Cultural Transformation & The Need for Spiritual Warriors

Yesterday, January 6, was a stark anniversary of the precariousness of democracy.  As was November 5. 

Our times call for inner strength and spiritual warriors.  All of us are called to be spiritual warriors in our own ways and with our own talents and powers. 

Artists can be spiritual warriors and journalists can be spiritual warriors, mothers, fathers, the young, grandparents can be spiritual warriors.  Philanthropists and politicians, rabbis, priests, imams and ministers can be spiritual warriors.

The Christmas season we just celebrated finds its nadir in the news from the Book of Wisdom that the Word of God is a warrior: “Into the heart of a doomed land the stern warrior leapt.” (Wis 18.16)  Christians apply this “stern warrior” leaping into human history to Christ.  We are all called to be “other Christs.”

Another word for “spiritual warrior” is prophet—a prophet is one who interferes, as Rabbi Heschel tells us.

In times like these we are all called to interfere.  For many today, our times feel like apocalypse is upon us whether we are talking about climate change and the demise of our planet; or war; or nuclear war; or the rise of fascism and oligarchy and billionaires buying their influence on the unSupreme Court; or their ownership of social media and mainline media; or by cozying up to politicians whom they pay for; and the rest.

To stand up to greed in its many manifestations, and a capitalism built more and more on greed, we need to be spiritual warriors. 

It takes a spiritual warrior and teams of them working in solidarity to stand up to the kind of organized Greed that is now turning democracies from Lincoln’s vision of a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” to an ideology of billionaires, by billionaires and for billionaires.

In other words, what SCOTUS accomplished 15 years ago with Citizens United, the bill that rendered corporations “people.”  These corporations and their billionaire owners are salivating for what has been promised by the forthcoming administration beginning with trillions of dollars in corporate tax breaks.

Gus Speth, former dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, says this.  I used to think that top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change.  I thought that with 30 years of good science, we could address these problems, but I was wrong.  The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.  And we scientists don’t know how to do that.* 

People ask me, “What is creation spirituality?”  That is what creation spirituality is.  A movement (and tradition) working hand-in-glove with scientists and world spiritual traditions to move people from selfishness, greed and apathy to love of existence, biophilia and love of the Earth and the greater cosmos which has birthed this unique planet.  From this love is born a spiritual and cultural transformation.  

To be continued.

*Cited in Rabbi Yonatan Neril & Rabbi Leo Dee, Eco Bible Volume 1: An Ecological Commentary on Genesis and Exodus, p. xviii.

See Matthew Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.

And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality, pp. 257-306.

And Fox, “Spiritual Warriors,” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 77-104.

And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, pp. 404-422.

Banner Image: For over 2,000 years, Western civilizations have perpetuated inequalities — such as class systems, extreme wealth inequality, power elites, racism, militarism, prison systems and human trafficking. Photo by JuditeB

Queries for Contemplation

Do you agree with Gus Speth that good science alone cannot solve the environmental emergency because “the top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation”? What follows from that?

Recommended Reading

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.

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

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature,  to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God

One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths

Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit