Harvey Cox Biography

Harvey Cox’s 1965 book, The Secular City, was a surprise international bestseller and a conversation starter for scholars and laypeople alike. Human attention, Cox wrote, was turning “away from worlds beyond” and “toward this world and time,” toward a new form of community: the modern, secular city and its mobile, anonymous, pragmatic, “technopolitan” ways. Cox argued that this was not an antireligious development, but should be viewed as a maturing of humanity and a promising gift from God, though it would require a radically changed church focused on social change. Cox, a civil rights and antiwar activist, had worked in campus ministry at Temple University and Oberlin College and taught at Andover Newton Theological School before his long Harvard career began in 1965. His many books include The Seduction of the Spirit, Many Mansions: A Christian’s Encounter With Other Faiths, and When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Decisions Today.