Matthew Fox has become my favorite author to read this year. He articulates a creation spirituality that is in contrast to much of the fall/redemption spirituality that currently predominates. For example, he notes these differences:
| FALL/REDEMPTION | CREATION SPIRITUALITY |
| Greek | Hebrew |
| Spiritual means immaterial | Spiritual means what is life-giving |
| From Plato via Augustine and Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite | From the Jews via the prophets and Jesus |
| Soul wars with body (Augustine) | Soul loves the body (Eckhart) |
| Matter is sinful or at most tolerated | Matter, too, is God-made and holy |
| Limit pleasure, shun it | Ecstasy is gift of Creator |
| Private (God and me) | Political (God and us) |
| Centered around the theological theme of fall and humankind’s need for redemption | Centered on the theological theme of Creation: how it is good, how we say thank you by enjoying and sharing the enjoyment of it |
| Pride and lust are capital sins to be put to death by morifications | Developing your talents is the Creator’s desire. Any ascetic practices are strictly means, not ends |
| Negative toward the human person and human history | Affirmative toward the person and human history not in a naïve optimistic sense, but in the sense that humankind has responsibility for creation to the extent that it respects and receives the gifts and beauties of the Creator as sacred |
| Artists must choose between sacred and secular objects, between spiritual and material | Every experience of beauty is an experience of God and all artistic expression is a sharing in an image and likeness of the Creator |
| Humankind’s relationship to God is primarily vertical: God is up, humankind below. God as theistic. | Humankind’s relationship to God is horizontal and concentric in its meeting places. God is in all and all is in God. God as panentheistic. |
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