Soul Brothers: Men in the Bible Speak to Men Today (Richard Rohr) - Review

SOUL BROTHERS: Men in the Bible Speak to Men. By Richard Rohr. With a New Foreword by Brian McLaren. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2023.

In recent years numerous books have appeared exploring the role of women in the Bible. This has been a necessary and helpful contribution to our understanding of the Bible and its contemporary message. While the Bible was essentially written by men within a patriarchal framework and then has been largely interpreted by men, often ignoring the role of women in the Bible, recent interpretive works have reminded us that women from Deborah to Mary Magdalene made important contributions to the development of both Judaism and Christianity. These books and other studies that have emerged in recent years have pushed open opportunities for women in the modern world. No longer can we embrace the message that women should be quiet in the church and submit to their husbands and fathers. This is all good news. Of course, this effort to raise our awareness of the role of women in the Bible and the contemporary church has created a backlash among those who wish to protect the male role in society.  In fact, we are seeing the return of hyper and toxic masculinity (yes, I’m speaking of you, Josh Hawley and Mark Driscoll). While we need to continue lifting up the important roles played by women in the ancient and contemporary worlds, we also need alternative responses to advocates for hyper-masculinity. It is helpful when we in the Christian world can point to examples in the biblical story that offer an alternative vision of masculinity.

Richard Rohr offers just the tonic needed at the moment. Although Rohr wrote Soul Brothers: Men in the Bible Speak to Men Today back in 2004, the book has been rereleased by Orbis Books with a new foreword from Brian McLaren. In Soul Brothers, Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest, offers us a look at thirteen biblical men (there are twelve chapters, but the chapter on Joseph explores the stories of two different Josephs—the son of Jacob and the Joseph whom Rohr calls Jesus’ foster father). As McLaren points out in his Foreword to this edition (the earlier edition, which I did not read, had illustrations, while the illustrations have been stripped out of this edition) for several decades Rohr has "devoted himself to developing men's rites of passage and leading men's retreats to help men address their woundedness and seek new models for mature manhood" (p. vii). In this book Rohr does what McLaren noted, he seeks to offer a different vision of masculinity from what people like politician Josh Hawley offer. This vision of manhood offered by Rohr is much less toxic and makes for a more equitable reality.

Richard Rohr is well known for bringing together traditional Christian theology (he affirms the full humanity and divinity of Christ) with insights from Christian mysticism (he is after all a Franciscan) and psychology. Those who have read other books by Rohr have encountered his ability to bring together all of these resources in helpful ways. I might have my disagreements at points with his positions on things, but I’ve also found him to be a thoughtful guide to living human life. I especially liked his earlier book Falling Upward, which deals with the aging process. Having read it a dozen years ago as I was moving through my early fifties, I found his advice rather helpful in making the transitions I was going through in life. When it comes to the current book, Soul Brothers, Rohr writes in his preface that he has written this particular book not only for men or for Christians, but he offers it to an even broader constituency, hoping that it might be helpful to "anyone involved in the human struggle." With that in mind, hopes that men in particular will find their own spirituality enriched by exploring the stories of these biblical men (p. 1).

As I noted above Rohr’s Soul Brothers has twelve chapters focusing on thirteen men. He begins the journey with Abraham whom he calls "a primal man." What he means by that is that the story of Abraham has become the "founding myth for all three monotheistic religions" (p. 4). From Abraham, we move to Moses who "argues with God and wins." Here Rohr focuses on the intimate relationship between Moses and God and how it can serve as a model for our own relationships with God. There are chapters on David and Isaiah as well. Concerning Isaiah, Rohr suggests that for him faith "is not believing in doctrines, finding security in institutions, or belonging to groups (because he has deconstructed all of these), but an active and positive accepting of what is—moment by moment, event by event, tragedy by tragedy, grace by grace" (p. 51).

After exploring these examples of manhood found in the Old Testament, he turns to the New Testament, beginning with the story of John the Baptist. Rohr suggests that while John the Baptist would likely not be allowed in any “self-respecting sanctuary" today, or admitted to seminary, Jesus suggests that no one born of a woman is greater. So, what makes him great? According to Rohr, it is John's "modest and realistic knowledge of who he is in the great drama of salvation." While he was drawing great crowds, he understood his role. This gave him freedom. Of course, there is a chapter on Peter, who he suggests is "humanity at its most lovable, disheartening best" (p. 69). Of Peter, and as a word to us about the need to get things right (something Peter doesn't do), Rohr suggests that what has caught his attention is that "once I knew that fallible, failing men like Peter were the norm, then I was able to hope for love—and found hope for myself" (p. 78). When it comes to Paul, Rohr calls him a "man of contradictions." That is, in my view, a good description of Paul, who can be so right and yet so wrong. Of his message, Rohr points out that "ideas of winning and losing, success, reward, punishment, sacrifice, and worthiness seem to be hard-wired into our psyches. Grace has never come easily." Yet Paul offers that message to us, overcoming the spirituality of perfection (p. 91-92). I did find it interesting that he included Timothy, but he too offers insight into the religious life, that of the beginner's mind. Even as he discusses Peter, he offers a chapter on John the Evangelist who appears in the Gospels often as Peter's partner and maybe rival. While he pictures Peter as the "everyman" he speaks of John more as a mystic, but also the "bearer of the agony of all chosenness."

The interesting thing about Rohr’s Soul Brothers is that as we draw near to the conclusion of the book, after having explored a series of New Testament figures, Rohr steps back into the Old Testament to bring into the conversation the prophet Elijah. The picture he draws of Elijah is not altogether flattering. Rohr tells us that he is grateful that "we have none of his writings because I fear they would be a mishmash of self-righteous proclamations" (p. 120). There is, he believes, a bit of the fanatic in Elijah, which is why in the end he has to give way to Elisha. It's an interesting chapter that invites us to consider how the prophet can get our attention but ultimately must give way to pastors and priests. "In the work of the soul, prophets engineer the path of the fall, while priests and pastors engineer the much longer path of the return" (p. 129).  Now, as I ponder that statement, I am reminded that Walter Brueggemann called for us to embrace the Prophetic Imagination (though Brueggemann has Jeremiah more in mind than Elijah). So maybe we need to be pastors and prophets.

After we consider the life of the prophet Elijah, we come to a chapter focusing on the two Josephs, both of whom are known for their dreams. Concerning the New Testament Joseph (the one whom Rohr calls Jesus’ foster father), Rohr offers him to us as an archetype of the father, a "man we could trust to hold us well—to look at and be healed— "that God might bring about, as indeed he has, the deliverance of a great many people' through the faithful life and image of one man" (p. 142).

Finally, after he lifts up all of these men from both testaments, Rohr introduces us to Jesus, the Human One. He calls him this because Jesus brings together both the human and the divine. What Jesus brings to us is the recognition that he finds God where suffering is, "which is everywhere, on both sides of every war, inside every group and religion, and God is nothing that any group can take to itself as an ego possession, even if they be a Syro-Phoenician woman, a Roman centurion, a Samaritan leper, a woman caught in adultery, drunkards, and tax collector." (p. 154). Of Jesus, he notes that none of his healings or exorcisms depend on worthiness. That isn't the way we think things should work, but it is the way things work for Jesus.

In one way Rohr’s Soul Brothers isn’t a new book. It was released nearly twenty years earlier, with the primary difference being McLaren’s new foreword. That being said, considering the backlash against the increasing roles of women and the embrace of toxic masculinity, it is a book worthy of consideration once again. Now, I will admit that at points I find his books to be overly psychologized and even somewhat "out there" —see his book The Universal Christ. Nevertheless, Rohr does speak to the human condition, which requires healing. If Soul Brothers can help provide that healing, it will be a welcome book. With that in mind, I would suggest that Soul Brothers can be a useful study for church men’s groups as the men in our churches take stock of the realities of our age. Therefore, we can be thankful that Rohr and Orbis Books have chosen to make this book available in a new edition.