A Review of “The Universal Christ”

“The Universal Christ” by Richard Rohr is by far one of the most comprehensive and fully grounded on Christ I have encountered in modern writing. The author of this piece of theological wonder started writing the book in 2017. Originally published in 2019, the paperback’s afterword is dated April of 2020 “As all humanity around the globe faces the same single pandemic”. This piece still holds quite the punch in 2025, serving as probably the most personally impactful story of Jesus Christ, and the journey from Jesus of Nazareth to Jesus the Christ. Upon finishing this book I feel like I have been baptized in a new Spirit, a renewed understanding of God, and of our world. Most importantly, I am reminded with crystal clarity that we have responsibility as members of the body of Christ to be Light in this world. “How a forgotten reality can change everything we see, hope for, and believe” reads the subtitle of the book, and really that is exactly what you get. The dedication reads beautifully “I dedicate this book to my beloved fifteen-year-old black Lab, Venus…I can appropriately say that Venus was also Christ for me.” Rohr had the unfortunate experience of having to lay to rest his beloved companion at the same time he had started this writing journey. In the pages of Universal Christ, the crucifixion of Jesus is a hot topic, it should be, it’s quite important to the story. To know that Rohr was navigating his own deep grief and loss while also writing profound things, like

I have often felt like an outsider as a Christian. I cannot turn a blind eye to my queerness, I cannot deny my love nor my identity in any way. I am exactly as God made me to be, medical interventions or not. I firmly believe that my transgender reality, nor my gay love, draw me further from God in any way. I am in a deeply loving monogamous marriage with a man who has loved me deeply and shares my values of human dignity and unconditional love. I have not suffered a serious suicidal episode since starting hormone replacement therapy over a year ago. That looks like good fruit to me, and I bring this up to shed light on how impactful this next piece is to me. Early in the book Richard Rohr drops an absolutely devastating blow. “I have never been separate from God, nor can I be, except in my mind.” He drops this unit of a line on page forty-four. The rest of the book could have been this line repeated across the next over 200 pages, and some people still would miss the point. I had to put the book down and chew on that idea alone for a week before picking the book back up. This simple truth forever has changed how I feel about my relationship with God on a fundamental level. The whole book is a meditation on the Love of God for humans, and how we truly are the most stubborn and blind children. It was a balm to my sensitive and often sore wounds from many years of religious trauma and spiritual abuse, both Christian and not.

This isn’t in the kind of way that carries blame or shame or guilt, it just is. All we can do is acknowledge the truth, that we are human and bound to mess up, and then we must keep loving. Loving one another, loving the earth, our fellow beings of Creation, and loving God. Our heart will cling to things and people anyway, why not let it cling to the force of all that is seen and unseen? Towards the end of the book we are walked through the stories of two of the most important witnesses of Christ in all of the history of Christianity, Mary Magdalene, and Paul, who was once Saul. We are introduced to the truth that Magdalene loved a “very concrete Jesus who led her to a ubiquitous and Risen Christ” and Paul “started with a Universal Christ and grounded it all in a quite homely and lovable Jesus, who was rejected, crucified, and resurrected.” He gives a very good overview of both witnesses’ journeys with Christ, being honest and scholarly about the story of Mary Magdalene. This is important to me because, like Rohr points out, prostitution is never mentioned as a demon cast from her. As he states plainly, “I suspect sex is our demon and we projected it onto her.” For Paul, he is equally honest and knowledgeable. He approaches Paul’s writing as what I believe it truly is, a witness to the deep inner conversion he experienced, and the cultural journey that puts him on.

Franciscan priest Richard Rohr then ends the book with two practices of personal significance. Like much of the book he asks you to truly take your time, really absorb and experience the truths expressed in these practices. Mindfulness is something I think fundamental to the opening and non dualizing of the mind Rohr speaks of in this book, something I am luckily to have talked in depth of with my therapist. This along with the concept of radical acceptance, I think put me in a really firmly grounded place to understand much of the text, while still having much to chew on and revisit for years to come. My copy of the book was secondhand, bought at my local libraries book sale room for $1. The knowledge and insight of this book are worth far more, more than the listed $17 US on the back, it is priceless. I think in many ways as a culture, in America especially, Christianity has become tainted by nationalism, and a frankly blatant idolization of a very specific kind of hetero-normative, white, and wealthy narrative. Our most vulnerable folks have placed, knowingly or not, a golden goat where they could have placed Christ. I believe that they still could put Christ in that space in their minds, and hearts. I also know that the science and statistics, our human ways of quantifying and understanding the world around us, point to the unlikelihood of the most powerful faces in the movement having such a change of heart. However, I am a dreamer after all. If Saul can become Paul, then anyone can become anyone at any time. I hope you realize this for yourself, and choose to be exactly who you were made to be.

Overall I give this book 5 stars, because it fueled the fire within me in a way I so desperately needed, and didn’t even know it. I think Christians of all traditions, and also non Christians would glean much from this relatively short read. A perfect balance of personal story, and universal truth, it was like a sermon you’d want to share with the whole world via megaphone. It took me about a month to really chew on, but I am sure many could read this book in a single sitting. I would love to see how mind blown such a person would be in the end. I definitely recommend getting your hands on this book however you prefer to do so, I believe it will be worth it.