My new book, Trump & MAGA as Antichrist: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, was necessarily the fastest book I have ever written. Of course, I was under a time pressure, since the idea came to me this July after returning home from teaching for a week in Orvieto, Italy.
Our weeklong workshop was in honor of the 800th anniversary of Thomas Aquinas’s birth, and Aquinas taught and wrote poetry in Orvieto.
While there, I encountered the iconic fresco of “The Antichrist” painted by Luca Signorelli in the Cathedral of the Assumption, a beautiful church begun shortly after Aquinas died. (The fresco dates to 1503 however.) The encounter with that painting, as I relate in the book, had me uttering one short sentence: “It feels like Donald Trump.”
I begin my book with a page containing three quotes from Aquinas apropos of democracy.
The first speaks of Christ’s teaching of the “dignity of human nature,” and I later use that quote as the basis for my chapter on “Jesus and Democracy.” Democracy at bottom is about the dignity of all people—and therefore their equality, as in “all men are created equal” and share “inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” per the US Constitution.
Of course, that dignity, those rights and that equality are completely up for grabs in the US today, thanks to many antichrist forces. Chief Justice John Roberts of the unsupreme court has embraced the antichrist energy full throttle, with his decision in Citizens United that corporations are people, and that untold amounts of dark money from individual billionaires and corporations are just hunky dory for elections in a democracy.
The decision to gut the Voting Rights act (see Shelby)—as if the racism of certain states has somehow magically disappeared—was an ultimate knife in the back to Martin Luther King, Jr. He struggled, marched and went to jail 39 times, with hundreds of thousands of others, to get the Voting Rights Act approved in 1965, and sadly paid the ultimate price, martyred at only 39 years of age.
Justice Roberts and his thoroughly compromised unsupreme court repealed Roe and encouraged men to imagine they have the right to control women’s bodies. And certain justices are happy to have their palms greased by billionaires eager to fly them around the world to luxurious vacationing and more.
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And the Chevron decision that effectively gives courts, rather than scientific experts, the final word on issues before the EPA, FDA, etc. And the most recent decision about immunity that guarantees that one person in the land, a president, is above the law and can commit any crime he wishes as president with total immunity.
Such decisions from SCOTUS hardly ensure “equal justice under law” or the dignity of all.
This completely contradicts Aquinas’s teaching that “Christ teaches the dignity of human nature.” And Abraham Lincoln’s stance that a government “of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth.”
To be continued.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Trump & MAGA as Antichrist: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, p. ix.
See Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: A fresco of the Antichrist in the Osogovo Monastery, Republic of Macedonia. Photo by Edal Anton Lefterov. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree that “Christ teaches the dignity of human nature”? What follows from that? Does democracy follow from that? Where democracy is under threat, is the dignity of human nature under threat also?
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.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil 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. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
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.
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8 thoughts on “Aquinas vs. Trump, SCOTUS & Antichrist: My New Book”
First and foremost democracy is not a political party, although democracy invites those of different issues, ideals and concerns to come forward in a civil minded fashion. Democracy comports itself to listening to the viewpoints and concerns of all; recognizing and not suppressing these issues; and providing the appropriate representative weight with moving forward.
Democracies, at various times and in various fashions, have come up with some very restrictive rules of law, voting right suppressions and enactments like capital punishment, etc, etc, that do not coincide with the Spirit of Christ and the Beatitudes. To ‘marry’ democracy in and by itself to Christ is another attempt to ‘marry’ church and state. – BB.
“Christ teaches the dignity of human nature. ” Jesus was a raiser of awareness whose confidence was misjudged as arrogance by the general nativity of His time.
Absolutely is our democracy intended to uphold the dignity of all people. The current scotus’s errors are clearly stated in this DM, and surely this is the lowest point to which the great American enterprise has come, imho. Thank God for the work of Martin Luther King and all who have contributed to our realization of the Dream in our hearts, and may the progress made by this work continue to lead us forward, in our hearts and minds. May we continue to work for the dignity of all, through this awful chapter, to a much brighter tomorrow, and realize the gifts God is giving us to journey there ~ Thank you for your spiritual leadership, Matthew Fox.
I am looking forward to reading your two books about evil listed with reviews in today’s DM under “Recommended Reading.” Many people are unconsciously unaware of the pervasive and destructive influence of the shadow archetype of evil historically and up to the present day in our personal and societal lives as manifested by the many social injustices, wars, racism, misogyny, matricide of our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth… by accepting conditioned patriarchal spiritually unbalanced values/standards unconsciously. Depth psychologist Carl Jung and other deep ecumenical thinkers and social justice warriors, remind us that our human spiritual journeys and evolution are intimately related to becoming more consciously wholistically aware of our Divine Natures and Living Presence of the Divine Spirit of LOVE, Wisdom, Truth, Peace, Justice, Healing, Strength, Transformation, Freedom, Creativity, Beauty, Joy, Compassion, Loving Diverse Wholeness~ONENESS… within, through, and among Us….
Is there a print version of Matthew’s newest book about Trump as the anti- christ
Dear M.F. I agree with most of what you have written, but I am put off by this Trump as Antichrist idea. I have not read the book and am reacting only to your comments. Portraying, labelling Trump this way clearly contradicts what you write: “Christ’s teaching of the ‘dignity of human nature.’ … Democracy at bottom is about the dignity of all people.” Dumping all evil unto Trump and forgetting our own part, we are less likely to create change. I am reading Harris’ ‘Truths We Hold’ and realized I was aware of the injustices she fought as AG but did nothing, because they didn’t affect me directly. I refer to Dr. Gabor Maté, J. Sh. Spong about childhood trauma that teaches sociopathic behavior as survival. Jesus taught about compassion: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Yes, we need to stop them, but with respect, love and compassion. And we have to acknowledge how we contribute to the injustices–if only by ignoring them at the time. There are millions of us and only one Trump–how did he get this far? We are all helpers; only if we all change a little will there be change.
I agree that Jesus taught the innate dignity of all. No human institution is without fault, but democracy seems to be the best vehicle to nurture respect for all and inclusiveness in the secular world. Sadly, the U.S is well on the way to exemplifying the military-industrial complex that permeates the whole of our society. It may be beyond repair, no matter who is elected. But that is no excuse to stop hoping and working for justice. Thank God for activists like Rabbi Lerner, of blessed memory.
As an aside, the synchronicity of the verses from Song of Songs with the funeral is an example of the kingdom breaking in, IMO, a holy, sacred happening. In addition to the conclusion about the beauty of nature, my minister preached on the intimacy of the verses, intimacy that we seek not only with others but also with God.
Too few people understand that many of the recent cases that make it to the Supreme Court, aren’t even real cases. They don’t have legal “standing:” there’s no actual plaintiff who had an actual injury, who found a lawyer who took their case through all the lower courts. Instead, a politically-funded “front group” finds a “plaintiff of convenience,” they rush into court and say “we’d like to *lose,* Your Honor, as fast as possible.” This NEVER happens in a REAL case. But the front groups carry this strategy all the way up to SCOTUS, piling-on briefs that tell the Justices what to do. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) says, “It is FAKE, from the very first filing of the complaint.” (See Whitehouse’s interview on Democracy Docket on YT.)