Things that Make you go Hummmm…
Yes! Magazine recently ran an article on the intriguing and controversial Matthew Fox. The article also links to Fox’s 95 Thesis which he’s affixed to the Wittenburg door. It’s a long list and includes some odd bobs like #94 “Since angels learn exclusively by intuition, when we develop our powers of intuition we can expect to meet angels along the way.” Others rang with me and have made me think. Here’s a sampling to wet your mental whistle.
#33 The term “original wound” better describes the separation humans experience on leaving the womb and entering the world, a world that is often unjust and unwelcoming than does the term “original sin.”
#38 A diversity of interpretation of the Jesus event and the Christ experience is altogether expected and welcomed as it was in the earliest days of the church.
#42 Thus our connection with the earth (first chakra) is holy, and our sensuality (second chakra) is holy; and our moral outrage (third chakra) is holy; and our love that stands up to fear (fourth chakra) is holy; and our prophetic voice that speaks out is holy (fifth chakra); and our intuition and intelligence (sixth chakra) are holy; and our gifts we extend to the community of light beings and ancestors (seventh chakra) are holy.
#54 The Holy Spirit works through all cultures and all spiritual traditions and blows “where it wills” and is not the exclusive domain of any one tradition never has been.
#55 God speaks today as in the past through all religions and all cultures and all faith traditions none of which is perfect and an exclusive domain of any one tradition and never has been.
#70 Jesus said nothing about condoms, birth control, or homosexuality.
#71 A church that is more preoccupied with sexual wrongs than with wrongs of injustice is itself sick.
#92 The grief in the human heart needs to be attended by rituals and practices that, when practiced, will lessen anger and allow creativity to flow anew.
ha, I thought you were talking about the Matthew Fox from the show Lost, which made this post very confusing.
i as well was thinking of matthew fox on LOST, which I do not watch but find him mildly attractive, thus making his “theses” more attractive.
but anyways, regardless…thanks i like this and it is a thinker!
I note that you’re being careful with your language here and are not *necessarily* endorsing these items. But since you’re basically inviting comment… I’ll take the bait.
I’m sorry but I just think that Fox’s theses are 99 percent utter bunk. It’s certainly not recognizable as an even slightly accurate description of Christian faith to anyone in the history of the last 2 millenia except for a 21st century syncretist who fits into a tiny, tiny slice of the American or western European demographic pie. In Fox’s prescription his positive statements and his critiques (implicit or explicit) are equally weak. The Roman Catholic church is to be highly commended for defrocking him.
This is mere boutique “spirituality” and despite Fox’s hopes for something grand (what with his “95 Theses”) it amounts to nothing but a poor spiritual faddishness in the end. It’s the propogation of bunk –and teachers (e.g. Spong)– like this that is the root cause for the dissolution of the once-respectable Episcopal Church before our very eyes.
Not that I expect anyone to agree with me, but there you go…
The first three…I don’t know. Original sin is a theological designation, not a character flaw anyway…it does have to do with us being separated from God. I don’t think you can get around that. I think that’s why it feels so right when you DO experience the divine presence…we all know, whatever we call it, that something is missing. And it’s not the uterus. Chakras…don’t know….but when my neurologist puts needles in them to balance the energy and fix my migraines it sure works…
Diversity of the Christ experience…What does that mean? Does that mean that everyone experiences something different when they choose Christ? Then I’ll agree. Because even in our small body of 40 or so this has been shown true.
The last three are absolutely true…when we tend to the hurting human heart (and hungry human body), it will eliminate many other wrongs…
We had Matthew Fox at an Alternative Worship gathering here in UK in 1995. He was very influential on the latter stages of Nine O’Clock Service (before it was exposed as a cult, amid major stories of sexual abuse, etc.). To Fox’s credit, his theology empowered the women within the church to realise that ‘it didn’t need to be like this’. However, I find his anti-Paul and anti-Augustinian stance over-simplistic. Doug Gay, from the Late Late Service, engaged him fairly effectively in debate during the gathering. Much of what Fox says in his works is a needed corrective. Then he goes overboard, and throws the baby out with the bathwater. I also think his new-ageism is departing from the whole judeo-christian corpus, and when western thinkers do that, history teaches us that anti-semitism is just around the corner. So I’d say ‘yes’ to Fox’s concept of ‘original blessing’ and ‘no’ to most of the rest (including his naive view of human nature).
Fox is problematic to me in a personal sense. Loads of his ideas, and he’s never been short of them, are attractive at a personal level, but theologically strike at the orthodox teaching many of us have been brought up with.
That to say, ,aybe we’re just not ready yet to hear all he has to say.
But his original blessing book and the ideas which flow from that have been very important to us as a community.
Blessings, and thanks for continuing to stimulate and challenge.
I think #92 is really sad, I think the grief in the heart needs to be attended by Jesus, not by rituals and practivces. Turning over your probelms to God and allowing him to work in our lives and help us to forgive others will lessen your anger. This sounds like trying to solve our own problems without going to God first. 1 Peter 5:7, Isaiah 49:13
Jennifer,
how do people access Jesus, or any member of the godhead? Through rituals, rites, sacraments and practices.
Prayer is a ritual (get quite, speak, listen, maybe bow your head or fold your hands), church services are a ritual (arrive, sing a song, read some prayers, listen to sermon, give some money, more songs or prayers, close with a benidiction or blessing), the sacraments (communion, baptisms, etc.) are rites that help us access/connect with God/Jesus, as is singing, practicing the practice of confession/forgiveness. Practices such as prayer, Bible study, meditation, etc have always been a means of “turning problems over to God”/ connecting with God. Rituals and practices have always been a way (the way?) we connect with God and always will be.
thanks to all for your comments. sorry i haven’t been able to keep up with them all. it’s not a matter of not caring and/or being nervous to engage…it’s just a matter of not having a lot of time.
shalom!
Rachelle
I agree we all practice a lot of rituals. But the ritual itself should not be our focus. If we pray long enough or in a certian way, wether we stand or kneel, going to a certain church or study group. Our focus should be on God not on the rituals themselves.
I’ve been told that the E. Orthodox Church views God more as healer/doctor than judge. Orthodox theology also believes that “original sin” as it is inherited is mortality. Thus Jesus himself could enter into this state while being without sin. It is our fear of mortality that causes us to sin when we exert our own desires or needs over those of another. Seems close to the concept of “original wound” and certainly can be traced throughout the history of Christian thought. Love your blog Rachelle! Thanks.
Amber,
As the resident Orthodox commenter here, I’ll confirm that you’re basically right. In Orthodoxy (as opposed to the essentially Augustinian traditions of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism), original sin is not conceived as original guilt and simply being born does not involve automatic condemnation.
Rather, as St Athanasius formulated it in the 4th century, God is the source of being for all that exists and we have being only because He sustains us in being by His love. We were created for union with God and for growth in that union, to share more fully in the life that is God’s. In sinning in Genesis, Adam and Eve sought to become Godlike without God, and so broke the union for which they were created. The consequence of breaking union with God, who is the very source of our life and being, is, necessarily, death. In sin, we fall back toward the nothingness from which we were called when God created us. Note that in Genesis death is never described as a punishment for sin, but as a consequence of sin. We are not born guilty for someone else’s sin, but we’re born into an inheritance of death and alienation from God and we are born into a world that is covered in sin and which pulls us toward sin. Without the incarnation, that’s the end of the story. No judgment, no heaven, no hell, no anything, just a slipping away into an ontological abyss.
The Incarnation (which in Orthodox short-hand includes the Cross and the Resurrection) changes everything and makes life in union with God possible again. In assuming our flesh, God becomes our healer (in Orthodox prayers we call Him again and again our “healer” and “the Lover of Mankind”), uniting human nature to the divine nature. The whole cosmos will be transformed in Christ, just as we will be raised up and transformed in Christ, because the Risen God shares our humanity and the materiality of humankind and the world. Hence, then the Church (which is the presence of Christ’s incarnate body) takes up the materiality of the world, it is transformed into His healing, blessing, and the power of divine life (sacrament). This is why the Orthodox often refer to the Church as a “hospital of souls.” This is why the Orthodox teaches that infants who die before baptism belong to Christ, because they share in His risen humanity and are without personal sin. It’s also the incarnation that makes possible judgment, heaven and hell, since all will be raised and the door to divine life is opened for us again in Christ. We will all be brought to stand in the presence of God. To love that light is heaven, to hate it is hell.
So, getting back to topic… Yes, Fox’s “original wound” is closer, in some respects, to the Orthodox understanding. But most everything else that Fox has to say would be considered soul-destroying error.
HMMMMM…
I have been thinking along these lines too, I believe that the Holy Spirit can and does meet genuine seekers where they are wherever that might be…
Chakras hold all the colours of the rainbw … we have a rainbow inside us then… they symbol of promise… is that stretching things too far hmmm…
As far a sin and heaven and hell goes there is so much debate and controversey at the momment I think it would do us good to take a deeep breath step back and spend some time thinking/in prayer … and allowing one another to discover a way forward… we spend too much time picking at thoughts of others… what are the planks in our eyes I wonder?
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