Matthew Fox is a spiritual theologian, Episcopal priest, and activist for gender justice and eco-justice. He holds a doctorate in the history and theology of spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris. To date he has written over 40 books, including Original Blessing, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth, and A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey. Though he was silenced by the Vatican in the early 1990s, the influence of his work in the field of Creation Spirituality reemerged a generation later in documents such as Laudato Si’—in fact, one of Fox’s former students, Fr. Sean McDonagh, served as an advisor in the drafting of that encyclical.
Seeking to establish a new pedagogy for learning spirituality melding the ancient Western wisdom tradition with contemporary scientists and modern mystics, Fox founded the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality in 1976. After pressure from the Vatican’s Congregation of Doctrine and Faith, the institute closed in the early 1990s. Fox went on to establish the University of Creation Spirituality, or UCS, in California in 1996. On the UCS faculty were persons from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Sufi, Native American, and Hindu traditions, as well as scientists and ecological and social justice activists and artists. Fox has since taught at Stanford University, Vancouver School of Theology, and the California Institute of Integral Studies, among other places.
Fox is recipient of the Abbey Courage of Conscience Peace Award, the Gandhi King Ikeda Award, the Tikkun National Ethics Award, and other awards. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Academy of the Love of Learning in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and conducts numerous workshops each year.
Our wide-ranging conversation looked at Matthew’s early life and the influence of Dominican theologian M. D. Chenu on the formulation of Creation Spirituality; explored the fourfold path of the spiritual journey, with a particular focus on the via creativa that links art and meditation; and related the importance of interspirituality or “deep ecumenism” for the future of the planet. Matthew also shares why he feels “human beings need ritual to survive” and how ritual sustains community by “bringing people together to rejoice, to grieve, to commune, to be nourished, and to be strong to return to serve.”
See also:
The core tenets of Creation Spirituality
An overview of the Cosmic Mass
An overview of the “four mystical paths” of Creation Spirituality
