30 years ago: New Ager Matthew Fox delivers keynote lecture at Queen's Theological School

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. II Timothy 3:5

Anyone who researches the history of New Age beliefs and practices masquerading in Christian garb over the last 30 years or so is likely to come across the name Matthew Fox. Mr. Fox was a Roman Catholic priest of the Dominican order who was expelled from the order in 1993 and subsequently joined the Episcopal Church. He's best known for promoting "Creation Spirituality" and "deep ecumenism" in books such as The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (1988). Mr. Fox believes in Christ as a cosmic principle rather than as a particular person. "Creation Spirituality" is really just old-fashioned pagan nature worship dressed up in modern terminology; "deep ecumenism" means that Mr. Fox's spirituality includes beliefs and practices of various religions in an attempt to find common ground.

Queen's University, located in Kingston, Ontario, was founded as Queen's College in 1841 by the Church of Scotland. In 1912 the university was secularized; the faculty of theology was separated from the university and became Queen's Theological College, a training institution for the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The Presbyterian, Congregational, and Methodist churches amalgamated in 1925 to form the United Church of Canada. The United Church continued to operate Queen's Theological College, which changed its name to Queen's School of Religion in 2010.

The United Church of Canada became apostate decades ago, and that apostasy has only worsened over time. An indication of the level of apostasy reached by the United Church in the 1980s is that in 1987, Queen's Theological School invited Matthew Fox to deliver its Chancellor's Lecture.

As reported by Rev. Nadene Grieve-Deslippe, MDiv '81 (sic) in Queen's Alumni Review, January-February 1988, p. 6:

The Queen's Theological College Alumni Association held its 95th Annual Reunion and conference at the College Oct. 12-14. More than 150 people from several denominations attended. A highlight of the three-day event was the Chancellor's Lecture, which is one of North America's oldest continuing lectureships.

This year's lecturer was Matthew Fox, a Dominican author and scholar, and Director of the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality in Oakland, Calif. Fox expounds a new spirituality--a new paradigm--of life as an original blessing.

A crowd of more than 300 persons turned out to hear Fox's lecture, necessitating a change of venue from Convocation Hall at the Theological College to Sydenham Street United Church.

Fox challenged the members of his audience to reshape their thinking from dualism to universalism and to "experience God in all of our creation." He said that our worship of God needs to be more experimental as worshippers "let go" of dull and boring tradition and truly celebrate the living and the divine. This was thought provoking, particularly for those persons in the audience who are involved in worship as leaders.

In addition to the Fox lecture, this year's conference program included a staff lecture on Christian identity and feminism by Dr. Pam Dickey Young, a lecture by Chaplain Brian Yealand, entitled, My Times are in Thy Hand, and a total of seven workshops on a range of topics of current interest.

This year's Reunion and conference were highly successful, and organizers hope to promote future conferences as ecumenical events to draw participants from the outside community.

For more on Matthew Fox, I suggest searching his name at Lighthouse Trails Research Project and Herescope.

See also my posts:

Calgary Herald blasts United Church of Canada for advocating a boycott of Israel (May 15, 2012)

A secular columnist accurately assesses Canada's declining liberal churches (July 30, 2012)

United Church of Canada elects its first openly sodomite moderator (August 16, 2012)

50 years ago: United Church of Canada unveils Sunday School curriculum denying the truth of the Bible (August 1, 2014)

80 years ago: United Church of Canada ordains Canada's first female minister (November 7, 2016)