resistance, denial, push-back, and verbal debate.

Richard Rohr
Jesus praised faith and trust – even more than love. It takes a foundational trust to fall, or to fail, and not to fall apart.

Richard Rohr
In the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.

Richard Rohr
A person who can laugh and go with life does not demand to be in control, which is why the most controlling people may be sarcastic but lack an authentic sense of humor.

Richard Rohr
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.

Richard Rohr