Timothy James Fox (born December 21, 1940) is an American priest and theologian. Formerly a member of the Dominican Order within the Catholic Church, he became a member of the Episcopal Church following his expulsion from the order in 1993. Fox has written 35 books that have been translated into 68 languages and have sold millions of copies and by the mid-1990s had attracted a "huge and diverse following". Life Dominican friar Timothy James Fox was born in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1960, when he entered the Catholic Dominican Order (the Order of Preachers), he was given the religious name "Matthew". He received masters degrees in both philosophy and theology from the Aquinas Institute of Philosophy and Theology and later earned a Doctorate of Spiritual Theology, summa cum laude, from the Institut Catholique de Paris, studying with Marie-Dominique Chenu who named the Creation Spirituality tradition for him. It was Thomas Merton, the Catholic monk, who steered Fox to study at the Institut Catholique de Paris. After receiving his doctorate, Fox began teaching at a series of Catholic universities, including Loyola University in Chicago and Barat College of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois. In 1976, Fox moved to Chicago's Mundelein College (now part of Loyola University) to start the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality (ICCS), a master's program in Creation Spirituality with a unique pedagogy that integrated both left and right brain centers and would eventually lead to conflict with Church authorities. His holistic pedagogy included among its faculty Jungian psychologist John Giannini, physicist/cosmologist Brian Swimme, feminist theologian Rosemary Reuther, along with many artists teaching "art as meditation." In 1983, Fox moved ICCS to Oakland, California, and began teaching at Holy Names University, where he was a professor for 12 years. In 1984 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — the future Pope Benedict XVI, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — asked the Dominican Order to investigate Fox's writings. When three Dominican theologians examined his works and did not find his books heretical, Ratzinger ordered a second review, which was never undertaken. Due to his questioning of the doctrine of original sin, in 1988 Ratzinger forbade Fox from teaching or lecturing for a year. Fox wrote a "Pastoral Letter to Cardinal Ratzinger and the Whole Church," calling the Catholic Church a dysfunctional family. After a year "sabbatical," Fox resumed writing, teaching, and lecturing. In 1991 his