Archive for October, 2025
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM: “Jesus the Prophet”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets, Theology on October 15, 2025
In a homily Father Richard Rohr, OFM, describes the tension between priestly and prophetic tasks—both necessary for healthy religion:
There are two great strains of spiritual teachers in Judaism, and I think, if the truth is told, in all religions. There’s the priestly strain that holds the system together by repeating the tradition. The one we’re less familiar with is the prophetic strain, because that one hasn’t been quite as accepted. Prophets are critical of the very system that the priests maintain.
If we have both, we have a certain kind of wholeness or integrity. If we just have priests, we keep repeating the party line and everything is about loyalty, conformity, and following the rules—and that looks like religion. But if we have the priest and the prophet, we have a system constantly refining itself and correcting itself from within. Those two strains very seldom come together. We see it in Moses, who both gathers Israel, and yet is the most critical of his own people. We see it again in Jesus, who loves his people and his Jewish religion, but is lethally critical of hypocrisy and illusion and deceit (see Matthew 23; Luke 11:37–12:3).
Choctaw elder and Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston considers how Jesus invited others to share in his prophetic vision:
Jesus … saw a vision that became an invitation for people to claim a new identity, to enter into a new sense of community.… Jesus offered the promise of justice, healing, and redemption.… Jesus became the prophetic teacher of a spiritual renewal for the poor and the oppressed…. Jesus was more than just the recipient of a vision or the messenger of a vision. What sets Jesus apart is that he brought the elements of his vision quest together in a way that no one else had ever done….
“This is my body,” he told them. “This is my blood.” For him, the culmination of his vision was not just the messiahship of believing in him as a prophet. Through the Eucharist, Jesus was not just offering people a chance to see his vision, but to become a part of it by becoming a part of him.
Richard honors the role of prophets in religious systems:
The only way evil can succeed is to disguise itself as good. And one of the best disguises for evil is religion. Someone can be racist, be against the poor, hate immigrants, and be totally concerned about making money and being a materialist but still go to church each Sunday and be “justified” in the eyes of religion.
Those are the things that prophets point out, so prophets aren’t nearly as popular as priests. Priests keep repeating the party line, but prophets do both: they put together the best of the conservative with the best of the liberal, to use contemporary language. They honor the tradition, and they also say what’s phony about the tradition. That’s what fully spiritually mature people can do.
Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation – Monday, October 13, 2025
“Christianity is in a pretty poor mess…” ~ Fr. Richard Rohr
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church on October 6, 2025
Christianity continues decades of decline in the U.S., and the “Church” continues to splinter apart worldwide. Along with Fr. Richard, I think that qualifies as a “pretty poor mess”.
Some background for consideration:
The Christian Nicene Creed[1], the official Statement of Christian Beliefs, states:
[I believe] in one holy, catholic apostolic Church
This was indeed a reality until AD 451. It’s become a wistful faerie tale since then (I submit 1054 and 1517 as additional evidence).
The original language of the New Testament and Nicene Creed is Greek: catholic in Greek is καθολικὴν (katholikén), meaning universal (not “Roman Catholic”!); church in New Testament Greek is ἐκκλησία ((ekklēsía) and translates as “assembly” or “gathering.” In the New Testament context, ἐκκλησία referred to the assembly of Christ believers, not the worldly institution that we know as “Church”. Church is an invention developed by generations of post-apostolic institutional male clerics. It’s actually helpful, I think, that in English we use the word Church, because apostolic Ekklesía and Church are clearly not the same thing.
Many “Churches” claim to embody the New Testament Ekklesía, but in fact often operate with only one or two of the five ministries present in the apostolic Ekklesías (Eph. 4:11 refers). And “worship leader” is not one of them.
The facts speak for themselves:
- There are more than 45,000 different Christian denominations in the world today. That’s up from 33,000 in 2007.[2]
- In 2023, 62% of the U.S. adults self-identified as Christians. That’s down from 78% in 2007. Estimates for 2025 are as low as 57%.
- In 2023, approximately 33% of adults attended church at least once a month. That’s down from 2007, when it was 57%.
- The percentage of U.S. adult “nones”, those having no religious affiliation, has risen from 16% in 2007 to 29% in 2023[3].
New and returning Christians are often encouraged to “Find a Bible-believing Church” and all will be well. “Bible-believing” now has such a plethora of divergent definitions and applications that, today, the term is virtually meaningless. In most cases, it simply implies, “Be like us”! Not helpful, I submit.
I will offer a word of knowledge for the Sunday crowds triumphantly proclaiming belief in “one holy, catholic apostolic Church”. Consider the following simple working definition of insanity:
“Continuing to do what you have been doing and expecting a different outcome.”
[1] Excerpt from the Christian Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of AD 325/381
[2] Gina A. Zurlo, ed. World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025)
[3] Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study, 2023-24.
First Thoughts 