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In my opinion, most organized religion does neither agentic service nor relational nurturance very well.

Richard Rohr

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Richard Rohr
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: March 20
Catholic Priest
Motivational Speaker
Priest
Writer
Topeka
Kansas
Opinion
Religion
Doe
Wells
Well
Relational
Organized
Service
Neither

More quotes by Richard Rohr

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The movement toward gratitude, authenticity, and union is the natural and organic inner work of the second half of our lives.
Richard Rohr
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When you haven't found inner meaning, you will always substitute outer performance. It's the only way to fill that void, that sense of significance - that I am significant. So almost the degree of outer performance can, in many cases, mirror the lack of inner alignment.
Richard Rohr
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God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not waste too much time protecting the boxes.
Richard Rohr
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Many people who attack me know so little of that larger Tradition, and end up being not very traditional at all. When you invoke the whole and great Tradition, you end up scaring people who call 1950 America traditional Christianity. It is just what they are used to in their one limited lifetime.
Richard Rohr
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In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all of us must die before we die, and then we will not be afraid of dying. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as whenever you are not in control.
Richard Rohr
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Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.
Richard Rohr
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Most Christian 'believers' tend to echo the cultural prejudices and worldviews of the dominant group in their country, with only a minority revealing any real transformation of attitudes or consciousness. It has been true of slavery and racism, classism and consumerism and issues of immigration and health care for the poor.
Richard Rohr
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Either you allow Holy Scriptures to change you, or you will normally try to use it to change--and clobber--other people. It is the height of idolatry to use the supposed Word of God so that my small self can be in control and be right. But I am afraid this has been more the norm than the exception in the use of the Bible.
Richard Rohr
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You cannot be naïve about evil. You cannot be naïve to the reality that there are human beings and human situations which have totally identified with the dark side of reality. They are malicious. Realism teaches you to put up appropriate boundaries so that people can't do any more evil than possible. But that doesn't mean you do evil back to them.
Richard Rohr
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Your heart has to be prepared ahead of time through faith and prayer and grace and mercy and love and forgiveness so you can keep your heart open in hell, when hell happens.
Richard Rohr
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Egoic consciousness is the one we all normally operate with, until we are told there is something else! Every culture teaches egoic consciousness in different ways. At that level it is all about me, my preferences, my choices, my needs, my desires and me and my group as the central reference point.
Richard Rohr
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I am who I am in the eyes of God- nothing more and nothing less.
Richard Rohr
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God seems to be about turning our loves around and using them toward the great love that is their true object.
Richard Rohr
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every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.
Richard Rohr
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The journey never happens alone.
Richard Rohr
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Being informed is different from being formed, and the first is a common substitute for the second.
Richard Rohr
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Famine, poverty, abuse, you can't keep that all blocked out. If you let those things teach you, influence you, change you, those are the events that transition you without you even knowing it to become more compassionate.
Richard Rohr
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The great and merciful surprise is that we come to God, not by doing it right, but by doing it wrong.
Richard Rohr
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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
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The most common one-liner in the Bible is, Do not be afraid. Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times.
Richard Rohr