Matthew Fox

Topics:

YELLAWE, Youth and Elders Learning Laboratory for Ancestral Wisdom Education — performance/lecture with hip hop artist, poet and videographer Professor Pitt
Interfaith and Our Ancestral Faiths: Searching for Shared Wisdom in Perilous Times
Fighting Fundamentalism: Time for A The New Reformation?
Trance Dance and The Reinvention of Ritual and Community (workshop)

Travels from: Oakland, CA

Exclusively Represented by Speaking Matters

Matthew Fox is author of 28 books including Original Blessing, The Reinvention of Work, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, A Spirituality Named Compassion, and his most recent A New Reformation! He was a member of the Dominican Order for 34 years. He holds a doctorate (received summa cum laude) in the History and Theology of Spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris.

Seeking to establish a pedagogy that was friendly to learning spirituality, he established an Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality that operated for seven years at Mundelein College in Chicago and twelve years at Holy Names College in Oakland. For ten of those years at Holy Names College, Cardinal Ratzinger, as chief Inquisitor and head of the Congregation of Doctrine and Faith (called the Office of the Holy Inquisition until 1965), tried to shut the program down. Ratzinger silenced Fox for one year in 1988 and forced him to step down as director. Three years later he expelled Fox from the Order and then had the program terminated at Holy Names College.

Rather than disband his faculty, Fox started his own university in Oakland, California in the mid-1990s called the University of Creation Spirituality (now called Wisdom University). Fox is its president emeritus and a teaching professor.

The principle objections from the Congregation of the Faith to Fox's work were that he is a "feminist theologian;" that he calls God "Mother" (Fox has proven the medieval mystical tradition did exactly that); that he prefers "original blessing" to "original sin;" that he calls God "child"; that he associates too closely with Native Americans and people of the Wicca tradition; that he does not condemn homosexuals; that he has replaced the naming of the spiritual journey as Purgation, Illumination and Union with the four paths of Creation Spirituality: The Via Positiva (joy, delight and awe); the Via Negativa (darkness, silence, suffering, letting go and letting be); the Via Creativa (creativity); and the Via Transformativa (justice, compassion, interdependence).

Matthew Fox has been renewing the ancient tradition of Creation Spirituality that was named for him by his mentor, the late Father Marie Dominic Chenu, o.p., in his studies in Paris. This tradition is feminist, welcoming of the arts and artists, wisdom centered, prophetic and caring about eco-justice and social justice and gender justice issues. Fox's effort to reawaken the West to its own mystical tradition has included revivifying awareness of Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart and the mysticism of Thomas Aquinas, as well as interacting with contemporary scientists who are also mystics.

Fox's books have received numerous awards and he is recipient of the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award of which other recipients have included the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa and Rosa Parks. He has led a renewal of liturgical forms with "The Cosmic Mass" that mixes dance, techno and live music, dj, vj, rap and contemporary art forms with the western liturgical tradition.

Fox believes that by "reinventing work, education and worship we can bring about a non-violent revolution on our planet" and has committed himself to this vision for many years. A new book to appear in 2006 is called The A.W.E. Project: An Educational Transformation for Post-Modern Times lays out the elements of an educational revolution for young people that is based on his 33 years of educating adults with an alternative pedagogy based on cosmology, creativity and contemplation. A young rapper and video artist named Professor Pitt is putting the basic ideas of this book into a DVD video and Fox is working with Pitt and other young people to establish a project called YELLAWE: "Youth and Elder Learning Laboratory for Ancestral Wisdom Education." Learn more about YELLAWE and Professor Pitt.

Matthew Fox has received media exposure through: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Yoga Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, Capitol Times, The New Age Journal, The Utne Reader, Spirituality and Health, Tikkun, Science of Mind, The Chicago Tribune, Toronto Star, San Francisco Weekly, East Bay Times, The Washington Post, National Catholic Reporter, Resurgence, The Tablet, The Independent (London), The Guardian, YES! Magazine, Caduceus Journal and the Today Show.

P.O. Box 230916, New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-725-5547 • Fax: 212-725-2332 • Contact Speaking Matters

home | categories | what's new | contact us | event inquiry

Copyright © Speaking Matters®, a speakers bureau offering public speakers for
lectures, speeches, panel discussions, and keynote addresses.