We continue our meditation on Jesus and democracy from yesterday’s DM. If we are so noble as Eckhart speaks of, then an equality ought to reign between us all.
We should all be treated as equals in our basic rights and needs and treat others as equals. That is a premise of democracy—“all men are created equal” as Thomas Jefferson put it in his opening line of the Declaration of Independence.
Clearly, this was an aspiration and not a reality in his day, since slaves were not considered equal nor were women even mentioned. It took a civil war and decades more of hard work for these groups to claim their equality including a second, nonviolent civil rights revolution that insured voting rights and put Jim Crow to rest. Now, 60 years later, the fight still goes on.
But the goal, the aspiration, was planted early and like a seed had to grow and blossom through a civil war, constitutional amendments, struggles for women’s emancipation, and civil rights battles.
Eckhart draws a conclusion from his insistence on equality when he says that we need to “practice equality in human society.” Since then Christ’s whole nobility belongs equally to us all and is equally near to us, to him as much as to me…you must understand that, if someone wants to come by this gift equally to receive this good and the common nature which is equally near to all people, you must needs practice the same equality in human society… being no nearer to yourself than to another, just as in human nature there is nothing alien, nothing farther or nearer.
Societal relationships develop from healthy relationship with one’s self. If we are brothers and sisters in one God, then we are all equals. Here lies the springboard for compassion. You are to love, esteem, and consider all people like yourself, what happens to another, be it bad or good, should be for you as if it happened to you.
All love demands equality. Love will never be anything else than there where equality and unity are. Between a master and his servant there is no peace because there is no real equality. Peace and tranquility among peoples demand their equality.
The same holds for personal relations and for marriage. “A wife and a husband are not alike, but in love they are equal.” Where equality is lacking, we are to bring it forth. “There can be no love where love does not find equality or does not create equality.” Jesus’ teaching about love culminates in the need for democracy.

Societal leadership is of the same ilk. Eckhart: If I were to lead people, they would never follow me with pleasure if they did not receive equality with me. For a movement or a deed is never accomplished with pleasure in the absence of equality.
Eckhart, writing 450 years before Thomas Jefferson, has a far broader understanding of democracy than he did. For Eckhart does not limit the dignity of personhood to men or white people or men with property as did Jefferson in practice if not on paper. For Eckhart, we are born noble—all of us—and it is from that royalty, that our rights derive and we in turn are urged to treat others as ourselves and live “equally.”
Eckhart bases his view on the teachings of Jesus. The work of finding and making equality continues up to and including the current election. Not to pursue it is to be unchristlike. It is to be antichrist therefore.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, pp. 34-36.
See also: Fox, “Sermon Thirty-six: Everyone an Aristocrat, Everyone a Royal Person,” in Fox, Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 510-530.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer on Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
Banner image: We are one. Photo by Gary Butterfield on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree with Eckhart that “there can be no love where love does not find equality or does not create equality”? And that becomes a basis for democracy ?
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.
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.

Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart
Matthew Fox’s comprehensive translation of Meister Eckhart’s sermons is a meeting of true prophets across centuries, resulting in a spirituality for the new millennium. The holiness of creation, the divine life in each person and the divine power of our creativity, our call to do justice and practice compassion–these are among Eckhart’s themes, brilliantly interpreted and explained for today’s reader.
“The most important book on mysticism in 500 years.” — Madonna Kolbenschlag, author of Kissing Sleeping Beauty Goodbye.

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.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
7 thoughts on “Equality and Love: Eckhart on Jesus and Democracy, continued”
Jesus was living and directing us to live ‘not of the world’ while living in and ‘of the world’. And what did St. Paul say was ‘not of the world’? “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28 NKJV.
In Romans 13 we are asked to respect the governing authorities and pay our taxes for the common good, etc. all the while putting Christ and His Ways for us first and foremost, as we should do ourselves. Is that Jesus in support of democracy in the ‘of the world’ temporal, physical setting? Or is Jesus focus for us one of ‘not of the world, eternal spiritual life in One Body? Or is it One Body ‘politic’ i.e. do we use Jesus as a ‘prop’ for our ‘of the world’ desires to justify our political beliefs over another’s? Both sides of the political divide are doing precisely that these days i.e. using Jesus to justify themselves, are they not? – BB.
No, there is a huge difference. The Republicans use Christ as a prop and fuse Him into white “Christian” nationalism, all while espousing policies that contradict Christ’s teachings, (take away the Affordable Care Act and Social Security for example), and have little or no room for orher faiths. These days they clearly say they want to end the separation of church and state, read Project 2025).
The Democrats accept and welcome all faiths, and attempt to broadly include Christ’s teachings (like Matthew 25 -” I was hungry and you gave me…” and Luke 10 -the Good Samaritan, while respecting the separation of church and state.
To answer your question, Bill, maybe both sides use Jesus to justify actions, but one has scriptural basis for doing so. Jesus said to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. His actions told us to give women a voice. St. Paul told Christians to share all things equally. Jesus said nothing about abortion, neither did St. Paul; yet it was certainly practiced in their day. Many on the right, use abortion as an issue to divide people. They do this because, decades ago party leaders found it was an issue that would bring Christians into the Republican hold. It’s easier to shout anti-abortion slogans than to actually welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked—to truly follow Jesus’s teachings.
The Bible also has much to say about self-centeredness, whining, spewing hatred, and lying. Proverbs 6:16-19: “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”
Democrats do use the divisive word “fascist” for Trump and some of his followers, but that’s because the actions and goals of Trump and some of his followers fit the definition, as two Four-Star Generals who worked with him (Mark Milley and John Kelly) have said.
Jesus modeled, for all humans, as THE ONE, the ORIGINAL sacred Exemplar and template of GOD/ONE’s non-duality within ALL — “the world” AND “the kingdom of heaven.” And Jesus prayed for “thy kingdom come, ON EARTH AS IT IS in (the Mystical template in) Heaven.” It is a statement of purpose, for all people to accurately reflect and re-create on earth the “original Eden” that Jesus was sent to both model and offer (as direct channel) — restoring people’s connection with God’s full, non-dualistic expression into matter and time.
The Path of this Christ-Mysticism’s non-dualistic Love is one of equality, love, respect, and justice, NOW AS IT IS in “eternity/heaven” If one is NOT living and jointly recreating the Christ-template/Path NOW, here, WITHIN matter and time, to the best of one’s ability, they are turning away from the WHOLE ONE-non-dualistic GOD-Christ Path/worship/template that Jesus modeled and commanded, directly from God. We live IN Christ’s Love within COMMUNITY. HERE. NOW.
God is ONE. NOW.
This is non-dualistic, Mystical Truth.
Thanks, Matthew. It seems that this view of equality is distorted. Are the laity and the clergy equal? Who gets to vote? Can a monarchical system be based on equality?
I am not sure what you mean, but I believe that laity and clergy are equal in God’s eyes and in the eyes of those churches that are not so hierarchical, like the UCC and Presbyterian churches; in the UCC there is no hierarchy and the congregation is primary. In the Presbyterian polity, clergy and laity work together with preaching and the sacraments given to the clergy, unless there is a dearth of such, and laity can be commissioned also to those functions. Voting in these two include the whole adult congregation. Political voting for government should be open to all of a certain age IMO. There are monarchical systems such as the UK where the monarch serves only as a figurehead, but it is hard to see any true monarchy operating in a democratic manner, since leadership passes by family ties and not by voters.
Yes! Yes! We are All LOVED and Created along with All spiritual beings and creatures as God’s children, uniquely different but equal, Our Eternal Evolving Souls. We are All part of the Divine Essence — LOVING Diverse Wholeness~ONENESS along with our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/graceful abundance, and within Our LOVING Evolving COSMOS in All physical and non-physical Spiritual Dimensions….