PLEASE NOTE:
With days ticking down to 11/5, Matthew Fox’s urgent new book turns the Anti-Christ archetype into a searing device for understanding the deeper stakes in the 2024 election.
• For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
• To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
• To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE. The pre-ordered books are of this kind and we will receive them in 10 days.
In Saturday’s DM, we addressed some questions arising from my new book, Trump & MAGA as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election. The third and final question was about my statement that the opposite of Evil is not the good but the Sacred.
I said that it follows that “we cannot have a conversation on Evil until we have a conversation on the Sacred.”
Allow me to elaborate on this important point. Rabbi Heschel teaches that the Biblical answer to evil is not the good but the holy. It is an attempt to raise man to a higher level of existence, where man is not alone when confronted with evil. Living in ‘the light of the face of God’ bestows upon man a power of love that enables him to overcome the powers of evil….*
There is so much truth and wisdom in this statement. With an awareness of the holy and our capacity for it (the holy being another word for “the sacred”), humans can rise to a higher level of existence when confronted by Evil. Is this not the spiritual genius of Gandhi and King and Mandela who resisted violence with non-violence, and Evil with “a power of love that enables humans to overcome the powers of evil”?
A society that has lost a sense of the sacred is at a loss when Evil comes along. It resorts to terminology like, “this is unprecedented.” How many times have we heard that from journalistic pundits in the last nine years since Donald Trump rode down an escalator, and pronounced that all immigrants are scum and murderers and rapists and the rest?
It still goes on, as is clear in the lies he and his vice presidential running mate are spreading about Springfield, Ohio and the so-called eating of pets by Haitian immigrants, lies that are drawing Ku Klux Klan and Proud Boy marchers to show up on the streets of that town, frightening immigrants and their families.
Is this not what the 2024 presidential election is about? Moving beyond lies and projections and doom and gloom and Trump’s notion that “I alone can fix it,” to a group awakening that puts forward beauty and truth and goodness and a sense of the sacred?
And joy too? And therefore love, since joy is born of love as Thomas Aquinas insists.
And the common good ahead of individual gain and power grabs by a minority? Is this not what lies at the heart of a healthy democracy? The antichrist displays no joy or love or truth except by accident.
*Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (NY: Harper and Row, 1955), p. 376.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society, pp. xxxvi-xxxviii.
See also: Matthew Fox, Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
And Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 33-41.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: A shaft of light illuminates the holy. Photo of Antelope Canyon, Arizona, by tegawi on Pixabay.
Queries for Contemplation
What does Heschel’s observation mean to you, that “the Biblical answer to evil is not the good but the holy”?
Recommended Reading
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
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.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
3 thoughts on “A Sense of the Sacred: The Opposite of Evil, continued”
Thank you Matthew for your recent DMs and books on evil and the Sacred. Most people are not aware/conscious of the prevalence and subtleties of evil in our inner and outer lives, especially the unconscious conditionings by unbalanced patriarchal values which cumulatively contribute to the many manifestations/forms of evil such as social injustices, racism, violence, greed, materialism, wars, destructiveness… towards humanity and Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her creatures/Her essential graceful abundance. Carl Jung and many other mystics/prophets/spiritual warriors have tried to help us become more aware/conscious of our inner and outer ‘shadows’ that contribute to these personal, interpersonal, and societal evils. If we’re open, responsible, and have Faith on our spiritual journeys, we’re given the DIVINE LOVE, Wisdom, Truth, Healing, Compassion, Guidance, and Strength to face and overcome these shadows/evils within and around us on our transformative evolutions of Our human~Divine Natures with one another in Our LOVING Diverse Wholeness~ONENESS….
Since the riots & far right demonstrations brought on by BLM & the murder of George Floyd here in my home state of Oregon (which I define as ‘the evil being discussed here), Ive imagined a peaceful counter response. Possibly this aligns with the idea of a holy response rather than ‘good’. When such far right hate groups protest, could a collection of mindful people sitting in silence while holding mirrors (rather than signs) towards the far right protestor help illuminate, reflect and awaken the heart of the protestor practicing evil? Ive imagined such an assembly also outside the walls of a Trump rally. And now I imagine it in Ohio to hold space for the immigrant and potentially shake the hardened heart of those practicing hate.
Peace
I highly recommend the book, “Sins of the Spirit….” for its comprehensive treatment of “sin” and “evil” I love the idea that fear opens the door to evil spirits. The clarification that evil is comprehensive, and sin is not, just as the sacred is comprehensive, and good is not, is helpful to me. The sacred is wholeness, salvation (healing) and is the only way to deal with the divisiveness and fragmentation caused by evil.