We Don’t Have to Live Like This by Trista Hendren

A Tribute to Carol P. Christ’s Legacy of Peace

Carol P. Christ was a feminist scholar and thealogian I deeply admired from afar for many years. That changed when I read her post in Feminism and Religion describing “washing wet clothes cast off by refugees who crossed the Sea of Death.”[1]

In that moment, she became a woman I connected with on a soul level. What could be more profound than washing and folding the clothing of tiny dead children? What other metaphor could be more vivid for how desperately we need to change the world?

“A tiny pink long-sleeved shirt with a boat neck, for a girl, size 3 months. 

A pair of leggings with feet, grey with pink, orange, brown, white, and blue polka-dots, to be worn over diapers.” 

The week before, she asserted that “the only ‘solution’ to the problem of people leaving their homes in fear for their lives is TO END WAR.” She continued, “No one takes this suggestion seriously enough to engage it.”[2]

I remember sitting inside the Idean cave with our Goddess Pilgrimage group when Carol read, “We Need a God Who Bleeds Now” by Ntozake Shange. I knew the poem well, but hearing Carolina read it so forcefully shook something deep inside me.

While I have had the privilege of having several wonderful female pastors, they were never particularly affirming of my womanhood—or my divinity. They certainly never celebrated my period.

Carol read the poem with such conviction and clarity that no other world seemed possible. It was both a realization and a deep healing all at once when she boldly proclaimed:

“i am

not wounded

i am bleeding to life”[3]

Later that year, Carol wrote a powerful paper about this poem in Feminism and Religion.

“Ntozake Shange’s god not only bleeds, she bleeds ‘now.’ Ntozake Shange’s god not only bleeds now, she ‘showers us in shades of scarlet/thick and warm.’ Her blood is not the splotch of red on white panties, staining our clothing and our lives with shame. This god bleeds the blood of birth, the blood of life, the blood of creation.

Her ‘wounds’ are not the ones we have learned to celebrate. The wars of heroic traditions are ‘some small male vengeance,’ nothing to be celebrated at all…

The body of the god who bleeds now ‘breaks open’ not to death, but to life.”[4]

War is an abomination. I will never forget seeing photos of Iraqi babies with horrible birth defects, knowing that my tax dollars funded such cruelty. Recently, I read that nearly 2 decades after the 2003 U.S. invasion, babies are still being born with “gruesome birth defects connected to the ongoing American military presence there.”[5]

Carol described her aversion to war near the end of her life.

“I did not experience the Vietnam War directly, but the horror of war was etched into my brain and has shaped my life ever since. Because of the Vietnam War, I have opposed war and everything to do with the military… I have also always understood that war is an integral part of patriarchy and vice versa and have made ending war one of my feminist priorities.”[6]

Goddess Feminism and activism are deeply needed now to educate the world that peaceful ways of being long existed. In Rebirth of the Goddess, Carol wrote:

“As we learn about ancient Goddess religions and cultures, we begin to understand that we do not have to live as we do today: in cultures that worship one male God, where the domination and the control of women, the earth, and other people are taken for granted, and warfare is perpetual.”[7]

It is not easy to overcome decades of textbooks and patriarchal propaganda. Goddess studies and pilgrimages are desperately needed if women are to experience this first hand. We need to dedicate our lives to fully absorbing as many of these resources as possible.

I have been heartbroken to see the ongoing genocide in Gaza these last 20 months. Protesting on the streets or online does not feel adequate. I went back through most of Carol’s posts on Feminism and Religion to see what she said about war and how to end it. Somehow that felt more productive than arguing with people online who are not likely to change their minds. We need to change hearts.

So, what must we do? In Carol’s words:

“The model of patriarchy as an integral system enables us to see that in order to end male domination, we must also end war – and violence, rape, conquest, exploitation, and slavery which are sanctioned as part of war.  In societies where the violent behaviors of warriors are celebrated and in which soldiers who have been trained in the methods of violence come home, it is unlikely that anyone can succeed in eradicating rape and violence against women.”[8] 

We still have quite a bit of work ahead of us, and none of it is for the faint of heart. To end war, I believe each of us must look deeply within ourselves and the patriarchal structures we find ourselves enmeshed in.

We need to find a way to demonstrate that peace can be more profitable than war. It is only common sense. Why should we spend billions of dollars to desecrate the Earth and Her inhabitants when we could invest that money in the well-being of ALL? How is it that anyone can justify hungry children anywhere when there is such wasteful decadence spent on destruction?

In her ovarial paper, “Why Women Need the Goddess”, Carol stressed the importance of replacing patriarchal symbols.[9] Patriarchy has done a very good job brainwashing people into thinking it is the only way.

Matriarchy must be presented so beautifully that the world at large would be foolish not to embrace it.

In another paper, Carol continues:

“We cannot count on the powers that be to end war.

This is not a conversation that will begin in the halls of government. That is why it is so important that non-violent women for peace take to the streets and disrupt the ordinary workings of governments.”[10]

I have been protesting war and genocide for more than 30 years now. I started taking my children to protests when they were in strollers. This is not the world I dreamt of for them.

Carol wrote, “the only way to end the suffering of war is to end war.”[11]

She also believed, “If we cannot imagine a Society of Peace, we will never be able to create one.”^[12] 

We must continue to imagine.

BIO: Trista Hendren founded Girl God Books in 2011 to support a necessary unraveling of the patriarchal worldview of divinity. Her first book—The Girl God, a children’s picture book—was a response to her own daughter’s inability to see herself reflected in God. Since then, she has published more than 50 books with hundreds of contributors from across the globe. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she now lives in Bergen, Norway. You can find more about her work at http://www.thegirlgod.com.

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[1] Christ, Carol P. “CROSSING THE SEA OF DEATH.” Feminism and Religion. November 2, 2015.

[2] Christ, Carol P. “MORE WAR=MORE REFUGEES: OBAMA IN AFGHANISTAN.” Feminism and Religion. October 26, 2015.

[3] Shange, Ntozake. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Scribner; 1997.

[4] Christ, Carol P. “Let Us Proclaim the God Who Bleeds Now.” Feminism and Religion. November 19, 2018.

[5] Hussain, Murtaza. “IRAQI CHILDREN BORN NEAR U.S. MILITARY BASE SHOW ELEVATED RATES OF ‘SERIOUS CONGENITAL DEFORMITIES,’ STUDY FINDS.” The Intercept. November 25, 2019.

[6] Christ, Carol P. “Seared by Vietnam.” Feminism and Religion. May 6, 2019.

[7] Christ, Carol P. Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. Routledge, 1998.

[8] Christ, Carol P. “Patriarchy As An Integral System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War, Part 3.” Feminism and Religion. March 4, 2014.

[9] Christ, Carol P.  “Why Women Need the Goddess” from the “Keynote Address at the “Great Goddess Re-emerging” Conference at the University of Santa Cruz in the spring of 1978 and reprinted in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader on Religion by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow. SanFran; Reissue edition, 1992.

“Even people who no longer “believe in God” or participate in the institutional structure of patriarchal religion still may not be free of the power of the symbolism of God the Father. A symbol’s effect does not depend on rational assent, for a symbol also functions on levels of the psyche other than the rational. Symbol systems cannot simply be rejected; they must be replaced. Where there is no replacement, the mind will revert to familiar structures at times of crisis, bafflement, or defeat.” 

[10] Christ, Carol P. “WOMEN FOR PEACE–TAKE TO THE STREETS.” Feminism and Religion. November 19, 2012.

[11] Christ, Carol P. “Seared by Vietnam.” Feminism and Religion. May 6, 2019.

[12] Christ, Carol P. “Can You Imagine a Society of Peace?” Feminism and Religion. November 23, 2015.