Rev. Matthew Fox's Christian Panentheism vs New Age Panentheism

by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer


During a November 2016, interview with internationally acclaimed spiritual theologian, Episcopal priest and activist Rev. Matthew Fox - who is best known for his leadership role in the revolutionary Creation Spirituality movement - John Shuck, the interviewer, said: “this is important to talk about, you [Matthew Fox] mentioned that this is not only a 20th century new kind of hippie spirituality, creation spirituality, it goes back all the way to...” The interview is entitle Thomas Mertion's Creation Spirituality Journey.

In her 1983 #1 best-selling book "The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow Constance Cumbey" offered the first major criticism of the New Age movement from a Christian perspective. She has also discussed the contents of this book of hers on the EWTN global Catholic TV network. Cumbey believes that Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest, is "the best known New Age apostate from Catholicism," and she once suggested, a few decades ago, that he was most likely the Antichrist of the end-times.

Rev. Matthew Fox's "new kind of hippie spirituality" is not New Age hippie spirituality. And Fox is not a "New Age apostate from Catholicism." He is not even of the New Age movement. Fox's Creation Spirituality is a type of pan[en]theism that deifies, both, God (Spirit) transcendent, beyond the creation, and Spirit immanent in creation-and phyisically manifesting as Divine Nature.

One of Fox's favorate quotes is by Thomas Aquinas: "As the Cause of all things, as good, as beautiful; as wise; as beloved; as God of gods; as holy of holies; as eternal; as wisdom; as reason; as justice; as virtue; as in spirits, as in bodies, as in heaven and on earth, at the same time in the same place, in the world, involved in the world, above the world, supercelestial or above the heavens, supersubstantial; as the sun, as a star; fire; water; air; and dew; as cloud; stone; rock and all the other beings attributed to God as cause. And the Divine One is none of these beings insofar as God surpasses all things."

There are two types of pan[en]theism that view God as being pantheistically immanent in the world. One type worships the creation and the other type only respectfully honors the creation. Those who practice the New Age type of pan[en]theism respectfully honor the creation.

There are "Christian" pan[en]theists who believe that Spirit (God) is located, both, in creation and beyond the creation, and that God's Spirit in creation permeates the entire creation, and that It is the Divine world soul whose body is the "Earth," a term that they use to describe the entire Universe. They also believe that the "Divine world soul, the Earth and the entire Cosmos," together as "One Entity," is the "Cosmic Christ." They believe that by becoming One with the "Cosmic Christ" they will have attained "the final recognition of the All in All, the unity of the Self with the Cosmos - the cognition of the DIVINITY OF THE SELF!"

Rev. Matthew Fox has this belief, as did also, the late world-renowned Roman Catholic Teilhard de Chardin. Fox wrote: The Order of the Sacred Earth "calls us home to our true nature as Earth." Chardin wrote: "I can be saved only by becoming one with the universe." New Age panentheists believe that our true nature is Spirit.

New Age pan[en]theists believe that Spirit (God) is located, both, in the creation and beyond the creation, and that God's Spirit in creation permeates the entire creation. However, we do not believe that It is the Divine world soul whose body is the Earth and the entire Universe.

We believe that Spirit (God) created the god that created the universe, and that He was originally Divine, but later sinned and consequently lost his Divine status, and that it was after he lost his Divine status that he created this, from its origins, corrupt universe. We also believe that he manifests his sinful evil side as Satan and that he manifests his good side as the, less than Divine, world soul-and phyisically manifests as nature [ref.].

We also believe that Jesus Christ is, both, one with the, less than Divine, world soul\earth\cosmos (and is, in this way, an expression of the Cosmic Christ) and that He is also One with the Spirit in creation (and is, in this way, a greater expression the Cosmic Christ) and we believe that Jesus is also One with the "unqualified Absolute, the transcendent Father beyond the creation" - Sri Yukteswar.

We believe that the only way to become One with the "unqualified Absolute, the transcendent Father beyond creation" is to go through the experience of first becoming one with the Cosmic Christ. Jesus said, the only way to the Father is through me [the Cosmic Christ]. Our true nature is Spirit. It is in creation and beyond it.

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A related article on mine is titled Rev. Matthew Fox's Theology On Creation As Original Blessing

Another related article of mine is titled New Age Panentheism