Everything Belongs: Living the Teachings of Richard Rohr Forward

Episode: The Three Isaiahs: The Heart of Prophecy

Date: October 3, 2025
Guests/Hosts: Richard Rohr, Corey Wayne, Paul Swanson, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Mike Morrell, Cassidy Hall

Episode Overview

In this profound episode, the team explores Chapter Eight—"The Three Isaiahs: The Heart of Prophecy"—from Richard Rohr’s latest book, “The Tears of Things.” The discussion centers on the transformative wisdom of the biblical Book of Isaiah, presented through Rohr’s interpretive lens of “order, disorder, and reorder.” Together with guest Cassidy Hall, the episode journeys through the evolving understanding of prophecy, the developmental reading of scripture, and the necessity of listening to margins and excluded voices—especially as embodied in queer and women prophets. The conversation is rich with personal stories, scholarly insights, and spiritual encouragement, inviting listeners to let their hearts be broken open by love and to stretch beyond the safe containers of their faith traditions.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. The Three Isaiahs and Rohr’s Wisdom Pattern

(Order → Disorder → Reorder)

• Rohr introduces the paradigm:

  • The three sections of Isaiah align with order (First Isaiah 1–39), disorder (Second Isaiah 40–55), and reorder (Third Isaiah 56–66), charting a path from holiness and transcendence to suffering, lament, and ultimately universal love and inclusion.
  • “I try to overlay the three Isaiahs with my paradigm of order, disorder and reorder. … That’s what [Jesus] realizes Judaism has to get because they aren’t there yet. They're still largely in first Isaiah. Holy, holy, holy. Order, order, order, purity, purity, purity.”
    —Richard Rohr [04:43]
  • This reflects Rohr's core belief that spiritual growth moves from rules and boundaries, through suffering and deconstruction, toward an ever more expansive love.

• Jesus and Isaiah:

  • Jesus most frequently quotes or alludes to Isaiah, especially Second Isaiah, to demonstrate the movement from distant transcendence to God's immanent, intimate love (feminine, forgiving, inclusive).

II. Reading Scripture Developmentally: From Literalism to Transformation

• Historical-critical context vs. Fundamentalism:

  • Rohr and team stress the need for contextual, nuanced reading of scripture over literal and uncritical interpretations, which have been used to justify violence, exclusion, and oppression.
  • “Text apart from context is not really very convicting. … That’s been the Achilles heel… of fundamentalism… Old Catholicism before Vatican II and evangelicalism. It loves texts hanging in midair.”
    —Richard Rohr [07:12]
  • Referencing Origen: reading scripture as body (historical context), soul (personal meaning), and spirit (universal truth).

• Letting the Bible read us:

  • Instead of using the Bible to justify ourselves, allow it to confront, challenge, and transform us.
  • “Rather than reading the Bible inside our own bubble, we must allow the Bible to read us.”
    —Richard Rohr [10:50]; also quoted by Cassidy Hall [61:12]

III. The Evolution of Divine Logic: Toward Universal Love

• From exclusivism to inclusion:

  • The prophets, culminating in Jesus, move from a tribal, “chosen people” mindset to an understanding of God’s love as universal, dissolving boundaries of identity and belonging.
  • “I have to know what it feels like to be chosen. ... The expansion of specialness to universal specialness, to the one who makes everything special. To love as it's divinely defined. Universal love, self love, other love.”
    —Richard Rohr [14:43]

• Deconstructing punitive theologies:

  • Discussion on the harm of interpreting heaven, hell, and God’s justice in transactional or violent terms.
  • “If God is vengeful, retributive, punishing, there’s no hope for humanity ever growing beyond that… This is no small dish. We can’t let… believe that God is punitive.”
    —Richard Rohr [24:20]

IV. Order, Disorder, and Reorder in Life and Spirituality

• Personal stories of moving through disorder:

  • Cassidy Hall recounts her own journey of leaving a “scripted” career path, confronting panic attacks, and seeking deeper truth—mirroring the pattern of order, disorder, and reorder.
  • “I was working as a therapist in Iowa and following this script that was set out for me. It all appeared beautifully as order, but … my internal life was in complete disorder.”
    —Cassidy Hall [49:36]

• The role of suffering and the margins:

  • Marginalized people—queer folks, women, outsiders—often hold wisdom for navigating disorder. When dominant cultures experience disorder, they seek guidance from those on the margins.
  • “Those on the margins know better than anyone the way out or through disorder. ... They have watched what has worked, what doesn’t work. ... The prophets almost always come from those spaces.”
    —Cassidy Hall [54:05]

V. The Missing Voices: Women and Queer Prophets

• Erasure and the need for new imagination:

  • The hosts note the lack of women prophets in scripture, the effects of patriarchy on biblical canon, and the importance of imagination, womanist, and feminist theology to recover those missing voices.
  • “There was significant erasure of these women and their stories along with other people on the margins.”
    —Cassidy Hall [45:10]
  • “If we don’t have [women prophets] in the biblical text… why don’t we listen to them today in our modern lives?”
    —Cassidy Hall [64:30]

• Soft prophecy & Queering the text:

  • Dr. B’s idea of “soft prophecy”—reading one’s life as sacred text, and seeking the divine in the personal and relational.
  • Cassidy Hall introduces “queer” as both orientation and a way of seeing/being—viewing the world from the margins, asking new questions, embracing messiness and possibility.
  • “When I use the word queer, I’m not just talking about my sexuality, but I say it’s the way I tilt my head to look at the world. … a way to see differently, a way to explore the world in a new way.”
    —Cassidy Hall [70:45]

VI. Love as the Final Word

• From rule to relationship:

  • The episode underscores that every movement in Isaiah, and in the teachings of Jesus, points toward relationship, inclusion, and forgiving love—not legalism or exclusion.

• The continual journey of reorder:

  • Reorder is not a static end state, but a widening circle, ever-including what was formerly excluded.
  • “It’s only going to be safe when the permission of inclusion and acceptance is realized and it’s visible and it’s tangible and it’s clear.”
    —Cassidy Hall [73:20]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Jesus is the one who overcomes the distance [between transcendence and intimacy].”
  —Richard Rohr [04:43]

• “Rather than reading the Bible inside our own bubble, we must allow the Bible to read us.”
  —Mike Morrell [10:50] / Richard Rohr [61:12]

• “Great love and great suffering are usually the wrecking ball that break us out of our small ideas and our self absorption.”
  —Mike Morrell [13:36]; Richard affirms

• “Forgiveness is the big final word. God forgives everything. Every stage, every certitude… Forgive reality for being reality.”
  —Richard Rohr [39:31]

• “The cross is not a macho Jesus, let’s just put it that way. How do you love your machismo and worship the crucified one, the victim who accepts the victim state as a state of enlightenment?”
  —Richard Rohr [29:55]

• “Second Isaiah loves weakness and praises it. … The cross is not a macho Jesus. … Christianity doesn’t know what a revolutionary man message it has.”
  —Richard Rohr [29:55]

• “God is in the inclusion business.”
  —Corey Wayne [72:27]

• “Queerness is the way I tilt my head to look at the world.”
  —Cassidy Hall [70:45]

• “There is no judgment of anybody. No exceptions. … Kindness is the only non-delusional response to everything.”
  —Carmen Acevedo Butcher, referencing Greg Boyle [75:08]

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 00:09–04:43 | Introduction to the Three Isaiahs and themes of the episode | | 04:43–08:28 | Jesus’ use of Isaiah & the importance of historical context | | 10:50 | “Letting the Bible read us”—spiritual checks & balances | | 13:36 | Deconstruction: Great love & suffering as ‘wrecking balls’ | | 15:13 | Moving beyond chosenness; Inclusion and specialness | | 24:05 | The poison of punitive theology | | 28:14–36:21 | Second Isaiah, suffering servant, vulnerability, disorder | | 35:11–36:21 | Jesus quotes Third Isaiah; hermeneutic of inclusion | | 43:21–45:10 | Cassidy Hall on women prophets and their erasure | | 49:36–54:05 | Cassidy’s personal story — panic attacks, disorder, and order | | 54:05–56:41 | Margins and those familiar with disorder as spiritual elders | | 58:48 | Defining disorder—solidarity, “holy disorder” | | 61:12 | Second Isaiah possibly written by a woman; impact for readers | | 70:45 | Cassidy defines “queer”—as orientation and way of seeing | | 73:20–76:02 | Reorder as expanding circle of inclusion; beloved community | | 77:01–81:52 | Integration: Listening deeply, outgrowing containers | | 83:06 | Thomas Merton prayer—embracing mystery and trust |

Flow & Tone

The episode moves fluidly from biblical scholarship and theological critique to personal story and spiritual encouragement, maintaining an inviting, honest, and compassionate tone. Speakers share warmly, often with humor or vulnerability, and the dialogue is marked by genuine curiosity, humility, and a commitment to inclusion and growth.

Concluding Takeaways

• The Book of Isaiah—and the wider prophetic tradition—charts a spiritual journey from certainty and boundary, through suffering and disruption, into a wider, more inclusive love that is always outgrowing our containers.
• The health and evolution of Christian spirituality depends on hearing excluded voices: women, queer folks, the marginalized. Their wisdom is essential for authentic “reorder.”
• “Letting the Bible read us” means allowing scripture—and life—to challenge our safe narratives and call forth deeper love.
• The work of prophecy, and contemplation, is messy, non-linear, and perpetual. It requires vulnerability, courage, and the willingness to learn from suffering—our own and others’.
• The path forward, both for individuals and communities, is found in the brave, relational work of deep listening—especially to those we have not heard before.
• Love is always the last word, and reorder is found not in returning to original order but growing ever more inclusive, expansive, and real.

Final Blessing:
“Forgiveness is the big final word. God forgives everything. Every stage, every certitude... Forgiveness to forgive reality for being reality… And accepting that, allowing that, forgiving that with God has to be salvation, has to be liberation.”
—Richard Rohr [39:31]