Carol P. Christ

“MERMAID, GODDESS OF THE SEA” by Carol P. Christ

On the recent Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, I visited the Historical Museum in Heraklion where I saw a beautiful embroidered silk panel of a mermaid identified only as having come from Koustogerako, a village in western Crete. As it is unlikely that a man in a Cretan village would have been talented in embroidery, in this case “Anonymous” most definitely “was a woman.”

In this thread painting a mermaid surrounded by fish is holding the anchor of a ship in one hand and a fish in the other. In Greece the mermaid is the protectress of sailors. In a well-known legend, a mermaid said to be the sister of Alexander the Great, emerges from the sea in front of a ship during a storm and asks: “Is Alexander the Great still living?” If the sailors answer, “Yes, he lives and reigns,” the ship is saved.

In this image the mermaid–who does not much resemble “the little mermaid” of recent lore—is identified by the woman who embroidered her as: “GORGONA, H THEA TIS THALASSIS,” MERMAID GODDESS OF THE SEA.” Assuming that the woman who created this embroidery was probably a Christian, I was surprised to see that she nonetheless referred to the mermaid as a Goddess. Was this phrase passed on to her down to her from pre-Christian times? Did she see any contradiction between her Christian beliefs and the “Goddess of the Sea?” Continue reading ““MERMAID, GODDESS OF THE SEA” by Carol P. Christ”

IS THE SPIRIT OF GREAT GENEROSITY IN CRETE A SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT MATRIARCHAL VALUES? by Carol P. Christ

At a coffee shop in Agios Thomas, Crete last month a perfect stranger offered to pay for the coffees and sodas of the 16 women on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. This spirit of great generosity is rarely experienced in the United States or other parts of Europe, but it is still common in rural Crete and some parts of Greece.

In fact our group was in Agios Thomas because our bus driver Babis, also in a spirit of great generosity, insisted on stopping to show us his village when we were passing nearby. He guided us to see Roman rock cut tombs and arranged for the early Byzantine church to be opened. At the end of the our pilgrimage, Babis stopped the bus at a wooded glen beside a small church where he offered us his own homemake raki, wine, and olives, accompanied by local sheep cheese he had purchased while we were climbing a mountain. After every meal that we ate in local tavernas, we were offered bottles of cold raki, fruit, and sweets.

This spirit of great generosity has long been commented on by travelers in Greece, who often speak of it as unexpected (for them) hospitality to the stranger or traveler. That it is, of course. Through the work of Heidi Goettner-Abendroth, I now understand that the famous Greek hospitality to the stranger has deep roots in matriarchal cultures. According to Goettner-Abendroth, equality of wealth is assured through the widely-practiced custom of gift-giving in matriarchal cultures. Continue reading “IS THE SPIRIT OF GREAT GENEROSITY IN CRETE A SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT MATRIARCHAL VALUES? by Carol P. Christ”

WOMEN ARTISTS AND RITUALISTS IN THE GREAT CAVES: THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF INDOLENT ASSUMPTIONS by Carol P. Christ

In an earlier blog, I suggested that women might have blown red ocher around their hands to leave their marks in prehistoric caves.

At the time I thought this was a rather bold suggestion.

Had I been asked why I thought the images were made by women, I might have said that people have understood caves to be the womb of the Great Mother, the Source of All Life, from time immemorial. I might have added that those who performed rituals in the caves cannot have been performing simple “hunting magic,” but must also have been thanking the Source of Life for making life possible for them and for the great beasts they hunted. Still I am not certain that I imagined women as the artists in the Paleolithic caves.

In recent days the news wires have been carrying a story titled “First Cave Artists May Have Been Women, New Study Suggests.” According to retired anthropological archaeologist Dean Snow, the handprints made by Paleolithic ancestors 40,000-20,000 years ago may have been made primarily by women. Snow spent a decade gathering and analyzing photographs of the handprints left in caves. The scientific fact that women’s first and ring fingers are generally of the same length, while men’s ring fingers are generally longer their index fingers, led him to the conclusion that ¾ of the handprints in the caves were made by women! If women were painting their hands on the caves in larger numbers than men, then isn’t likely that they were also painting the images of the great beasts on the walls of the caves? Continue reading “WOMEN ARTISTS AND RITUALISTS IN THE GREAT CAVES: THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF INDOLENT ASSUMPTIONS by Carol P. Christ”

WANGARI MUTA MAATHAI AND SACRED MOUNT KENYA by Carol P. Christ

September 25, 2013 is the second anniversary of the death of environmental, peace, justice, and democracy advocate and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Wangari Muta Maathai.

Wangari Muta was born in 1940 in a round hut in rural tribal Kenya. Wangari’s tribe considered the fig tree to be holy, and she was taught that one is never to cut a fig tree down or to use its branches for firewood. Wangari spent many happy childhood hours in the shade of a fig tree that grew by a nearby stream. Fig trees play an important role in the ecological system of the Rift Valley of Kenya. Their roots penetrate the hard rock surface of the mountains to find underground water, thus opening channels where the water flows upward to fill streams and rivers.

As an adult Maathai learned that the fig tree she played under had been cut down by a settler with the result that the river had dried up. This was happening all over Kenya on a massive scale to make room for cash crop plantations. Rivers were silting up and widespread erosion threatened to turn the fertile Rift Valley into a desert. Crops were failing, animals were starving, there was no wood for cooking fires, and rural people were suffering.

Maathai says that as she was thinking about this problem “It just came to me: ‘Why not plant trees?’ … This is how the Green Belt Movement began.” Continue reading “WANGARI MUTA MAATHAI AND SACRED MOUNT KENYA by Carol P. Christ”

WAR, WAR, WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR? by Carol P. Christ

“They used chemical weapons, we must do something to stop them.” A justification widely used in support of President Obama’s decision to launch a military strike against Syria.

We fought the Civil War to end slavery and racism. We fought the Second World War to end fascism. Did we end racism? Did we end fascism? Howard Zinn

At the time of the Revolutionary War, “a not inconsiderable Quaker element was on principle opposed to war, as itself a greater evil than any it might seek to right.”

Michelle Obama is against military intervention in Syria. Does the President dismiss Michelle’s dissent as “womanish”?

Patriarchy is a system of male dominance, rooted in the ethos of war which legitimates violence, sanctified by religious symbols, in which men dominate women through the control of female sexuality, with the intent of passing property to male heirs, and in which men who are heroes of war are told to kill men, and are permitted to rape women, to seize land and treasures, to exploit resources, and to own or otherwise dominate conquered people.

“[W]e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

The drums of war have stopped beating publically–at least for now. Obama’s decision to ask Congressional authorization to bomb Syria for 90 days—remember that number, 90 days–has been tabled—at least for now. But make no mistake, the military industrial complex is still barking at the heels of US government decison-makers. The notion that while women may be for peace, “real men must make war” is still operative in the American psyche. Continue reading “WAR, WAR, WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR? by Carol P. Christ”

A New Glossary for Crete: The Power of Naming and the Study of History by Carol P. Christ

The words we use affect our thinking. In the case of ancient Crete the repetition of the terms “Palace,” “Palace of Knossos,” “King Minos,” “Minoan,” “Priest-King,” and “Prince of the Lilies” shape the way we understand history–even when we ourselves know these terms are incorrect. We must engage in “new naming.”

Ariadne. May have been a name of the Goddess of pre-patriarchal Crete. The ending “ne” signifies that Ariadne is not of Greek or Indo-European origin and thus predates the later Greek myths.

Ariadnian. The name I have given to the Old European pre-patriarchal culture of Crete, from arrival of the Neolithic settlers from Anatolia c.7000 BCE to the Mycenaean invasion c.1450 BCE. Arthur Evans named the Bronze Age (c.3000-1450 BCE) culture of Crete “Minoan” after King Minos of Greek mythology, son of Zeus and Europa, husband of Pasiphae, father of Ariadne, whose gift of the secret of the labyrinth to Theseus led to the downfall of her culture. Evans assumed that Minoan Crete was ruled by a King.

This image I call “Ariadne Dancing” could become the new “icon” of Ariadnian Crete.

It could and should replace the “icon” of the “Priest-King” Arthur Evans’ “imaginatively” reconstructed and named the “Prince of the Lilies.”

Once we remove the crown which probably belonged to a Sphinx, the figure’s white color and athletic body suggests it was intended to portray a young female bull-leaper leading a bull. Continue reading “A New Glossary for Crete: The Power of Naming and the Study of History by Carol P. Christ”

GODDESS WITH US: IS A RELATIONAL GOD POWERFUL ENOUGH? by Carol P. Christ

Last week I wrote about Protestant Neo-Orthodoxy’s deification of male power as power over. This week I want to ask why the relational Goddess or God* of process philosophy has not been more widely embraced, both generally and in feminist theologies.

Could it be that a relational God just isn’t powerful enough? Are some of us still hoping that an omnipotent God can and will intervene in history to set things right? Do we believe an omnipotent God can save us from death?

Process philosophy provides an attractive alternative to the concept of divine power modeled on male power as domination. According to leading process philosopher Charles Hartshorne, the power to coerce, power as power over and domination, is not the kind of power God has.

The concept of divine power as omnipotent (having all the power) leads to what Hartshorne called “the zero fallacy.” If God has all the power and can dominate in all situations, then the power of individuals* other than God is reduced to zero. In effect, this means that individuals other than God do not really exist, but at most are puppets whose strings are pulled by the divine power.

Moreover, as Hartshorne argued, the power to coerce is not the kind of power Goddess “should” have. Although many have been forced to submit to them, tyrants and bullies do not empower others. Should we not understand the “highest power in the universe” as empowering of others?

For process philosophy Goddess is understood to be the most sympathetic or empathetic of all relational beings. Continue reading “GODDESS WITH US: IS A RELATIONAL GOD POWERFUL ENOUGH? by Carol P. Christ”

Neo-Orthodoxy: The Apotheosis* of Power as Power Over by Carol P. Christ

Recently I have been thinking about Neo-Orthodoxy, the leading Protestant theological movement of the twentieth century, as a deification of male power as power over. In the language of the schoolyard, this translates as “mine is bigger than yours.” Or more precisely: “God’s is bigger than yours.”

Neo-Orthodoxy dominated Protestant theology in Europe and America in the mid-twentieth century and structured my theological education at Yale in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yale may have been “the bastion” of Neo-Orthodoxy, but Neo-Orthodox perspectives reigned in all the Protestant seminaries and were even celebrated in the media. Neo-Orthodoxy may have some commonalities with fundamentalism but it was by no means an anti-intellectualist approach to theology.

A reaction to the perceived “impotence” of German Protestantism in the face of Hitler, Protestant Neo-Orthodoxy asserted “the commanding power of God” over against reason and culture. Its leading advocates included the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, the German New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann, and the German theologians teaching in the United States, Reinhold and Richard Neibuhr, and Paul Tillich. For all of them in different ways, the “Word of God” was a dynamic force that imploded into history challenging individuals and communities to turn away from egotism and “idolatry” defined as worship of something less than God–for example, self, nation, or wealth. Continue reading “Neo-Orthodoxy: The Apotheosis* of Power as Power Over by Carol P. Christ”

Coming Together to Honor the Mother by Carol P. Christ

From the evening of the 14^th through the day and night of the 15^th of August, thousands of pilgrims ascended the Holy Rock of Petra to honor the Panagia—She Who Is All Holy.

There is “something really beautiful”* in being among them.

Six of us set out from Molivos at 7:30 on the 14th to meet in the square of Petra to ascend to the church. Petra was already full of so many pilgrims that police had forbidden traffic in the main square and were directing cars into a nearly full parking lot in a field. When we got out of the car, the two others who came with me and I had a perfect view of the steady stream of pilgrims climbing the rock, which was already lit up in the twilight.

When we found the others, I said that we would climb to the church on the top of the rock where we would light candles and approach the icon of the Panagia to silently pray or express a wish for the coming year. The others followed me through the square into the winding streets lined with stalls and gypsy beggars to the bottom of the rock. While we waited for our turn, we saw the sign advising pilgrims of proper dress (read carefully).

Continue reading “Coming Together to Honor the Mother by Carol P. Christ”

Hidden Meanings in the Rituals of the Assumption by Carol P. Christ

“[T]he Old European sacred images and symbols were never totally uprooted; these persistent features in human history were too deeply implanted in the psyche. They could have disappeared only with the total extermination of the female population.” Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess, 318.

August 15 is known to Greek Christians as the date of the Koimisi, “Falling Asleep” or Dormition of the Panagia, She Who Is All Holy. December 25 is a minor holiday in the Orthodox tradition, while Easter and August 15 are major festivals. The mysteries of Easter and August 15 concern the relation of life and death. In Orthodox theology, both Easter and August 15 teach that death is overcome: Jesus dies and is resurrected; Mary falls asleep and is assumed into heaven. These mysteries contain the promise that death is not the final end of human life. Yet this may not be the meaning of the rituals for many of those who participate in them.

In Christus Victor, Gustaf Aulen argued that Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic and Protestant) traditions understood salvation differently. The Western Church focuses on salvation from sin, while the Eastern Church focuses on transcending death. This contrast is not absolute, as for the Western Church sin is the cause of death and when sin is overcome, immortal life is restored. While Orthodoxy has strong ascetic and monastic traditions, it does not teach ordinary Christians to focus on sexual purity and impurity as Western traditions have done. Nor is there a strong emphasis on transforming collective sin in movements for social justice. Significantly, though Roman Catholics and others consistently refer to the “Virgin Mary,” Orthodox Christians prefer “Panagia,” She Who Is All Holy.

In Greece the ordinary rhythms of life are disrupted at Easter and in August. During lent, many women (and some men) fast, while in August women named Mary and Panagiota–as well as others who wish to honor or petition the Panagia–wear black for two weeks.

Throughout the first 2 weeks of August, Greek Christians focus on the death of the Panagia. According to theology, her Son appears after her death and “assumes” her into heaven. The Orthodox icon depicts Mary surrounded by the Apostles, while Jesus holds the assumed body of Mary depicted as an infant wrapped in swadling clothes.

When she first saw this icon, my friend Naomi Goldenberg commented that it is an example of the widespread attempt on the part of men to appropriate the power to give birth. The icon reverses the symbolism of the nativity where the baby wrapped in swadling clothes is held in the hands of his mother. Christian baptism described as re-birth through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is another version of “male birth.” Continue reading “Hidden Meanings in the Rituals of the Assumption by Carol P. Christ”