If you're the head of the organization that has to pay salaries, bills and keep the money coming, you have to be concerned with pleasing the middle. I find it means you have to dumb down your message to something less radical than the gospel. It can't be the real gospel. It has to be "churchiness" that pleases everyone, so they come back next Sunday and keep putting money in the collection plate. I don't mean that in a cynical way. I just think it's what happens.
Richard RohrIf you try to assert wisdom before people have themselves walked it, be prepared for much resistance, denial, push-back, and verbal debate.
Richard RohrEverything has to be understood in opposition to something else. For some dang reason, the ego prefers to make one side better than the other, so we choose. And we decide males are better than females, America is better than Canada, Democrats are better than Republicans. And for most people, once this decision is made, it is amazing the amount of blindness they become capable of. They really don't see what's right in front of them. Once you see this, it's an amazing breakthrough, and that is the starting place for moving away from dualistic thinking.
Richard RohrMuch of the Christian religion has largely become โholding onโ instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).
Richard Rohr