COX, Harvey (Gallagher), (Jr.) 1929-

PERSONAL: Born May 19, 1929, in Phoenixville, PA; son of Harvey Gallagher (a painter, decorator, and transport manager) and Dorothea (Dunwoody) Cox; married Nancy Nieburger (an actress), May 10, 1957 (divorced); married Nina Tumarkin (a professor), 1986 (some sources say 1985); children: (first marriage) Rachel Llanelly, Martin Stephen, Sarah Irene; (second marriage) Nicholas. Education: University of Pennsylvania, A.B. (with honors), 1951; Yale University, B.D. (cum laude), 1955; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1963.

ADDRESSES: Home—65 Frost St., Cambridge, MA 02140. Office—Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138.

CAREER: Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, Protestant chaplain, 1953–54; Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, director of religions activities, 1955–58; ordained minister of American Baptist Church, 1956; American Baptist Home Mission Society, program associate, 1958–63; Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA, assistant professor of theology and culture, 1963–65; Harvard University, Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, associate professor of church and society, 1965–68, professor of divinity, 1968–70, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity, beginning 1970, currently Hollis Professor of Divinity, research associate in program on technology and society, 1967–. Adviser to Harvard University Divinity School department of church and society at New Delhi Conference of the World Council of Churches, 1962; Gossner Mission, East Berlin, Germany, fraternal worker, 1962–63; Blue Hill Christian Center, Boston, MA, chairman of the board, 1963–66; Traprock Peace Center, MA, founder. Visiting professor at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Seminario Bautista de Mexico; Center for Intercultural Documentation, Cuernavaca, Mexico; Naropa Institute, Boulder, CO; and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Military service: Served in U.S. Merchant Marine.

MEMBER: American Theological Association, American Association of Christian Ethics, Americans for Democratic Action, Fund for Urban Negro Development, Foundation for the Arts, Religion, and Culture (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS: Most influential books of Protestant theology of the twentieth century citation, University of Marburg, for Secular City.

WRITINGS:

The Bible, the Church, and the Student Christian Movement (pamphlet), United Student Christian Council, 1958.

The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1965, revised edition, 1966, 25th anniversary edition, with a new introduction, Collier Books (New York, NY), 1990.

God's Revolution and Man's Responsibility, Judson (Valley Forge, PA), 1965.

On Not Leaving It to the Snake (essays), Macmillan (New York, NY), 1967.

(With others) Technology and Culture in Perspective, Church Society for College Work (Cambridge, MA), 1967.

(Editor) The Church amid Revolution: A Selection of the Essays Prepared for the World Council of Churches Geneva Conference on Church and Society, Association Press (New York, NY), 1967.

(With Mary Corita Kent and Samuel A. Eisenstein) Sister Corita, Pilgrim Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1968.

(Editor) The Situation Ethics Debate, Westminster Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1968.

The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1969.

The Seduction of the Spirit: The Use and Misuse of People's Religion, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1973.

(Editor) Military Chaplains: From Religious Military to a Military Religion, American Report Press (New York, NY), 1973.

Turning East: The Promise and Peril of Orientalism, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1977.

Just as I Am, Abingdon Press (Nashville, TN), 1983.

Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1984.

Many Mansions: A Christian's Encounter with Other Faiths, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1988.

The Silencing of Leonardo Boff: The Vatican and the Future of World Christianity, Meyer-Stone Books (Oak Park, IL), 1988.

Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century, Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA), 1995.

Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey through the Jewish Year, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2001.

When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2004.

Contributor of chapters and introductions to many books, and of articles to periodicals, including Christian Century, Commonweal, and Christianity Today. Columnist for Beliefnet Web site. Member of editorial board, Christianity and Crisis and Harvard Theological Review.

SIDELIGHTS: In his younger days, Harvey Cox was described as one of American Protestantism's more influential up-and-coming theologians. His early works attempt to bring Christianity into a more meaningful relationship to humanity and the problems of our modern technological society by developing a secular-political theology. Not content merely to study theology on an intellectual level, Cox sought to develop a lifestyle consistent with his beliefs. For seven years he and his family lived in Roxbury, a ghetto area in Boston, in order to understand and confront the problems of the black community more compassionately. Later, the Coxes tried living in a communal arrangement with another married couple so that they might mitigate the problems and abnormalities of the nuclear family. They also experimented with functioning without a telephone, television, or automobile to achieve a simpler lifestyle. Carrying his laboratory outside his own home, Cox has participated in innovative religious activities, including a rather unorthodox Easter/Passover celebration that he led from a discotheque through the streets of Boston in 1970. This action, Cox once explained, was an attempt to bring Easter out of its purely Christian setting and associate it with secular symbols that are more accessible to modern, secularized people.

Cox has sought to explore this relationship between secular culture and Christian symbols in his writing. In his first major publication, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective, he confronts the seeming inevitability of secularization and urbanization in modern society, hailing them as a means toward a renewed Christianity. He sees secular man as fulfilling a divine rather than profane role in a technologically progressive age, in which the "Secular City" represents the coming Kingdom of God. "Cox's hope," Robert Royal explained in a National Review critique of Cox's Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology, "was that Christianity would gain a renewed relevance, not by a spiritual outpouring—for him the metaphysical age was over—but by emarginated Christians speaking politically to a secular 'technopolis'" and working for liberation and social change.

In The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy, written in the light of the political and social upheavals of the late 1960s, Cox turned from his optimistic view of a technology-oriented secular life to seek a revitalization of religious ritual and symbol. Even though he rejects the possibility of believing the same way his forebears did, he still finds it necessary to integrate Christian symbols into his belief system after divesting them of their negative connotations. He maintains the symbols, he explains, because of their rich history, but hopes to disengage them from the system of privilege and its converse, oppression, that he believes that they help to sanctify.

Turning East: The Promise and Peril of Orientalism examines the way exotic Eastern religions have infiltrated American culture. After observing and participating in Eastern cults and religions himself, including Transcendental Meditation and Zen Buddhism, Cox discusses the dangers and merits of these beliefs for Western industrialized society. In the final analysis, Cox maintains that the Judeo-Christian tradition still has value for modern humans because of its ability to fulfill people's needs for fellowship and trustworthy authority, but he shows how Americans dabbling in Eastern faiths could help to bring them back to a deeper relationship with their Judeo-Christian roots.

Cox returns to the subject of inter-religious dialogue with Many Mansions: A Christian's Encounter with Other Faiths. Written in a personal tone, this book features a series of essays about his travels around the world discussing religion and faith with Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Orthodox Christians. "Anyone receptive to a believer's personal search for religious common ground may find this book enlightening," Elizabeth Stark concluded in Psychology Today.

Similar in theme, Common Prayers: Faith, Family and a Christian's Journey through the Jewish Year chronicles one year in Cox's marriage to a Jewish woman and his attempts to understand and appreciate her faith as they collaborate on instructing their son, whom they are raising as a Jew, in religious topics. The book examines each of the annual Jewish holidays and the rituals that accompany it, beginning and ending with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year's holiday. The book is an "intimate autobiography," according to America contributor Judith Bruder, but one that "is lavishly interwoven with informative and fascinating gleanings from history, religious traditions, theology and the front pages of today's newspapers." Similarly, Henry F. Knight wrote in Shofar that "Cox's book reflects a subtlety of understanding that the experienced student of interfaith debate will recognize has been processed and refined in the crucible of caring for a family for whom the issues are more than matters of intellectual debate."

Critics noted an extreme shift of perspective between Cox's early works, particularly The Secular City, and his 1994 title, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostalism, Spirituality, and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century. Cox himself comments in Fire from Heaven's introduction that he was surprised that, on the verge of the new millennium, societies around the world were no longer becoming more secular but were instead experiencing an upswing in Pentecostalism, one of the more spiritual forms of the Christian religion. In Fire from Heaven, Cox attempts to figure out why this is so. He recounts his travels around the world, tracing Pentecostalism from its origins in Los Angeles in 1906 through its growth in dozens of countries, from traditionally Catholic regions like Sicily and Mexico to Korea, where Christianity itself has scarcely taken hold. "This very readable book is classic Cox in that it eschews the academic tone," wrote Theological Studies reviewer Allan Figueroa Deck. "The work often reads like an autobiography or even a novel." "Though [this approach] may be derided in academia," Dan Wakefield commented in Nation, it "is regarded as admirable by those who believe there is value in experiencing a subject, getting to know the people who are living the story and hearing about it in their own words."

When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today covers material taught for many years in his popular Harvard undergraduate class "Jesus and the Moral Life." Despite the book's title, Cox does not offer firm guidelines about how to make moral choices. Instead, as Colleen Carroll Campbell wrote in First Things, he "urges readers to see Jesus and his moral teachings in the way that [he] does—disconnected from the trappings and truth-claims of traditional Christianity and therefore relevant to our search for answers today." "The Jesus who comes to Harvard by invitation from Professor Cox is Rabbi Jesus," Richard M. Gula elaborated in America. "This is the Jesus who relied on narrative and example more than on principle and precept." Although the book tackles serious moral and ethical issues, it also contains Cox's reminiscences about teaching and the questions and comments students introduced in his classroom.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Callahan, Daniel J., The Secular City Debate, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1966.

Encyclopedia of World Biography, second edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

Lippy, Charles H., editor, Twentieth-Century Shapers of American Popular Religion, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1989.

Religious Leaders of America, second edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Schultz, Jeffrey D., John G. West, Jr., and Iain MacLean, Encyclopedia of Religion in American Politics, Oryx Press (Phoenix, AZ), 1999.

PERIODICALS

America, April 2, 1983, Jack Reimer, review of Just as I Am, p. 267; June 2, 1984, Alfred T. Hennelly, review of Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology, p. 426; August 3, 1985, Roger L. Shinn, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 69; November 12, 1988, Lamin Sanneh, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff: The Vatican and the Future of World Christianity, p. 386; February 11, 1989, George W. Hunt, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff; October 15, 2001, Judith Bruder, review of Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey through the Jewish Year, p. 27; January 3, 2005, Richard M. Gula, review of When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today, p. 24.

Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History, January, 1993, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff, p. 297.

Best Sellers, May, 1983, review of Just as I Am, p. 66; April, 1984, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 34.

Booklist, November 15, 1988, review of Many Mansions, p. 518; October 15, 1994, Ray Olson, review of Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostalism, Spirituality, and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century, p. 375; September 1, 1995, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 18; September 15, 2001, Bryce Christensen, review of Common Prayers, p. 167; November 1, 2004, Donna Chavez, review of When Jesus Came to Harvard, p. 445.

Books and Religion, summer, 1990, review of Many Mansions, p. 13.

Boston, December, 2004, Katherine Ozment and Andrew Rimas, review of When Jesus Came to Harvard, p. 240.

Catholic World, January-February, 1996, Bing D. Litonjua, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 40.

Choice, June, 1983, review of Just as I Am, p. 1472; June, 1984, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 1481; February, 1989, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff, p. 956; March, 1989, review of Many Mansions, p. 1182.

Christian Century, December 31, 1980, review of Turning East, p. 1297; August 31, 1983, Richard E. Wentz, review of Just as I Am, p. 783; May 2, 1984, Richard E. Wentz, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 468; November 16, 1988, F. Kury Cylke, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff, p. 1050; January 4, 1989, Richard Quebedeaux, review of Many Mansions, p. 22.

Christianity Today, August 26, 1977.

Christian Science Monitor, January 25, 1995, Richard A. Nenneman, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 14.

Commentary, May, 1984, Mary Tedeschi, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 77.

Commonweal, May 18, 1984, Lawrence S. Cunningham, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 308; September 7, 1984, review of Just as I Am, p. 473; January 27, 1989, Joseph G. Donders, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff, p. 52, and review of Many Mansions, p. 53.

Cross Currents, summer, 1995, Carol LeMasters, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 257; summer, 1999, James Garrett White, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 255.

First Things, April, 2005, Colleen Carroll Campbell, review of When Jesus Came to Harvard, p. 45.

Futurist, May, 1995, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 59.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, October, 1989, Gavin D'Costa, review of Many Mansions, p. 181.

Journal of Church and State, spring, 1995, Marc M. Arkin, review of Fire from Heaven, pp. 439-440.

Journal of Ecumenical Studies, summer, 1989, Michael J. Kerlin, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff, p. 572; winter, 1990, B. Todd Lawson, review of Many Mansions, p. 158.

Journal of Religion, October, 1990, Todd Swanson, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff, p. 651.

Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 1983, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 1237; October 1, 1988, review of Many Mansions, p. 1443; August 15, 1994, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 1097; August 1, 2001, review of Common Prayers, p. 1083.

Kliatt, spring, 1979, review of Turning East, p. 40; April, 1990, review of Many Mansions, p. 40.

Library Journal, February 1, 1983, review of Just as I Am; February 15, 1984, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 380; December, 1988, Carolyn M. Craft, review of Many Mansions, p. 120; October 1, 1994, C. Robert Nixon, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 84; October 1, 2001, Marcia Welsh, review of Common Prayers, p. 105; February 1, 2005, David I. Fulton, review of When Jesus Came to Harvard, p. 84.

Los Angeles Times, February 12, 1984, Malcolm Boyd, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 3; August 25, 2001, Larry B. Stammer, review of Common Prayers, p. B18.

Modern Age, fall, 1991, Ronald Nash, review of Many Mansions, p. 65.

Nation, January 23, 1995, Dan Wakefield, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 98.

National Catholic Reporter, May 4, 1984, Gregory Baum, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 9; August, 1989, Tim Unsworth, review of Many Mansions, p. 37; September 28, 1990, William C. Graham, review of Many Mansions, p. 13; March 3, 1995, Maureen Gallagher, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 12.

National Review, January 27, 1984, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 50; June 29, 1984, Robert Royal, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 44; December 9, 1988, Richard John Neuhaus, review of Many Mansions, p. 53; December 5, 1994, David Martin, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 73; October 15, 2001, Naomi Schaefer, review of Common Prayers, p. 76.

New Yorker, April 30, 1984, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 122.

New York Review of Books, October 11, 1984, J. M. Cameron, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 39.

New York Times Book Review, March 4, 1984, John A. Coleman, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 1; March 3, 1985, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 34; January 29, 1989, James Melvin Washington, review of Many Mansions, p. 26; November 20, 1994, Gustav Niebuhr, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 32; December 4, 1994, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 79; March 3, 1996, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 28.

Psychology Today, July-August, 1989, Elizabeth Stark, review of Many Mansions, p. 30.

Publishers Weekly, December 11, 1981, review of Strange Gods, p. 54; December 3, 1982, review of Just as I Am, p. 55; December 9, 1983, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 47; October 7, 1988, Judith Rosen, "Harvey Cox: The Theologian Talks about the World-Wide Revival of Religion and the Need for Interfaith Dialogue," p. 96; October 14, 1988, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Many Mansions, p. 56; November 10, 1989, review of Many Mansions, p. 58; September 5, 1994, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 104; November 16, 1998, Theola S. Labbe, "Harvey Cox (Professor and Author)," p. S28; July 30, 2001, "Finding Common Ground," p. 47; October 25, 2004, review of When Jesus Came to Harvard, p. 43.

Reference and Research Book News, September, 1995, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 3.

Religious Studies Review, April, 1986, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 143; October, 1990, review of Many Mansions, p. 326; July, 1996, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 265.

School Library Journal, December, 2001, Barbara A. Genco, review of Common Prayers, p. 56.

Scottish Journal of Theology, May, 1991, Gilbert Markus, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff, p. 135.

Shofar, spring, 2003, Henry F. Knight, review of Common Prayers, p. 153.

Society, July-August, 1985, Thomas Robbins, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 97.

Theological Studies, June, 1989, Alfred T. Hennelly, review of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff, p. 404; March, 1996, Allan Figueroa Deck, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 153.

Theology Today, April, 1985, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 102; July, 1989, Paul Knitter, review of Many Mansions, p. 203.

Time, March 15, 1968.

USA Today Magazine, March, 1985, Paul Bock, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 39.

U.S. Catholic, July, 1984, Michael Christopher, review of Religion in the Secular City, p. 48.

Utopian Studies, spring, 1997, Mark P. Hall-Patton, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 129.

Virginia Quarterly Review, summer, 1995, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 103.

Whole Earth Review, spring, 1995, review of Fire from Heaven, p. 109.

Whole Life Times, March, 2005, Rachel Schmidt, review of When Jesus Came to Harvard, p. 74.

Wilson Quarterly, fall, 2001, Tova Reich, review of Common Prayers, p. 146.

ONLINE

Harvard Divinity School Web site, http://www.hds.harvard.edu/ (July 26, 2005), "Harvey G. Cox, Jr."