More Thoughts on Conscience

In yesterday’s DM, we emphasized the missing conscience of so many congresspeople at this time in history.  Conscience that sees beyond one’s desire to keep one’s job and prioritizes values such as the common good ahead of one’s ambitions, salary, party, job, or re-election.

It is meaningful that yesterday was the 80^th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz.  A remembrance that ought to trigger the conscience of our race world over and continue to spur our own consciences. 

Decisions we are making in our lifetimes today around issues of climate change for example and war carry with them profound consequences for the very survival of our species and millions of other species.  To resist matricide therefore, the killing of our Mother Earth, is a demand of conscience surely.   

I was moved by responses from our readers in the “Comments” section of yesterday’s DM.  To share a few, one reader cited Mahatma Gandhi: There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all; that is the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself.  For this obedience is the law of our being.

Another reader responded that Mahatma Gandhi’s vision reminds me of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.  His wife Yulia is following in his footsteps as she promotes his recently published memoir:  Alexi Navalny Patriot: A Memoir.  It is good to have at hand examples of persons who have committed themselves to live by conscience since this surely emboldens the rest of us and gives us the confidence and courage to act on conscience. Finding allies, conscience can take root in a movement where solidarity reigns and confidence and courage are supported in communities of resistance.

Howard Thurman sounds a lot like Gandhi when he says that a “soul-shaking conflict of loyalty” arises when a person of compassion chooses to act.  A person of conscience often has to break with groups that sustained him or her to “become the custodian of conscience.”  The individual often sees deeper than the group into the suffering of others, into the “ethical mode of compassion.”

Thomas Aquinas said something similar:  A correct conscience binds absolutely and perfectly against the command of a superior. When there is an abuse of power, not merely is one not bound to obey, one is also bound not to obey, following the martyrs, who suffered death rather than carry out the wicked decrees of tyrants…Since conscience is nothing else but the application of knowledge to act, it is obvious that conscience is said to bind by the order of divine precept.   

It is passages like these from Aquinas that MLK Jr. invoked in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Another reader observed that the voices of Christian nationalism dominated religious discourse in the U.S. for the entirety of the 21^st Century.  It is far, far beyond time for that to change….It is tragic that the voices of contemplative Christians, progressive Christians, have not been given sufficient airplay this century.

See Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 474-480.

And Fox, “Conscience is more to be obeyed than authority imposed from the outside,” in Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 117-120.

And Fox, “Howard Thurman: A Creation-Centered Mystic,” in Creation Spirituality [magazine], March/April 1991, pp. 9, 47.

And Fox, Trump and The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, pp. 57-80.

And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.

And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Faith Traditions, pp. 413f and pp. 377-422.

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

Banner Image: Confiscated shoes of the murdered victims of Auschwitz. Photo by Tina T-Spoon on Flickr

Queries for Contemplation

Which of these reflections on conscience inspire you at this time in history to stand up and be counted?

Recommended Reading

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

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

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.

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

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

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