Author Archives
Carol P. Christ is a leading feminist historian of religion and theologian who leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, a life transforming tour for women. www.goddessariadne.org
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Learning Gratitude for the Gifts of Life on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete by Carol P. Christ
In Crete we are always being given gifts—fresh cherries, ice cold bottles of raki, yogurt swimming in honey, and so much more. Over the years it finally hit me that this spirit of great generosity is a living remnant of… Read More ›
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Cleaning and Cleansing: Rituals of Embodied Life by Carol P. Christ
While the world is falling apart all around me, I have been slowly engaged in a major cleaning and cleansing of my home. It started when I began to move my summer clothes to my main closet in June. Here… Read More ›
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SHEELA-NA-GIG by Carol P. Christ
On a trip to Ireland several years ago, I was fortunate to have been able to see the Sheela-na-gigs in the National Museum of Dublin. Two of these Sheelas including the one removed from the Seir Kieran Church of County… Read More ›
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A Marriage Blessing by Carol P. Christ
Asked the secret of her long and happy marriage, Dorothy Hartshorne, wife of the philosopher Charles Hartshorne, posed a question: “What do you think you must never do in a marriage?” The young woman thought for a moment and replied,… Read More ›
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Healing from beyond the Grave by Carol P. Christ
Despite having thought that I had resolved my issues with my father, shortly after his death I fell into a lethargy accompanied by stomach flu and a cold. After about two weeks, the only symptom was a lingering cough. But… Read More ›
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Why Is the Democratic Party Slapping Women in the Face? by Carol P. Christ
While the Republicans in Congress and in state legislatures across the country are working to repeal and restrict a woman’s right to control her own body, the Democratic Party has decided not to “insist” that the right to abortion is… Read More ›
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As We Bless the Source of Life in Midsummer by Carol P. Christ
August 1 is the Neo-pagan and Wiccan holiday known as Lammas. For many witches and pagans this is the time when the young male God identified with the harvest of the seasonal wheat crop is sacrificed in the interest of… Read More ›
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Grief and Healing by Carol P. Christ
My father died on July 6, 2017, 98 years, 4 months, 12 days. The last time I saw him was in the spring of 2004. During that visit, he gave me “the silent treatment” (refused to look at me or… Read More ›
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Another One Bites the Dust: Orthodox Priest Defrocked for Declaring God Our Mother and Father Is Love by Carol P. Christ
While trying to find a topic for today’s blog, I came across a facebook post from July 10 by former Orthodox priest Christoforos Schuff in which he announced: After reaffirming my beliefs on gender, sexuality, faith and the Church…and sharing… Read More ›
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The Keepers and the Roman Catholic Church by Carol P. Christ
He told me his “come” was a sacrament… He made the sign of the cross with it on my breasts. Jean Hargadon Wehner in The Keepers I sat glued to my television last weekend watching seven episodes of The Keepers… Read More ›
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Sometimes I Think I Am a Voice Crying in the Wilderness … by Carol P. Christ
Just last week I was dumbfounded when an acquaintance told me that his philosopher partner calls a woman leading a workshop on labyrinths “a tree hugger.” “What,” I wanted to say, “is wrong with being a tree hugger? Are we… Read More ›
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Woman and Nature: Our Bodies Are Ourselves by Carol P. Christ
This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am how we admire the strength in each other, all that we have suffered, all that we have lost, all that we know…. Read More ›
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Is This How Patriarchy Began? by Carol P Christ
In my widely read blog and academic essay offering a new definition of patriarchy, I argued that patriarchy is a system of male dominance that arose at the intersection of the control of female sexuality, private property, and war. In… Read More ›
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Do All Religions Teach Love and Justice? Or Do Some Religions Teach Domination? by Carol P. Christ
Recently at a discussion of Goddess and God in the World, Judith Plaskow and I were asked if the dialogue across religious difference we embody and advocate in our book is a “liberal thing.” Can it, the questioner wondered, occur… Read More ›
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The Mountain Mother: Reading the Language of the Goddess in the Symbols of Ancient Crete by Carol P. Christ
Before he told the story of how his people received the sacred pipe, Black Elk said: So I know that it is a good thing I am going to do; and because no good thing can be done by any… Read More ›
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Beginning with Death on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete by Carol P. Christ
Our first ritual on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete is a death ritual in which we honor the memory of those who have gone before us. Like so many things on the pilgrimage, the death ritual evolved. I did not… Read More ›
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Was There a “Golden Age” before Patriarchy and War? by Carol P. Christ
Marija Gimbutas coined the term “Old Europe” c.6500-3500 BCE to describe peaceful, sedentary, artistic, matrifocal, matrilineal and probably matrilocal agricultural societies that worshipped the Goddess as the power of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life. Gimbutas argued that… Read More ›
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“He Owes Us Nothing”: A Very Bad and Very Sad Theology by Carol P. Christ
While waiting to get off a plane last week, I overheard a serious young woman explaining a recent theological insight to her half-asleep and equally young husband. “You see,” she began, “what I just learned is that though He owes… Read More ›
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Omnipotence: The Ultimate Homage to Male Dominance as Control by Carol P. Christ
The concept of divine omnipotence is the ultimate expression of male dominance as control. Divine omnipotence is the view that everything that happens in the world happens according to the will of a divinity, who is in control of everything… Read More ›
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The Social Structures of Religious Identity and the Decision to Leave or Stay by Carol P. Christ
Reflecting on our different choices to “stay or leave” the religions of our upbringings while writing Goddess and God in the World with Judith Plaskow, I was prompted to think again about the social and ethnic structures of denominationalism. One… Read More ›
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It’s a Small Thing in Relation to Everything Else: Or Is It? by Carol P. Christ
Yesterday morning when I learned about the Open Letter to Attorney General Sessions: Join Us In Selma On the Right Side of History, I paused Joy Reid’s interview with William Barber II in order to search for the petition site…. Read More ›
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Reflections on Death, Evil, and Divinity by Carol P. Christ
In our book Goddess and God in the World, Judith Plaskow and I discuss and debate our contrasting and conflicting views of the nature of divinity and the cause of evil. In the passage that follows, I respond to Judith’s… Read More ›
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Authoritarian Followers: What’s Feminism and Religion Got to Do with It? by Carol P. Christ
There are two types of authoritarians: those who jump out in front and say “follow me, only I can solve the problem”; the far greater number of authoritarian personalities are those who want to be told how to think, what… Read More ›
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Feeling the Earth Move by Carol P. Christ
Magnitude 5.2 earthquake Feb 6, 5:51 AM I awake to the sound of the windows and shutters rattling and the bed moving up and down beneath me for a few seconds. Magnitude 5.4 earthquake Feb 6, 12:58 PM This is… Read More ›
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This Is How Liberal Democracy Dies: Will We Let It? by Carol P. Christ
“This is apparently how liberal democracy dies. It vanishes very quickly with an Executive Order.”– Ska Keller In a powerful yet softly-spoken speech to the European Parliament, Green Party Germany Representative Ska Keller explained that rights and liberties we we… Read More ›
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“Girl . . . You’re Gonna Make It” by Carol P. Christ
Why did this song,* this program, this woman mean so much to Oprah and Michelle, to you, to me? Because Mary Tyler Moore was one of our first role models of cheerful independent womanhood. Why does this song still bring tears… Read More ›
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A Serpentine Path: The Dance Is About To Begin by Carol P. Christ
Entering the archaeological site of Kato Zakros, which includes a Sacred Center and part of a town on a small hill above it, I felt too tired to continue with the others. As we passed a stone bench to the… Read More ›
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The Women’s March on Washington: I’ll Be There in Spirit by Carol P. Christ
The Women’s March on Washington has released its statement of vision and principles, and what a stunning testimony to intersectional feminism and collaboration it is! The statement is woman-centered, while at the same time addressing a multitude of issues that… Read More ›
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As It Might Have Been: Ancestor Stories in the Dreamtime by Carol P. Christ
In the middle of the night in waking sleep, I asked my great-great grandmother Annie Corliss to tell me the story of how she met and married James Inglis. This story came through me in a place I have come… Read More ›
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Life in the Tenements by Carol P. Christ
During my ancestor research, I have seen the word “tenement”—with the implication of poverty, filth, and disease–handwritten onto more than one death certificate. Last month, I visited the Lower East Side where my Irish 2x great-grandmother Annie Corliss lived in… Read More ›
