Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Paperback)

by Matthew Fox (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Matthew Fox, the excommunicated Catholic priest who is perhaps the foremost articulator of creation spirituality, offers a meditative, almost conversational autobiography. It's the story of a vital and iconoclastic man who still loves his former church and who desperately wanted, while he was still part of it, to revitalize it in order to better address the spiritual challenges of postmodernity. Fox feels strongly that both the planet and the Church stand at an epochal crossroads, that one culture is dying as another struggles to be born. As he describes his growing differences with Rome, he writes movingly of the community of like-minded or receptive people that surrounded and sustained him, exhibiting the best Christian tradition of discipleship and critical inquiry. Despite their efforts and his own struggle to maintain both his integrity of thought and his vows of obedience to his Dominican order, Fox was first silenced and then expelled. He has, since 1994, found an ecclesial home as an Episcopal priest. This highly charged autobiography of a priestly life will stand as a lasting memorial to the difficulty of maintaining certain articles of faith and dogma at a time of shifting cultural paradigms. Fox's portrait of himself as he realizes that the truth he is pursuing is incompatible with the truth that his church can allow him to believe is likely to become a classic.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Under pressure from the Vatican, the Dominican order expelled Fox, the director of the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality, in 1993 after years of escalating conflict. His theology, grounded in the ecstatic mysticism of Hildegard of Bingen and Meister Eckhart, includes a heady mix of Mariology-based goddess worship, cosmology, Native American vision quests and sweat lodges, Celtic myths, and multimedia rave masses. In this spiritual autobiography, Fox traces his unique journey from a traditional Midwestern boyhood to pariah of institutional Catholicism. He shakes the dust from his feet, to use Jesus' phrase, as a new Episcopal priest. This provocative work will surely add to an unbroken string of controversy surrounding Fox and his beliefs. For subject collections.?Richard S. Watts, San Bernardino Cty. Lib., Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 301 pages
• Publisher: Harper San Francisco (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060629657
• ISBN-13: 978-0060629656
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #767,221 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #33 in

  Books > Religion & Spirituality > Authors, A-Z > ( F ) > Fox, Matthew

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking but far too self-involved., March 5, 1999

By	Dr.S.H. (Sunnyvale, California) - See all my reviews

Much of what Matt Fox has to offer is contained in the first and last chapters. His thought and theology and philosophy are peppered throughtout the entire book and it is not hard to read. But the seemingly endless accounts of adulation get quite heavy. I find the title perhaps a bit off the mark. He has a great deal to offer in his personal story, the soaring heights and the times of disappointment and even despair. It would be more enlightening to read what HE felt and thought, and less of what his admirers said and wrote about him.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderfully thoughtful book, April 14, 2005

By	Diane E. Declue - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A great book on the effect big government in the church has on people that speak their mind. As far as the reviewer that said - that this work was "too self involved"..... It's a memoir! Read the book.. It's worth it.

16 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beware of "devout Catholics" who review this book., November 18, 2000

By A Customer

Of course anyone claiming to be a "devout Catholic" will not like Matthew Fox and his view of the Vatican! Fox is an amazing theologian who thoughtfully and decisively rips Christianity free of patriarchy. Of course he would be ex-communicated, he was too threatening to the mysogonistic powers that be in the Roman church. People who understand and appreciate Fox's liberating theology will enjoy this insight into his life as a priest. Status quo Roman Catholics shouldn't bother.