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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

10/28/2024

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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. 

Learning of the courage of Yulia Navalnaya, who is publishing the powerful memoir of her brave husband Alexei Navalny, who was attacked numerous times by Putin and ultimately killed by him in prison. 

Seeing her interviewed on television, I was struck by her 

Yulia Navalnaya on her husband Alexei's eternal optimism, and not taking democracy for granted. Video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  

courage and that of her deceased husband, and reminded of the story of other martyrs of our time. In particular, that of Sister Dorothy Stang who, like the Navalnys, knew that her life was in danger if she dared to return to the Amazon. She returned anyway out of love for the peasants and the forest, knowing that the forces eager to exploit the Amazon, multi-nationals and their hired hands, could kill her. 

Father Gustavo Gutierrez (1928-2024), in 2007. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.     

Learning of the passing of Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian theologian who is credited with being father of “Liberation Theology.” In an essay on “Freedom and Salvation: A Political Problem,” published in 1977, Gutierrez wrote:  

The God of the Bible is one who announces the Good News to the poor, and this had concrete implications: ‘The spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, in that Yahweh has anointed me. He sent me to announce the good news to the poor, to bind the broken hearts, to preach

liberation to the captive and freedom to the prisoner, to preach Yahweh’s year of grace.... (Isaiah 61: 1-2).’

Some “speak of God in order to oppress better the poor,” Guttieriez comments. He cites the epistle of James: 

Listen my dear brothers. Didn’t God choose the poor of the world to make them rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom of God which he promised to those who love him? You, on the other hand, have downgraded the poor. Aren’t the rich those who oppress them and drag them to court? Aren’t they the ones who blaspheme the beautiful name which has been called down upon you?  (2:5-17). 

This seems to speak to our current time, when a certain billionaire presidential candidate has dragged countless people to court and threatens to lock up his political opponents if he is elected. And has as a cheerleader the richest man in the world who, like himself, has been in regular communication with Putin, the killer of Navalny and invader of Ukraine.

Gutierrez invokes the teaching of Dominican missionary Bartolome de Las Casas:

Throughout his life, Father Bartolome denounced the unheard of injustices 

Trump as the biblical “golden calf.” Image created by Rafael Jesus Gonzales, who sent it to us with permission to use it. 

of which the Indians were victims. In one of his last works he considered this situation to be ‘much more unjust and more cruel than that which the Jews suffered when oppressed by the Pharoah.’ Gospel preaching was in vain without the testimony of a life committed to justice. 

Las Casas wrote this to the emperor: It is not true that they want to save and convert the Indians, rather they want to protect themselves in order to rob, despoil, oppress and enslave their neighbors. They do not want to save the Indians, nor preach the faith, nor do any other good. 

Gutierrez comments: “To do justice is a necessary condition for salvation and for preaching salvation.”*

*Gustavo Gutierrez and Richard Shaull, Liberation and Change, pp. 91, 62. 

See Matthew Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth. 

And Fox, “Native Teachings: Spirituality with Power,” “Liberation Theology and Creation Spirituality,” in Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets, pp. 115-122, 155-164. 

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

Banner image: “The Slave Hunter,” depicting the capture of indigenous peoples for Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. Painting by Agostino Brunias (1730-96). Wikimedia Commons. 

Statement of Solidarity with Israel/Palestine.

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Queries for Contemplation

How are you praying the news these days? What are you learning in the process?

Recommended Reading

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.

Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life

In one of his foundational works, Fox engages with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets in profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism and more.

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.

The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages

The second book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series, The Return of Father Sky helps boys and girls to celebrate a new relationship with the masculine by way of Father Sky, whose return excites joy and wonder and possibility that enlarge the soul to welcome others and all creation. Written in a rhyming Dr. Seuss-like style, this full-color, beautifully illustrated book, written by world- renowned theologian Matthew Fox weaves together modern science and classic spirituality in a whimsical, entertaining format to illustrate important truths to readers aged 4 and up. 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.

UPCOMING EVENTS

See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE

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