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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

09/21/2024

With the days ticking down to 11/5, learn the deeper stakes in this year's election. Get your copy of Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election today! Choose your format in the book block below. 

Why is the first chapter about Sigmund Freud? Freud underwent an amazing encounter with the same fresco that I did on visiting the Orvieto Cathedral in 1897. In fact, he was so taken by it that he returned two more times to study it. An entire book, excellently researched and beautifully written, is devoted to the impact that fresco had on Freud. It is called Freud’s Trip to Orvieto. The author, Nicholas Fox Weber, is an art historian.

      Sigmund Freud, 1926. Wikimedia Commons.

I include that chapter right up front in my book because it demonstrates that art goes much deeper than theology, insofar as Freud, a declared atheist, nevertheless found himself smitten by the archetype of the Antichrist along with the other two frescos in the same chapel, one on Hell and another on “The Resurrection of the Flesh.” 

As a rule, it is the evangelicals and fundamentalists who have opined on “the Antichrist” in recent times, but my book does the opposite: I take the Antichrist archetype and apply it to those whose politics and values are oriented to the common good which includes truth, justice and the building of community. If Freud was vulnerable to a religious archetype of significance, other leftward thinking persons can surely join the cause and a new consensus on the left can emerge.

“The Truth Doesn’t Matter to Donald Trump and MAGA.”    Now This Impact

I hear that you are redefining MAGA in this book. Yes, I am. Instead of “Make America Great Again,” I think the movement as it operates can rightly be called, “Make America Grotesque Again.” 

Grotesque as in the days of 

Jim Crow laws that were hell-bent on denying blacks their rights to vote. Grotesque as in the days of slavery. Grotesque as in the days of lynchings. Grotesque as in the days of genocide toward Native Americans, including rounding up children and separating them from their families to attend government or church schools. Grotesque as in wiping out the buffalo in the 19^th century to destroy the Plains Indians so dependent on the buffalo. Numbers went from 30 million buffalo to 500. Grotesque!

What do you mean when you say the opposite of evil is not the good but the Sacred? This was one of the findings I came to in writing my major study on Evil, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society. 

This means that we cannot have

“Moving On From Evil To The Sacred.” Matthew Fox

a conversation on evil until we have a conversation on the Sacred. If we are out of touch with the Sacred, we are necessarily out of touch with how to deal with evil; we see only its effects, we don’t get to its essence and we don’t deal with it effectively therefore.                 

To be continued.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Trump & MAGA as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, pp. 1-8, 51-56, 9-22.

See also: Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.

And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

And Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

Banner image: “Luca Signorelli’s 1501 depiction of the face of antichrist, from the Orvieto Cathedral.” Photo cropped. Wikimedia Commons.

Statement of Solidarity with Israel/Palestine.

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Queries for Contemplation

What does it mean to you to hear that the opposite of Evil is not the good but the Sacred? What follows from that? How do we learn the Sacred?

Recommended Reading

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE. 
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
 “This book is a classic. ” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.

In the Beginning There Was Joy: A Cosmic Celebration for Kids of All Ages

The first book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series tells the story of the big bang and how humans fit into the awesome, fantastical, cosmic picture! With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet.

"Matthew Fox does it again, here for our young ones, who so need a positive, cosmic vision to thrive, or even survive, in a sad time." - Father Richard Rohr, Author of The Universal Christ

"Matthew Fox offers a resounding affirmation of what our souls have always suspected: we are made for joy."  - Mirabai Starr, Author of God of Love and Wild Mercy

UPCOMING EVENTS

See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE

MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox, Mariko Middleton, and Skylar Wilson of the Order of the Sacred Earth in a free virtual meeting for connection and networking with other mystic warriors. Last Tuesday of every month, 4:00-5:00pm PT. 
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88665302478  
Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478

Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org

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