The Cosmic Christ: A Revival in Theology of the 21st Century

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We are only at the beginning of the twenty first theology and a growing number of Evangelicals and Christians are embracing the Cosmic Christ of Patristic theology as well as those who believed early on in Christian universalism. Augustinian theology of original sin, predestination, and eternal hell as well as joining church and state together has won the day for the past millennium but starting this new millennium, all those doctrines and views are falling apart. There is a secret shaking and revival of what I call Cosmic Christianity that joins the new physics and evolution with faith as well as seeing the whole universe and reality interconnected and new creation theology where salvation is no longer simply for certain individuals or the church but for the whole universe!

Who would have known twenty five years ago that Evangelicals would be debating in Four Views of Hell that one would be a Christian universalist like Robin Perry. This July, Five Views of the Atonement comes out with Tom Greggs representing Barthian universalism. Who would have known? New books are coming out almost every other month by people like Robin Perry, Richard Rohr, Ilaria Ramelli, and David Bentley Hart this year on patristic and modern Christian universalism. Robin Perry's book just came out this week, A Larger Hope? Universal Salvation from the Reformation to the Nineteenth Century (Cascade, 2019) Here is a brief summary of his introduction of what the early Christian patristic writers believed:

1.  Creation - All things were created good and had a destiny (telos) in union with God.

2. Fall - Angels rebelled and incited the fall of humanity. The fall was a fall away form goodness. The goodness of God, not the badness of man was the focus.

3.  Evil - Evil is not a thing nor substance, it is the absence or lack of good. God did not create evil for evil is rooted in the will of creatures.

4.  Free Will - Man chose to do evil and salvation involves the deliverance of our wills. The early Patristic writers read the creation story of the first humans or humanity as a problem of (spiritual) education and illumination.

5.  Jesus - Our nature is healed through the Word-made-flesh. Adam corrupted it and Christ is the one who healed it.

6.Incarnation - Christ has become the body of the whole of humanity (Hilary of Pointers). If Christ had not assumed flesh, he could not have healed it (Athanasius).

7. Crucifixion - He died for all to abolish death with his blood to gain the whole of humanity (Athanasius).

8. Resurrection - Resurrection came from one human being (Christ) which extends to the whole of humanity (Gregory of Nyssa). Jesus resurrection is the resurrection of the whole human race in his humanity.

9. Divine punishment as Corrective - Divine punishment was about education and correction. God's purifying fire burns that which is sick out of us (Clement of Alexandria).

10. Hell is Not Forever - The purifying fire of God burns away sin, not sinners (Didymus the Blind). Origen said hell is self-inflicted by the burning of our conscience. God permits us to wound ourselves in this way so we can learn. Ephrem of Syria and Gregory of Nyssa said that those condemned to Gehenna will eventually receive restoration and God's kingdom.

11.  Consummation - Origen and Gregory of Nyssa both taught there would be a final union and restoration of all of humanity called "Apokatastasis." God will become all in all and the end will be like the beginning again but better.

12. All Will Be Saved - "Every being that has its origin in God will return such as it was from the beginning . . . consequently, no being will remain outside the number of the saved" (Gregory of Nyssa) the last signer of the Nicean Creed which most Christians believe and follow to this day.

Jewish Midrash and Reading Books

Timothy Moore has written a very contemporary and helpful book called Practicing Midrash: Reading the Bible's Arguments as an Invitation to Conversation (2018).  The Gospels and the rest of the NT letters are filled with examples of Jewish Midrash that focuses on the spiritual meaning of the biblical text or the spirit of the Scriptures over the letter and law of Scripture. Jewish Rabbi's love to hear competing stories and place them side by side to hear various echoes and truths coming out from God's Word. We see this with two creation stories put together early on in Scripture or three versions of the ten commandments (Duet.5:9-10; Ex.20:5-5; Ex.34:6-7). There are two versions of the Jacob and David stories and dueling prophets like Amos and Hosea, Isaiah versus Micah and on and on it goes.

Several years ago, I started reading books together on similar subjects to compare and contrast the differences. This has given me a deeper and larger vision of the issues rather than letting one book form one's outlook or one story or version. So I want to list some of the best books I have read together that has given me a grandeur vision of God and I am waiting patiently with fervor for reading books yet to be published on topics I have been interested in or am currently reading.

1.I read Brian Zahnd's beautiful masterpiece, "Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God" with Greg Boyd's magisterial and popular version, Cross Vision dealing with God's wrath, anger, and violence in the Bible. A new book coming out in May which looks a very promising is Jason Byassee Surprised by Jesus Again: Reading the Bible in Communion with the Saints.

2.  For my spiritual and devotional life, I have been reading The Blue Book by Jim Branch which is filled with many beautiful thoughts and Christian writers with Nan Merrill's "Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness. Merrill's book is like reading the Psalms by a contemporary Christian mystic. The translation is beautiful and cosmic.

3.  I have been frustrated for some time over reading Evangelical mistranslations of the Bible that keep people holding onto certain beliefs and doctrines that are neither biblical and unhelpful. So for the New Testament, I love David Bentley Hart's The New Testament: A Translation. This is the most accurate and literal translation of the NT I have read to date. I am also working through John Goldingay The First Testament: A New Translation which makes similar moves of letting the text speak for itself with all its ambiguities and roughness at times.

4.  Two complementary books to read together is Brian Zahnd's Water to Wine which shares his spiritual journey back to the liturgy and ancient Christianity and Bruno Barnhart The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center. Ancient and mystical come together powerfully in these two books.

5. The Best book I have read on Genesis is by the Eastern Orthodox scholar Peter Bouteneff Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives. Two new books I have that both look promising is Craig Allert Early Christian Readings of Genesis One and the edited work by Kyle Greenwood Since the Beginning: Interpreting Genesis 1 and 2 through the Ages.

6. I am currently reading and loving Peter Enns new book How the Bible Actually Works. I will have to wait to the end of this year to read Greg Boyd's new book Inspired Imperfection: How the Bible's Problems Enhance it's Divine Authority.

7.  I am also reading Richard Rohr's new book The Universal Christ. I am looking forward to reading two scholarly works coming out September this year, Ilaria Ramelli A Larger Hope? From Christian beginnings to Julian of Norwich and David Bentley Hart That All Shall Be Saved should be like a bomb going off on the Evangelical playground. I just found out Robin Perry's second volume to Ramelli's work came out before Ramelli's work. A Larger Hope, vol.2: Universal Salvation from the Reformation to the Nineteenth Century by Robin A. Perry.

The Universal Christ

I have started reading The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr. Rohr wants to give a vision of Christ that is cosmic and huge. Here is what he says:

1.  What if Christ is a name for the transcendent within of every 'thing' in the universe? What if Christ is a name for the immense spaciousness of all true love? What if Christ refers to an infinite horizon that pulls us from within and pulls us forward too? What if Christ is another name for everything---in its fullness? (p.5)

2.  G. K. Chesterton quote----"Your religion is not the church you belong to, but the cosmos you live inside of" (p.6). Albert Einstein quote, "There are only two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle" (p.7)

3. Creation is the First Bible, and it existed for 13.7 billion years before the second Bible was written (p.12). The incarnation, then is not only "God becoming Jesus" but when God joined in unity with the physical universe and became the light inside of everything (p.13). Light is not so much what you directly see as that by which you see everything else (p.14)

4.  Our faith became a competitive theology with various parochial theories of salvation, instead of a universal cosmology inside of which all can live with inherent dignity (p.17). Jesus came to show us how to become human more than how to be spiritual (p.23).

All of this is just the first chapter!

Top Ten Favorite Christian Writers & Scholars (2019)

Favorite Christian Authors:

1. Henri Nouwen (Catholic)

2. Brian Zahnd (Charismatic)

3. Peter Hiett (Protestant)

4. Richard Rohr (Catholic)

5. Michael L. Brown (Pentecostal)

6. Morgan Guyton (Progressive)

7. Robin Meyers (Progressive)

8. Keith Giles (Protestant)

9.  Shane Claiborne (Anabaptist)

10.  Brad Jersak (Eastern Orthodox)
*Archimandrite Zacharias (EO)


Favorite Christian Scholars:

1.  N. T. Wright (Anglican)

2.  David Bentley Hart (Eastern Orthodox)

3.  Richard Hays (Protestant)

4. Greg Boyd

5. Kenneth Bailey

6. Peter Liethart

7. Richard Middlton (Wesleyan)

8. Rodney Reeves (Baptist)

9.  Phil Krill (Catholic)

10.  Steven R. Harmon (Baptist)
*Meister Eckhart / Jason Byasee


Favorite Women Christian Writers/Scholars

1.  Madame (Jeannie) Guyon (Catholic Mystic)

2.  Illaria Ramelli (Patristic Scholar)

3.  Daniel Shroyer (Protestant Pastor)

4. Evelyn Underhill (Mystic scholar)

5.  Catherine Doherty (Russian Orthodox)

6.  Chiara Lubich (Catholic)

7.  Joa Bolendas (Protestant Mystic)

8.  Theresa of Avila/St. Theresieux

9.  Ilio Delio (Teilhard de Chardin Scholar)

10. Catherine Marshall (Protestant Minister's wife)

The Apokatatastasis: A Poem

Breathing Under Water: A Poem

I built my house by the sea.

Not on the sands, mind you;
not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock.

A strong house
by a strong sea.
And we got well acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier,
always, the sand between.

And then one day,
-and I still don’t know how it happened -
the sea came.
Without warning.

Without welcome, even
Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine,
less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher, till it reached my door.
And I knew, then, there was neither flight, nor death, nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling, you stop being neighbors,
Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance neighbors,
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe underwater.

— Sr. Carol Bieleck, RSCJ

The Franciscan Vision

St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217–1274) took Francis and Clare’s practical lifestyle to the level of theology, philosophy, and worldview. Unlike many theologians of his time, Bonaventure paid little attention to fire and brimstone, sin, merit, justification, or atonement. His vision is positive, mystic, cosmic, intimately relational, and largely concerned with cleaning the lens of our perception and our intention so we can see and enjoy fully!

He starts very simply: “Unless we are able to view things in terms of how they originate, how they are to return to their end, and how God shines forth in them, we will not be able to understand.” [1] For Bonaventure, the perfection of God and God’s creation is a full circle, and to be perfect the circle must and will complete itself. He knows that Alpha and Omega are finally the same, and the lynchpin holding it all in unity is the “Christ Mystery,” or the essential unity of matter and spirit, humanity and divinity. The Christ Mystery is thus the template for all creation, and even more precisely the crucified Christ, who reveals the necessary cycle of loss and renewal that keeps all things moving toward ever further life. Now we know that the death and birth of every star and every atom is this same pattern of loss and renewal, yet this pattern is invariably hidden or denied, and therefore must be revealed by God—which is “the cross.”

Bonaventure’s theology is never about trying to placate a distant or angry God, earn forgiveness, or find some abstract theory of justification. He sees humanity as already being included in—and delighting in—an all-pervasive plan. As Paul’s school says, “Before the world was made, God chose us, chose us in Christ” (Ephesians 1:4). The problem is solved from the beginning. Rather than seeing history as a “fall from grace,” Bonaventure reveals a slow but real emergence and evolution into ever-greater consciousness of Love. He was the Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) of the 13th century.

One reason Bonaventure was so hopeful and positive is that he was profoundly Trinitarian. He saw love always and forever flowing between Father, Son, and Spirit and on to us. Bonaventure’s strong foundation in the Trinity gave him a nondual mind to deal with the ineffable mystery of God and creation. A dualistic mind closes down at any notion of Trinity or infinite love, because it cannot process it.

For Bonaventure, God, is not an offended monarch on a throne throwing down thunderbolts, but a “fountain fullness” that flows, overflows, and fills all things in one positive direction. Reality is thus in process and participatory; it is love itself, and not a mere Platonic world, an abstract idea, or a static impersonal principle. God as Trinitarian Flow is the blueprint and pattern for all relationships and thus all of creation, which we now know from contemporary science is exactly the case.

— Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 162-165.

[1] Bonaventure, Collationes in Hexaëmeron (Lectures on the Six Days of Creation), 3.2. See Ilia Delio, Simply Bonaventure: An Introduction to His Life, Thought, and Writing, 2nd edition (New City Press: 2013), 171.

(Source: Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation)