Matthew Fox (priest)

Dominican friar Timothy James Fox was born in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1959, when he entered the Catholic Dominican Order (the Order of Preachers), he was given the religious name "Matthew". He received masters 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, Illinois. In 1976, Fox moved to Chicago's Mundelein College (now part of Loyola University) to start the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality (ICCS), 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, physicist/cosmologist Brian Swimme, feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, along with many artists teaching "art as meditation." In 1983, Fox moved ICCS to Oakland, California, and began teaching at Holy Names University, where he was a professor for 12 years. In 1984 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — the future Pope Benedict XVI, then 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, Ratzinger ordered a second review, which was never undertaken. Due to Fox's questioning of the doctrine of original sin, in 1988 Ratzinger forbade him from teaching or lecturing for a year. 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, Fox's Dominican superior ordered him to leave the ICCS in California and return to Chicago or face dismissal. Fox refused. On March 31, 1991, Fox made an extended appearance on the British television discussion program After Dark, alongside Piltdown Man debunker Teddy Hall; secular humanist activist Barbara Smoker; theologian N. T. Wright; playwright Hyam Maccoby (who theorized that Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew and Messianic claimant); author Ian Wilson (known chiefly for speculative writing on the Shroud of Turin); and others. 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 Ratzinger objected to were his feminist theology; calling God "Mother"; preferring the concept of Original Blessing over Original Sin; not condemning homosexual behavior; 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 said that the Vatican was presented with a request on the part of the Dominicans that the theologian be dismissed. 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. Fox 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". 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. ==Creation Spirituality==