Works by
Matthew Fox
(Writer)

Books

• Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Date?)

• Religion USA (1971)

• On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style (1972)

• Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart's Creation Spirituality, In New Translation (1980)
  A new translation of thirty-seven of the sermons of Meister Eckhart, the fourteenth-century priest and mystic. Best-selling author Matthew Fox brilliantly interprets Eckhart's themes and creates a spiritual path for the nineties.  See also Passion for Creation: The Earth-honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart

• Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality (1980)
  This practical book leads us into a spirituality of passion that leads to compassion--coming to our senses in every meaning of the phrase.

• Meditations with Meister Eckhart (1983)
  This book of simple meditations exemplifies the creation-centered spirituality of Meister Eckhart, a 13th-century mystic, prophet, feminist, and declared heretic.

• Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality Presented in Four Paths, Twenty-Six Themes, and Two Questions (1983)
  Fox shows how Christianity once celebrated beauty, compassion, justice, and provided a path of positive knowledge and ecstatic connection with all creation.

• Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen (1985)
  An introduction to the life and work of Hildegard.

  • Reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition.

  • Contains 24 full-color illustrations by Hildegard of Bingen.

  • Includes commentary by Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing (250,000 sold).

  Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was an extraordinary woman living in the Rhineland valley during most of the twelfth century. Besides being the abbess of a large and influential Benedictine abbey, she was a prominent preacher, healer, scientist, and artist. She also was a composer and theologian, writing nine books on theology, medicine, science, and physiology, as well as 70 poems and an opera. At the age of 42, she began to have visions; these were captured as 36 illuminations--24 of which are recorded in this book along with her commentaries on them. She also wrote a text describing these visions entitled Scivias (Know the Ways), now published as Hildegard of Bingen's Mystical Visions.
  
  Author Matthew Fox has stated, "If Hildegard had been a man, she would be well known as one of the greatest artists and intellectuals the world has ever seen." It is a credit to the power of the women's movement and our times that this towering genius of Western thought is being rediscovered in her full grandeur and autonomy.
  
  Virtually unknown for more than 800 years in Western history, Hildegard was featured as one of the women in Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in the early 1980s and published for the first time in English by Bear & Company in 1982. In addition to her mystical teachings, Hildegard's music has been performed and recorded for a new and growing audience.

• Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works: With Letters and Songs (1987)
  As revealed in these writings, Hildegard's mystical ordering of the universe involves a profound connection between the divine and the material planes, serving to reunite with science in a dynamic, holistic cosmology.

• The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (1988)
  A comprehensive description of the transformation of Christianity, by the bestselling theologian who has defined this spiritual renaissance.

• A Spirituality Named Compassion (1990)
  In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox, the popular and controversial author, establishes a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing. Using his own experiences with the pain and lifestyle changes that resulted from an accident, Fox has written an uplifting book on the issues of ecological justice, the suffering of Earth, and the rights of her nonhuman citizens.
  
  Fox defines compassion as creativity put to the service of justice and argues that we can achieve compassion for both humanity and the environment as we recognize the interconnectedness of all things. Working toward the creation of a gentler, ecological, and feminist Christianity, Fox marries mysticism and social justice, emphasizing that as we enter a new millennium society needs to realize that spirituality's purpose is to guide us on a path that leads to a genuine love of all our relations and a love for our shared interdependence.

• Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth (1991)
  From Matthew Fox, the popular and controversial author of The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, a prophetic manifesto for the preservation of the planet.
  
  For those new to the works of Matthew Fox, and for those eager to learn his thoughts after his Vatican-ordered public silence, comes this introduction to creation spirituality--Fox's framework for a far-reaching spirituality of the Americas.
  
  Passionate and provocative, Fox uncovers the ancient tradition of a creation-centered spirituality that melds Christian mysticism with the contemporary struggle for social justice, feminism, and environmentalism.
  
  Basic to Fox's notion of creation spirituality is the gift of awe--a mystical response to creation and the first step toward transformation. Awe prompts indignation at the exploitation and destruction of the earth's people and resources. Awe leads to action.
  
  Showing how we can learn from each other, Fox's spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in both North and South America. 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.

• Sheer Joy: Conversations With Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality (1992)
  Moving beyond the scholasticism and rationalism that have long cloaked Aquinas, Fox reveals a passionate, prophetic, and mystical celebrator of the blessings of creation. In this compelling, epic work, Fox writes as "a late twentieth-century citizen deeply concerned about the way our species is treating the Earth, our young, women, the poor, our bodies, and our souls." He speaks with St. Thomas Aquinas in a modern forum, questioning the saint about the Four Paths of creation spirituality, and the responses are culled from Aquinas's works, including pieces never before translated into English.

• The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time (1994)
  In The Reinvention of Work, radical priest Matthew Fox draws on a rich legacy of great mystics and philosophers and proposes a spirituality of work. As Thomas Aquinas said, "To live well is to work well," and in this bold call for the revitalization of daily work, Fox shares his vision of a world where our personal and professional lives are celebrated in harmony--a world where the self is not sacrificed for a job but is sanctified by authentic "soul work."

• Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life (1995)
  From the "post-denominational" priest silenced by the Vatican and dismissed by the Dominican Order for his controversial views, here are profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, and Christian mysticism. Engaging in a lively mythical debate with some of history's greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets, Fox speaks out for a spiritual awakening and a movement from traditional authoritarian religion toward an authentic connection with the Divine.

• Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest (1996)
  One of the most controversial and influential priests of our day -- bestselling author of Original Blessing, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, and The Reinvention of Work -- reflects on a lifetime of passionate faith. Matthew Fox's radical theology comes alive in this highly charged autobiography, which traces his spiritual evolution from altar boy in Madison, Wisconsin, to graduate student in revolution-rocked late-sixties Paris, to Dominican priest, to his high-profile battles with the Vatican. Best known for recovering the Creation Spirituality tradition, which brings together ecology, cosmology, justice, and mysticism in a theology based on "original blessing," Fox continues to be one of the most original thinkers in the church today. Finally, Fox addresses his new role as a "post-denominational priest" and a leader for urban young people.

• Natural Grace: Dialogues on Creation, Darkness, and the Soul in Spirituality and Science (1996)
  The chasm between science and religion has been a source of intellectual and spiritual tension for centuries, but in these ground breaking dialogues there is a remarkable consonance between these once opposing camps. In Natural Grace, Rupert Sheldrake and Matthew Fox show that not only is the synthesis of science and spirituality possible, but it is unavoidable when one considers the extraordinary insights they have both come upon in their work. Sheldrake, who has changed the face of modern science with his revolutionary theory of morphic resonance, and Fox, whose work in creation spirituality has had a significant impact on people's sense of spirit, balance each other with their unique yet highly complementary points of view. In these inspired dialogues a variety of ancient topics--including ritual, prayer, and the soul--are freed from the past and given new power for the future in the liberated universe Fox and Sheldrake show us.

• The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet (1996) by Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake

• Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Lessons for Transforming Evil in Soul and Society (1999)
  In Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh, visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology 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. Through its marriage of spirit and flesh, Fox's Theology of Spirit sets forth a visionary but practical mysticism that lays out a blueprint for social transformation.
  
  In this book, Matthew Fox dissects the roots of our culture's spiritual malaise and offers Creation Spirituality and a Theology of Spirit as the "medicine" for our society's deep spiritual "wounds." He shows how, contrary to mainstream church teachings, flesh is the grounding of spirit, and how spirit and flesh are entwined with each other in a felicitous and spiritually nourishing bond. He outlines a Theology of Spirit, an approach to the fusing of spirit and flesh which has been underdeveloped in Western thought. His cosmology stresses the need for diversity, the revelatory power of Nature, and the imperative of cooperation.
  
  Fox draws together the wisdom of East and West on the subject of human destructiveness by taking Thomas Aquinas's definition of sin as "misdirected love" and ushering us through parallels between the Eastern teachings of the seven chakras and the Western teachings of the seven capital sins. In doing so, he responds to Martin Buber's call to "deprive evil of its power" not by "extirpating the evil urge, but by reuniting it to the good." Psychologist M. Scott Peck has said that humanity's naming of evil "is still in the primitive stage." With this book, Fox ushers us beyond rudimentary naming and places our capacity for evil in the fuller context of our touching the natural beauty of our physical world, the complex texture of our emotional lives, and the splendid depths of our spiritual center.
  
  In Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh Matthew Fox has created his most ambitious and profound book. The text crackles with his intelligence and wit, deftly moving the reader into an examination of our world and our perceptions about it and ourselves, expanding our minds and showing us paths of thought that you would swear were not there before you turned the page.

• One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths (2000)
  Isn't it time, asks Matthew Fox, that instead of trying to convert one another we delved into one another's spiritual riches? We get to the core of religion by going to the heart experience, Fox says, not by dwelling on doctrines that so easily divide even within religious traditions. In One River, Many Wells, Fox exhorts readers to embrace the common faith of deep ecumenism.
  
  Fox masterfully distills the common principles of the world's religions, and shows exactly how the different fingers of the world's faiths connect to a single hand. Drawing on seminal quotes, lessons, and ideas from the great faiths, he demonstrates how each expresses a common goal and approach to life, and concludes with "18 New Myths and Visions" that will inspire readers to embrace deep ecumenism.
  
  One River, Many Wells is an indispensable resource, envisioning a new and exciting way of faith that erases the lines of false distinction between religions and calls upon each of us to worship from our common heart.

• Passion for Creation: The Earth-honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart (2000)
  Passion for Creation (formerly Breakthrough) is Matthew Fox's comprehensive translation of and original commentary on the critical German and Latin texts of 37 sermons by Meister Eckhart, the noted 14th-century Dominican priest, preacher, and mystic. The goodness of creation, the holiness of all things, the divine blood in each person, the need to let go and let be--these are among Eckhart's themes, themes that the best-selling author Matthew Fox brilliantly interprets and explains for today's reader. 
  
  Passion for Creation will be embraced by theologians, students, and all seekers of truth. It will be especially welcomed by those interested in creation spirituality, which Eckhart advocated six centuries ago and which Matthew Fox has promoted as a spiritual path for the new millennium. Simply put, this book is a meeting of two prophets across hundreds of years. The outcome of that meeting is a fount of wisdom.

• Prayer: A Radical Response to Life (2001)
  One of Matthew Fox's earliest works, Prayer introduces a mystical spirituality and a mature conception of how to pray.
  
  Here is a new edition of one of Matthew Fox's most powerful early books, another in a series of the classic works by the maverick priest and theologian being reissued by Tarcher/Putnam.
  
  Prayer was written by Fox when he was a radical young priest fresh from the experience of the sixties and Vatican II. Originally published in 1972, it is one of the first works to herald the revolution of liberal theology that was just beginning to sweep the nation.
  
  Originally published under the title On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style, the book now has a more accessible title and appearance and is as vital today as when it first appeared.

• Creativity (2002)
  Drawn from sermons and lectures that have electrified listeners, here is a concise, powerful meditation on the nature of creativity from Episcopal priest and radical theologian Matthew Fox.
  
  Creativity is Fox at his most dynamic: It is immensely practical and leaves the reader with a message to take into action in life. Fox tantalizingly suggests that the most prayerful, most spiritually powerful act a person can undertake is to create, at his or her own level, with a consciousness of where that gift arises from.

• A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity (2006)
  Modern-day theologian’s call for the radical transformation of Christianity

  • Echoes the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in 1517

  • Addresses the corruption and authoritarian tendencies that distinguish today’s Christian institutions from the spiritual message upon which they are founded

  • Offers a new vision of Christianity that values the Earth, honors the feminine, and emphasizes spiritual tolerance

  In 1517, Martin Luther, disgusted at the corruption then reigning in the Catholic Church, nailed on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, 95 theses calling for a Reformation. During Pentecost week 2005, former Dominican priest Matthew Fox nailed at that same church door a new set of 95 theses calling for a reawakening of the Christian spirit and a repudiation of the authoritarian, punitive tendencies that prevail in modern churches today. Fox’s theses not only condemn the deep corruption in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, made evident by the pedophile scandal and the recent canonization of a fascist admirer of Hitler, but also speak to the loss of inspiration and resulting apathy that have emptied churches of all denominations.
  
  Fox says, “At this critical time in human and planetary history, when the earth is being ravaged by the violence of war, poverty, sexism, homophobia, and eco-destruction, we need to gather those who offer a future that is one of compassion, creativity, and justice to speak their conscience as never before. Religion ought to be part of the solution, not the problem.” His 95 theses call for a New Reformation, a radical transformation that will allow us to move once again from the hollow trappings of organized religion to genuine spirituality.

• The A.w.e. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human (2006)

Children

• In The Beginning There Was Joy: A Celebration of Creation for Children of All Ages
  Mr. and Mrs. Joy (God) teach their children (us) to share and respect the beauty of all creation.  Ages 9-12

See also:

• Saints and Sinners: Walker Railey, Jimmy Swaggart, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Anton LaVey, Will Campbell , Matthew Fox (1985) by Lawrence Wright

• Vision: The Life and Music of Hildegard von Bingen (Book + CD) (1995), Jane Bobko, ed.

• The Soul of Business (1997), Charles Garfield and Michael Toms, eds.

• The Emerging Christian Way: Thought, Stories, And Wisdom for a Faith of Transformation (2006), Michael Schwartzentruber, ed.