The Resisting Christ of the Cosmos (Part 2)

Matthew Fox is concerned with matters that have received very little attention in modern Christology. Unlike many liberals who remain locked in battle with theological conservatives, Fox holds firmly to a belief in sin. Taking a distinctive approach, he calls conservatives out for their insufficient understanding of sin and accuses them of trivializing the concept. He seeks to avoid what he refers to as cheap guilt, and he also resists the idea that sin can be privatized; as if it could be restricted to the problems of individuals in isolation. For him, sin includes social injustice, the disruption of human social relationships, and the disruption of humanity’s relationship to the cosmos. Moreover, sin cannot be limited to the disruption of relations effected through domination and conquest. World conquering imperial nation-states continue to give way to transnational financiers, corporate colonialism and globalization; the very same indicators that are utilized by the beneficiaries of our contemporary empire to evaluate global progress. In identifying these things as sin, Fox has broadened Christ’s relevance and field of action, and introduced a major challenge to the status quo.

Fox has resurrected the old Christian concept of holiness, and defines it as being at the edge between order and chaos, and living at the margins. It is a quality which is demonstrated by a courage to engage in resistance against the status quo, the prophetic, curiosity, creativity and the creative use of anger. In holiness, Fox speaks forth a prophetic word against two foundational myths that contribute both to the prosperity of the empire, and to the oppression of marginalized peoples; the elitism of modernity (which still exists, though in a more hidden postcolonial form) and the assumption that grace is scarce (a key contemporary economic concept which leads to the hoarding of things by some to the detriment of the many). Fox’s brand of holiness, which is a plea for a very specific identification with the margins, provides us with a powerful prospect for resistance against the postcolonial empire, which builds its successes on the backs of the marginalized yet refuses to acknowledge them. Fox is also interested in the resurrection, although he does not have as much to say about it. He considers the resurrection to be the greatest revolutionary idea in the history of humanity. Its power is found in the fact that it enables people to overcome the fear of mortality, thus putting to rest our anxieties and the need to control. The need to control the world and other people is one of the chief motivating factors that drive empires and those who build them. Perhaps the resurrection could help to shut this engine down.

In the postcolonial empire, where suffering is either repressed or sedated, it is significant that Fox pays a great deal of attention to the cross. It is in the cross where God has chosen to make Himself visible. It reveals to us the pathos, anguish and anger of God who suffers when innocent victims suffer injustice. He notes that Jesus, even before He confronted His own death and darkness on the cross, had aligned Himself with those in society for whom death and darkness was an ever-present reality. Fox considers suffering to be redemptive, and furthermore constructive (as opposed to passive) for resistance and a new world blossom out of it. In conclusion, Fox shows a profound interest in the second coming. He believes that the coming of Christ is anticipated in new relations between the sexes, new respect for children, art, worship and the expansion of a deep ecumenism. Rieger notes the importance of viewing the second coming in terms of revolution in preference to evolution. The eschatological movement of redemption runs counter to evolution (from the future to the past) and while evolution builds on what is, revolution turns things around. The resisting Christ of the cosmos runs contrary to the cosmic Christ of evolution, especially when the latter is conceived of within a social-Darwinist framework. In this context, the coming Christ should not be identified merely with the development of what is or as the pinnacle of evolution, for He relates to the weakest points; challenging and rupturing the status quo.

The Resisting Christ of the Cosmos (Part 1)

The majority of theologians are unaware of the connections between Christology and empire. Matthew Fox is an exception to this. He is well aware of the fact that religion and empire have operated in solidarity all throughout history and that empire is regularly legitimized by religion. It is his hope that Christianity would become an instrument of profound social awakening and change for and by the multitudes. How might his Christology enable resistance against the postcolonial empire? Fox aspires to progress beyond the limited scope of the culture wars which sets liberal and conservative in juxtaposition. His concern for the margins and his critique of elitism are significant. Liberals and conservatives each have a concern for the margins, but the goal of both sides is to integrate the marginalized back into the system; liberals seek to support the marginalized through social programs and conservatives seek to teach those on the margins personal responsibility. Fox advocates for a leadership from the margins, and to the extent that his arguments advocate for this, he is successful in his endeavor to present us with a transcendent paradigm.

There is a diversity of marginalized groups that Fox attempts to show solidarity with, all of whom he believes have something vital to communicate to the world. Commencing with the lower classes, he references the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, as well as the fact that the income of the 225 richest people in the world is equivalent to that of three billion poor people. In his pursuit to create a space for relationships of commonality, he remarks that the lower and middle classes are natural allies. It has been noted by others that the middle class is as much a part of the working class as the lower class in light of the fact that they are not in control of the means of production. This insight could fundamentally change the attitude of the middle class, which often feels as if it is “reaching down” to the poor. Additionally, the ever-widening gap between rich and poor in the postcolonial empire is a threat to the middle class and it is actually pushing it in the direction of the underside. Jointly, these observations could help to create relationships of mutuality between the classes, and begin to move us toward the goal of establishing a solidarity which includes those people who are consistently overlooked by and within the empire. This is not an attempt by Fox to inspire a hatred for the rich, in fact, it appears as if on some level he understands that liberation cannot be for the oppressed alone. The imperialists are also in need of liberation, for they too are controlled by the system.

Fox insists that the situation of children deserves a great deal of attention, especially since child abuse is so prevalent and also because one out of every four children under six lives in poverty in the United States. He directs our attention toward Jesus, who valued children and saw them as spiritual directors and sources of wisdom. Next, Fox adds the earth to his list of the marginalized. He notes that the voice of Mother Earth herself is not being heard where legislators gather, where judges preside, or where believers gather to worship. Another area where Fox’s concept of a leadership from the margins stands out is in his call for a democratization of wisdom. Democratization is not the same as pluralism, in which differing religious and wisdom traditions can run together side by side without ever crossing paths. As an alternative, Fox is anxious to see deeper relations and an intentional connectivity between these traditions, wherein mutual challenge and critique is not merely conceivable, but welcomed, and where leadership is provided by those who are at present the most silenced. Interestingly, the insights of non-Christian theologians can (and have) actually provided Christians with insights that are at the heart of the gospel message, but which have often been neglected throughout the history of the church. All in all, Fox’s focus upon the suffering of the powerless and his determination to listen to the voices of the voiceless provide us with ample provision for resistance against the empire.

The Cosmic Christ of the Postcolonial Mainline (Part 2)

The cosmic Christology of Matthew Fox is founded upon science (knowledge of creation), art (expression of our awe at creation) and mysticism (experiential union with creation and its unnameable mysteries). Fox’s supposition is that these three rudiments can provide the foundation for a deep ecumenism. As for the first element (science) he assumes that scientists are in fundamental agreement. Here we begin to see a metanarrative taking shape of the sort that postmodernism has taught us to be suspicious of. It is an origin story, and may perhaps amount to nothing more than a myth which serves to solidify the powers of the imperial status quo. Not all metanarratives are troublesome though. Their function actually varies depending on their relation to power. It is likely that what we actually need are counter-metanarratives which can challenge the stories of origin that the empire uses to justify its existence and its claims to power. Fox does provide such a metanarrative (the preferential option for the poor) but it must not be presented as a mere supplement to imperial stories of origin; it needs to be allowed to challenge and transform them if it is to be effective.

Fox rejects the doctrine of original sin, but his creation spirituality is not devoid of a doctrine of evil. He calls for historical, sociological, political and economic analyses so that we might discern the paths of sin. He compares these paths of sin with drug addiction, and he is concerned that if we remind people of their participation in evil that it will inevitably produce low self-esteem and fear. Fox seems to want to treat every form of evil in an identical fashion, which is troublesome. First off, one wonders whether low self-esteem is an accurate descriptor of the powers in the postcolonial empire. Moreover, the addictions of imperial power to militarism and to the misuse of world resources are of a vastly different variety than that of an oppressed person’s addiction to drugs. Furthermore, an interrogation of the kinds of evil that come in the form of success and progress is vital, and this includes taking a closer look at the scientific and spiritual developments that Fox praises. It is possible that these things are more deeply related to the evils of empire than can be identified from a glance at the surface. Fox’s problematic approach to dealing with evil (linked to his understanding of repentance) also tends to blunt the force of his strong egalitarian impulses. His beliefs frequently incite him to assume that egalitarian relations exist where they do not, he often fails to address the deeper systemic entanglements of past empires which continue presently, and he seems to lack a sense that repentance might be related to restoration.

The trouble with Fox’s method for diagnosing and treating evil becomes even more evident once we survey his wholesale rejection of all images of God as judge. He falls in with the mainline of liberal Christianity by describing God as an essentially beneficient being who is eager to aid humanity, and by scrapping any notion of a punitive God (such as that which is portrayed in more conservative Christian circles). Fox’s arguments are Christological. He asserts that Jesus criticized the images of God as lawgiver and judge that His religion and culture took for granted. Fox justifiably challenges conservative Christianity’s depiction of God as punitive, but Rieger wonders if it is appropriate to dispose of the concept of God as judge altogether. It is at best highly questionable whether or not Jesus actually sought to jettison all images of God as judge. Matthew’s Jesus, after all, did speak about a judgment of the nations, and the Jesus of Luke’s Gospel voiced many “woes”. Furthermore, not all conceptions of judgment are primarily punitive. Judgment can be restorative as well; that is, it can be something which addresses the restoration of justice for those who have experienced injustice. Ultimately, the most important question that we must ask here is, who is it that really profits from the removal of God’s judgment? Those who do not benefit from the current system of oppression gain little from a benevolent God who coddles the perpetrators of injustice and who is unwilling to restore righteousness.

The Cosmic Christ of the Postcolonial Mainline (Part 1)

Unlike all of the other theologians that we have looked at, Matthew Fox unambiguously rejects the practice of empire building. He stands in opposition to militarism, the exploitation of poor people by the rich, and even the attitude of Western superiority. However, his Christology still fails to confront the less visible powers of empire. Fox believes that the challenge of our time is the survival of the planet. Only the cosmic Christ can save us from the predicaments which we ourselves have created and which presently threaten to obliterate us. His cosmic Christ is grounded in and balanced by the words, life, liberating deeds and orthopraxis of the historical Jesus. He maintains that Jesus struggled throughout His life against a patriarchal authoritarianism (which took the form of a religious fundamentalism) and also in opposition to a fragmentation and dualism which split things apart that are supposed to be joined together; for instance body and spirit, people and nature, men and women, heterosexuals and homosexuals, young and old, Christians and non-Christians, rich and poor.

The problem is that establishing interconnected peace alone is not enough to overcome the status quo in the postcolonial empire. An interconnectedness which fails to take account of existing power differentials or to address the underlying issues which produced the current tensions and caused the fragmentation in the first place will only serve to compound the problem. Indeed, it is important to note that what might look like fragmentation as a result of the invisibility of neocolonial power is in reality a form of relationship. The rich and the poor are never wholly disconnected, and the rich can even benefit from the propagation of the idea that there is a fragmentation because it enables them to believe and to spread with greater ease the myth of the self-made man who pulls himself up by his own bootstraps. Perhaps exploitation would be a more accurate term than either fragmentation or disconnect, due to the fact that the rich use the poor for their own purposes (building their success on the backs of the impoverished) and in light of the fact that there is a sense in which the poor are the most connected of all, because without them the one-third world could not function. Fox, by speaking of interconnectedness in exclusively optimistic terms, fails to overcome the problems of this distorted relationality (one that resembles social Darwinism and its conviction that only the fittest survive) which is actually causing the most substantial damage to humanity and the planet.

Fox has developed a great level of respect for other religions, but he cannot be accused of neglecting Christianity. He draws frequently from the stream of thought found in both the wisdom tradition and in the prophets which locates a divine presence in all things as well as in the suffering of all creation. He also pulls from Paul in order to illustrate the cosmic horizons of Christianity while remaining careful to show that this cosmic Christ is grounded in a history, a people and a real human person who died on a cross. He also seeks to emphasize the radical equality of all creatures, contending that even children and animals can have an impact on the entirety of created existence; a claim that is as political as it is ecological. Thus Fox appreciates and seeks to learn from the wisdom of premodern peoples, specifically focusing on indigenous groups whose religions and cultures have historically been considered inferior to those of the West and who were also the victims of modern imperial conquests. Despite Fox’s desire to be constructive, it remains problematic that he speaks of the postmodern concerns for diversity, relativity, and equality in unequivocally positive language; even these things can perpetuate postcolonial forms of empire. Moreover, his critique is leveled primarily against clearly hierarchical power relations which manifest themselves politically and militarily, and he underestimates the ways in which economic power can enable exploitation without overt force.

Postcolonial Empire and Relational Theology

We now enter into the twenty-first century, and the final theologian of interest in Joerg Rieger’s examination of the relationship between Christianity and the various expressions of empire that have developed throughout history is Matthew Fox. Fox’s creation spirituality and his progressive Christian awareness of the cosmic character of the Christian faith have the potential to enable resistance against contemporary manifestations of empire. In the end though, his theology proves to be ambivalent. It is quite possible for the cosmic Christ to be adopted by and to be utilized in the service of postmodern imperial organizations. Fox’s American heritage makes him all the more interesting, due to the fact that the United States is typically viewed as one of the major centers of empire in our own day. While Fox is extremely distrustful of the more obvious affiliation between conservative Christianity and the American empire, he seems to be far less attentive to the fact that progressive Christians (even those who disagree with the empire) are still affected by the influence of empire, and are therefore also in need of critique.

Rieger begins this chapter by addressing our current sociopolitical and theological situation in order to set the context for Fox’s theology. He asserts that even in our postcolonial era, empire building has not ceased. He correctly claims that it is easy to recognize the problematic promotion of empire by many Christian groups who with unquestioning patriotism unabashedly support even the most blatant colonialist policies of the United States. It is also simple to see that many popular Christian theologies offer little if any resistance to contemporary structures of empire. The prosperity gospel (as an example) assumes that those who are at the top (the empire) are the most blessed by God. Doomsday theologies also fail us because they not only insist that resistance to the empire is a futile pursuit, but also that the empire which threatens us is located somewhere else and is entirely unrelated to the ideology and politics of the United States. Furthermore, even those theologians who understand that evil affects us all and not merely our enemies typically fail to see that evil is regularly perpetuated by our best intentions. These conservative approaches are not Rieger’s central concern though. He is most interested in the ways that progressive theologies fail to challenge empire. His aim is to identify the often concealed origins of power imbalances and oppressions, and to expose the more subtle and most dangerous expressions of empire often missed by relational theology.

In our day and age, we have witnessed a division between political and economic powers. Moreover, the direct exercise of political power has been exchanged for less obvious and yet much stronger and extensive economic influences. As a result, the political powers of the nation-state have found themselves cast in a wholly different role within this new configuration; no longer working for the benefit of a particular nation but instead providing support for an emerging global economic power structure. The flow of power has become far less visible today than it was in pre-capitalist forms of empire due to the fact that imperialism of the capitalist variety endeavors to enforce its economic hegemony without direct political domination whenever possible. While political and military victories are far less necessary for the maintenance of power in this new arrangement, cultural and religious forces have become vital to the establishment and preservation of control in the postcolonial empire. This new manifestation of empire is expanding through the spread of a number of common aspects of postmodern life that are not only welcomed, but often rejoiced over by relational theologians like Matthew Fox. The problem is that egalitarian models of relationship and cultural as well as religious exchange often function on the basis of hidden power and thus wind up building upon, reproducing, and strengthening power differentials, rather than proffering a challenge to the status quo.