August 19, 2024: Leonardo Boff: Hope from Brazil re Kamala Harris for President
Matthew shares an article written by his Brazilian theologian friend, Leonardo Boff. Leonardo lays out the reasons why the U.S. electing a female president would be a step forward for our country. He speaks about patriarchy and how it is such a blight on our planet. And although patriarchy affects us all, of course the primary victims have been women. “Since then,” he says, “the destiny of women, in historical-social terms, has been defined based on the man who occupied every public space.” As women have more fully moved into the workplace, academia, and positions of leadership, they have brought with them more sensitivity, more collaboration, and more heart. To hear more, watch Matthew’s video, HERE.
August 20, 2024: Boff of Brazil & Kamala Harris as President, Part II
Matthew tells us more about his connection with Leonardo Boff. He says they were both silenced by Cardinal Ratzinger—Boff for his Liberation Theology work, and Matthew for his Creation Spirituality work. Matthew continues to share Boff’s article. He talks about the wholeness that is being engendered by having a woman likely become president of our country. He writes of the emergence of a new human being, more androgynous: man rescuing his anima dimension, with the help of women, the capacity for tenderness, unreserved delivery, cordial sensitivity, together with his animus dimension. The woman developing her animus, that is, her capacity for initiative, creativity, operational intelligence, direction together with her anima.
August 21, 2024: Announcing My New Book on Trump, MAGA & the Antichrist
Matthew announces the completion of a brand new book entitled Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election. The book was inspired by his trip to Orvieto, Italy this summer and the powerful fresco he saw there about the Antichrist. This same fresco powerfully affected both Freud and Michelangelo. When Matthew saw the fresco, he immediately recognized Donald Trump. Later, upon his return home, he knew he needed to write about Trump and the Antichrist. The power of the Antichrist as an archetype is that it helps name the evil in our midst. Included in the book are ten colored paintings, seven of Signorelli’s frescoes, one by Fra Angelico and two by Hildegard of Bingen, one on Christ and one on the Antichrist. The book is currently available as an e-book and an audio book, narrated by Matthew. To learn more, click HERE. (To order, click on the book cover image.)
August 22, 2024: My New Book on Trump & MAGA as Anti-Christ, continued
In addition to ten featured paintings, here is the Table of Contents: Foreword by Caroline Myss; Introduction: An “Aha!” Moment in a Church in Orvieto; Chapter One: Freud’s Encounter with the Antichrist Painting in Orvieto Cathedral; Chapter Two: The Antichrist as a Naming of Evil; Chapter Three: Christ as Archetype; Chapter Four: Antichrist as Archetype; Chapter Five: Jesus and Democracy; Chapter Six: MAGA: Making America Grotesque Again; Chapter Seven: 18 Signs of the Times: The Antichrist in American Politics, 2024; Chapter Eight: Hildegard of Bingen: The Antichrist as Patriarchy; Conclusion: Be a Camel and Escape the Allurement of the Anti-Christ; Epilogue: Christ, Antichrist, and the 2024 Election; Afterword by Andrew Harvey; Appendix: MAGA’s Precarious Manhood vs. Authentic Masculinity.
August 23, 2024: Reflections on the Democratic Convention, Aquinas Included
Matthew speaks about how the Democratic National Convention has been so spiritually meaningful. One thing that struck him in Tim Walz’s speech, was his reference to the “common good,” a phrase brought to the West by Aquinas, who in turn got it from Aristotle. Both Walz and Harris also speak about and embody Joy. And joy, too, is something Aquinas writes about and teaches. Matthew, like many of us, was also moved by Gus Walz’s emotional display of pride in his father. Matthew says that this “says a lot about the noble vocation of fatherhood.” Matthew then shares, from the first page of his new book, many of Aquinas’s quotations about despots and tyrants, which reveal an eery similarity to a certain former president and current candidate.
August 24, 2024: Kamala Harris, the Black Madonna, & Trump’s Yesteryear’s Masculinity
The DNC culminated with a fiery speech from Kamala Harris which inspired many, including a friend of Matthew’s who “went to bed… crying with hope and possibilities dancing in her head.” Meanwhile, Matthew shares the final paragraphs of the Appendix and of the book. Here is one of them: To move beyond Patriarchy is to move to a world where caring is more a value than scaring; love than fear; joy than hatred; peace than war. This move begins in the human heart but does not stay there: it moves into society and reaches into politics.
Matthew Fox, Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election. To order print version, HERE. To receive an audio version, narrated by Matthew Fox, click HERE.
Banner image: Vice President Kamala Harris at campaign rally in Glendale, AZ on August 9, 2024. Photo by Gage Skidmore on Wikipedia.
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.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way.
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake
3 thoughts on “Week of 8/19-24/2024: Hope from Brazil, Inspiration from the DNC, plus Matthew’s New Book!”
This quote from eminent theologian John F. Haught’s recent book, “God After Einstein: What Is Really Going On In The Universe?”, seems to capture the Spirit of renewal that we’re All going through as humanity in the Cosmos:
“God is the ultimate reason why new possibilities exist. God — as I interpret Whitehead — is the ultimate source of the novelty that makes the universe dynamic and dramatic. (Alfred North Whitehead, “Process and Reality.”) God transcends the universe not only spatially but also temporally. God, I have been proposing, is the not-yet that keeps the future open and allows room for new possibilities to greet the passage of time and give it continually new meaning in each present moment. God is unsurpassably intimate with every moment that makes up the cosmic story. As the cosmic passage of time is taken into the divine life, each moment is related in a novel way to the ever-expanding pattern of beauty that already makes up God’s inner life. This, too, is a reason for hope.
The point of the universe, according to Whitehead, is the building up of beauty. Pope Francis seems to agree when he writes in his encyclical on ecological responsibility that “in the end we will find ourselves face-to-face with the infinite beauty of God (cf. 1 Cor 13:12), and be able to read with admiration and happiness the mystery of the universe, which ‘with us’ will share in unending plenitude” (Encyclical Letter on “Care for Our Common Home”).
Amen.
On Wednesday night, August 21, Tim Walz gave his speech at the DNC.
On Thursday morning, August 22, Diana Butler Bass posted this on X (formerly Twitter):
“Turning on this app and seeing Trump devotees mock Gus Walz for crying says everything about the MAGA movement.”
Watching Gus watch his dad Tim that Wednesday night was a beautiful thing, and also, the moment that I saw it, I knew that all of my MAGA family members were going to have a heyday with it.
And so then, it was lovely, refreshing, uplifting to see Matthew Fox take note of this moment and describe the meaningfulness of it in the Daily Meditation.
Thank you.
Another flash of splendor this week was watching the introduction of Andrew Harvey’s dialogue with Matthew Fox.
About 4 minutes, 20 seconds in, Andrew Harvey says:
“Matthew, thank you for the decades of pouring out your wisdom and your passion for the christ.”
Indeed!
…and I thought I should echo that thanks!!!!!
Blessing upon blessing upon blessing.
In thanks to the one who has gifted us with you.
May we continue to grow into the fullness of life that is God’s intent for us.