The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe

by Richard Rohr

The History of a Theory It only makes sense that early Christians would look for a logical and deeply meaningful explanation for the “why” of the tragic death of their religion’s founder. But for centuries, appeasing an angry, fanatical Father was not their answer. The consensus for the first eleven hundred years was that the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross—the “price” or the ransom—was being paid not to God, but to the devil! Yes, I know this now seems silly, but it’s what many Christians believed for almost a millennium. This made the devil pretty powerful and God pretty weak, but it gave the people someone to blame for Jesus’s death. And at least it was not God at that point. Then, in the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury wrote a paper called Cur Deus Homo? or “Why Did God Become a Human?” which, unfortunately, might just be the most successful piece of theology ever written. Thinking he could solve the problem of sin inside of the medieval code of feudal honor and shame, Anselm said, in effect, “Yes, a price did need to be paid to restore God’s honor, and it needed to be paid to God the Father—by one who was equally divine.” Apparently, Anselm never thought out the disastrous implications of his theory, especially for people who were already afraid or resentful of God. In authoritarian and patriarchal cultures, most people were fully programmed to think this way—working to appease an authority figure who was angry, punitive, and even violent in his reactio...