CHRISTIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE P.O. Box 8500, Charlotte, NC 28271
Review: DF109
A SUMMARY CRITIQUE CONFESSIONS: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest a book review of Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest by Matthew Fox (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996) This review first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 19, number 4 (1997). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org
When rumors emerged in 1994 that Matthew Fox had become an Episcopalian, I called Herb Caen, the recently deceased celebrity columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, to ask about perhaps the most famous victim of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Caen paused for an awkward moment. “Do you mean the actor?” he asked. Fame is a fickle lover, especially when a man changes from dissident Catholic priest to the latest icon of the Episcopal Church’s self-advertised vast inclusivity. For years Fox cultivated his image as a persecuted genius, suppressed by a monolithic church not sophisticated enough to appreciate the theological gold he had deposited in books like On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear; Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home; and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. The Vatican had disciplined Fox with a year of silence in 1989-90. Fox then emerged from it, referring to his being “rudely interrupted” by the Vatican. Yes, he does stand-up, too! Now Fox delivers the inside story on that year of silence, on his formation as a panentheist, and on his vision for a liturgy animated by the hallucinogenic music of Rave dances imported from England. In the second paragraph of his introduction to Confessions, Fox admits that another theologian once wrote a book with the same title: “St. Augustine of Hippo was a psychological genius but a philosopher of dualism and a theologian of original sin. He is not my favorite theologian. I doubt that his and my book have an awful lot in common....But maybe, for the discerning reader, Augustine and I do have something in common. At least a willingness to tell our stories. And to try to look for the role of spirit therein” (p. 1). If reading is one of the rewards of heaven, however, Fox probably isn’t among St. Augustine’s favorite theologians, either, since Fox spends so much space trashing him — and anyone else who embodies orthodox Roman Catholicism. Fox and the Vatican were stuck with each other for most of his priestly career, and their protracted conflict does not make for pleasant reading. By March 1993, the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans) disciplined Fox for disobeying an order to leave Oakland and return to the order’s headquarters in Chicago. Fox interpreted that order as another attempt to control his prolific work as the high priest of what he calls “creation-centered spirituality” (or panentheism — the belief that the creation is intrinsically related to God and thus divine). Despite his oft-stated dream of a “post-denominational Christianity,” Fox soon recognized that the Episcopal Church was his theological True North. Fox joined the Episcopal Church in January 1994.
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