Matthew Fox (priest)

Dominican friar

Timothy James Fox, was born in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1960, when he entered the Roman Catholic Order of Preachers he was given the religious name of "Matthew". He received master's degrees in both philosophy and theology from the Aquinas Institute of Philosophy and Theology and later earned a Doctorate of spiritual theology, summa cum laude, from the Institut Catholique de Paris, studying with Marie-Dominique Chenu who named the Creation Spirituality tradition for him. It was Thomas Merton, the catholic monk, who steered Fox to study at the Institut catholique de Paris. After receiving his doctorate, Fox began teaching at a series of Catholic universities, including Loyola University in Chicago and Barat College of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Il.

In 1976, Fox moved to Chicago’s Mundelein College (now part of Loyola University), to start the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality, a master's program in Creation Spirituality with a unique pedagogy that integrated both left and right brain centers and would eventually lead to conflict with church authorities. His holistic pedagogy included among its faculty Jungian psychologist John Giannini and physicist/cosmologist Brian Swimme, feminist Rosemary Reuther along with many artists teaching “art as meditation.” In 1983, Fox moved the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality to Oakland, California, and began teaching at Holy Names University, where he was a professor for 12 years.

In 1984 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asked the Dominican Order to investigate Fox’s writings. When three Dominican theologians examined his works and did not find his books heretical, Cardinal Ratzinger ordered a second review, which was never undertaken.

Due to his questioning of the doctrine of original sin, in 1988 Fox was forbidden from teaching or lecturing for a year by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Fox wrote a “Pastoral Letter to Cardinal Ratzinger and the Whole Church,” calling the Catholic church a dysfunctional family. After a year "sabbatical" Fox resumed writing, teaching, and lecturing. In 1991 his Dominican superior ordered Fox to leave the ICCS in California and return to Chicago or face dismissal. Fox refused. In 1993, Fox’s conflicts with Catholic authorities climaxed with his expulsion from the Dominican order for "disobedience," effectively ending his professional relationship with the church and his teaching at its universities.

Among the issues Cardinal Ratzinger objected to were his feminist theology; calling God "Mother;" preferring the concept of Original Blessing over Original Sin; working too closely with Native Americans; not condemning homosexuality; and teaching the four paths of creation spirituality—the Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa and Via Transformativa instead of the church’s classical three paths of purgation, illumination and union.

Writing in The New York Times, Molly O'Neill says that the Vatican was presented with a request on the part of the Dominicans that the theologian be dismissed. According to John L. Allen, Jr., it was largely in reaction to the unconventional programming at his Institute for Creation Spirituality, with a faculty that included a masseuse, a Zen Buddhist, a yoga teacher, and a self-described witch named Starhawk.

Episcopal priest

After his expulsion, Fox met young Anglican activists in England who were using "raves" as a way to bring life back to their liturgy and to attract young people to church worship. He was inspired to begin holding his own series of “Techno Cosmic Masses” in Oakland and other U.S. cities, events designed to connect people to a more ecstatic and visceral celebration and relationship with ritual and the building of community.

He was received into the Episcopal Church (Anglican Communion) as a priest in 1994 by Bishop William Swing of the Episcopal Diocese of California.

In 1996, Fox founded the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, an outgrowth of his institutes at Mundelein and Holy Names. The university offered similar master's degree programs in creation spirituality and related studies. It was initially accredited through an affiliation with New College of California, before shifting in 1999 to affiliate with the Naropa Institute of Boulder, Colorado, creating and running Naropa’s master's degree program. The university also added a separate doctorate of ministry degree, with a curriculum based on his 1993 book The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time, which talked about a "priesthood of all workers".

Results were dramatic with hundreds of students attending representing many professions. Among its students have been Professor of Engineering at the University of Colorado, Bernard Amadei who went on to found Engineers Without Borders; Sister Eufrocina L. Bandigan who is currently president of Assumption College of Davao in the Philippines; Sister Dorothy Stang who was martyred in the Amazon while defending the rainforest and peasant farmers there; folk singer and Buddhist activist Jennifer Berezan; Fr Sean McDonagh who was the principle author of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si”; Susan Coppage-Evans who is founder and president of the new Fox Institute for Creation Spirituality in Boulder, Colorado.

Fox led the University of Creation Spirituality for nine years, then was succeeded as president by James Garrison in 2005. The institution was subsequently renamed Wisdom University.

Since leaving the university, Fox has continued to lecture, write and publish books. In 2005, he founded an educational organization geared to reach out to inner city youth called Youth and Elder Learning Laboratory for Ancestral Wisdom Education (YELLAWE). The YELLAWE program is based on a holistic approach to education and creativity derived from Fox’s master’s level programs. It also includes physical training in bodily meditation practices such as tai chi. YELLAWE has operated in inner-city school systems in Oakland and Chicago.

Fox's proponents hold that his teachings are more gender neutral, ecology sensitive, and accepting of non-traditional sexuality, than church orthodoxy. Fox and his books have received numerous awards. Among them are the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award (other recipients being the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Ernesto Cardinale, Rosa Parks and Maya Angelou); The Gandhi King Ikeda Award; the Tikkun National Ethics Award; the International Association of Sufism Annual Inspiration Award.

Creation Spirituality

While some academic theologians refer to Fox as the next Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, others call him a populizer, not an intellectual. Robert Brow characterizes the teachings as "esoteric excursions into ethics, theology, and mysticism".

Basic tenets

Fox’s conception of Creation Spirituality draws on both a close reading of biblical sources and early medieval mystics within Christian traditions as well as today's science. It seeks common ground with numerous faiths from around the world, in an approach Fox called “deep ecumenism” for its connections across many spiritual practices. This was described most particularly in his book One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths.

Creation Spirituality considers itself a “green” theology, emphasizing a holy relationship between humanity and nature. Accordingly, the sacredness of nature is considered a sacrament and creation is considered an expression of God and the “Cosmic Christ”. This approach was endorsed by eco-theologian Thomas Berry among others. Fox’s book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance delves more into these issues.

Fox also laid out other tenets of Creation Spirituality in some of his other books, particularly Original Blessing, A Spirituality Named Compassion, and Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth.

Fox’s 1996 autobiography, Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest, describes his life as a Dominican priest and his struggle with the Vatican as he wrote about his experiences and understanding of early Christianity. This book was updated and published by North Atlantic Books in 2016.

Fox also has authored or edited nearly 35 other books, largely on various spiritual teachings, teachers and mystics (listed below). He was the first to translate Meister Eckhart into English from the critical German editions along with a commentary on his work and helped to launch the Hildegard of Bingen revival. His book on the mysticism of Thomas Aquinas translates many of his works that have never before been translated into English, German or French.

Fox's theological positions have been categorized as a type of monism, specifically panentheism.

Techno Cosmic Mass

Fox's "Techno Cosmic Mass" (more recently called "Cosmic Mass") is an attempt to combine the religious ritual of the Eucharist with dance and multimedia material, deejays, video jockeys and rap music. They evoke and connect spiritual rituals and the ecstatic energy of Techno music and rave parties. They developed from a group called the Nine O'Clock Service in Sheffield, England, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and were brought to the United States and further developed by Fox. Over 100 Cosmic Masses have been celebrated in North America and numerous persons have studied how to present them. (See www.thecosmicmass.org)

95 theses

In 2005, while preparing for a presentation in Germany and following the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, Fox created 95 theses that he then translated into German. On the weekend of Pentecost, arrangements were made for him to nail these to the door of the Wittenberg church where Martin Luther nailed the original 95 Theses in the 16th century, an act often associated with the Protestant Reformation.

The action fueled the creation of a lively blog involving tens of thousands of Germans. In his theses, Fox called for a new reformation in Western Christianity. In his supporting book, A New Reformation, Fox argued that two Christianities already exist and it is time for a new reformation to acknowledge that fact and move the Western spiritual tradition into new directions.

Books