I had a startling experience in church recently. It was Father’s Day, and the pastor was talking about how “God is our heavenly Father.” For the first time in 17 years, that idea held some appeal to me. But no… Read More ›
God-talk
On Snakes by Ivy Helman
In the ancient world, snakes represented fertility, creativity, rebirth, wisdom and, even, death. They were often closely connected to female goddesses, priestesses and powerful human females who were the embodiment of such powers. For example, there is the Minoan goddess/priestess… Read More ›
B’tzelem Elohim and Embodiment by Ivy Helman
It is quite common, I think, for Jewish feminists to gravitate to the first creation story of Genesis/Bereshit as an example of human equality but struggle to claim this same passage as an example of the goodness of embodiment. Genesis/Bereshit… Read More ›
Settling into God during the Demise of Gender Neutral Language by Dirk von der Horst
As my life ambles along, some things change, some things are surprisingly persistent. As a young person, the last thing I would have predicted about my future would have been developing even a mild interest in sports, but now I… Read More ›
ALTERNATIVE IMAGES OF GOD BY CAROL CHRIST AND EMMA TROUT
Today I am publishing an early work on female language for God that I wrote with Emma Trout at the first Conference of Women Theologians in 1971. Highly contested at the conference, this essay is a foreshadowing of my subsequent… Read More ›
Book review: Merlin Stone Remembered: Her Life and Works by Barbara Ardinger
When Merlin Stone’s book, When God Was a Woman, was published in 1976, it was a lightning bolt of feminist scholarship that told the world that before there was a Judeo-Christian god there were goddesses, and before there were goddesses, there… Read More ›
Does God have Cleavage? The Avengers and Why the Sheroe We Need is Goddess by Trista Hendren
Most days I am not certain that anyone really cares about what happens to girls. As a mother of a soon-9-year-old daughter, this burns me. Because I also have a 12-year-old son, I often end up watching movies I wouldn’t… Read More ›
What “I Believe” and Found Worth Sharing by Xochitl Alvizo
The end of my Ph.D. program is in sight. Originally, in 2004, I came to Boston University School of Theology (BU STH) from Los Angeles for a two-year masters program. Along the way I switched to a three-year masters program,… Read More ›
Popeye as Deity by Barbara Ardinger
If you’ve read any of my posts here (or my books), you know that I’m not a friend of the fellow I call the standard-brand god. This is the “man upstairs” who goes by such names (in alphabetical order) as… Read More ›
What’s God Got To Do With It? by Esther Nelson
We’re no longer shocked, albeit still horrified and sickened, by the images of violence that come at us daily from all around the globe. I’ve come to expect it. Beheadings. Burning people in cages. Shootings–“execution-style.” Bombings of all kinds–including drones… Read More ›
Can You Kill the Spirit? What Happened to Female Imagery for God in Christian Worship? by Carol P. Christ
When I first began to think about female language and images for God I imagined that changing God-He to God-She and speaking of God as Mother some of the time would be a widespread practice in churches and synagogues by… Read More ›
Marion Woodman and Mary Daly – Soul Sisters? by Susan Gifford
Conscious Femininity was the first book by Marion Woodman that I read August 2010; it is a collection of interviews with Woodman from 1985 to 1992. Marion Woodman was eye-opening to me – I started seeing a connection between the… Read More ›
Revolution Through Rituals by Jann Aldredge-Clanton
A revolution is happening through Divine Feminine rituals! More and more faith communities are reclaiming the power of the Divine Feminine in sacred rituals. Rituals move feminist theory and theology/thealogy from the head to the heart. Words and visual symbols… Read More ›
The God of Love by amina wadud
I admit I had the fortune of loving my father, the late Reverend Teasley, and feeling loved by him. I also date my fascination with the divine back to my father. There are many ways this fascination could have taken… Read More ›
Whose God is it, Anyway? by Esther Nelson
I do not attend church (or any “house of worship”) regularly anymore. However, one hot, humid, Sunday morning this past August, I wended my way to St. Mark’s Episcopal to hear my friend, Dale, preach. He does “pulpit supply” there… Read More ›
Facing Depression by Carol P. Christ
The suicide death of Robin Williams prompted me to reflect again on my own experience with depression and to share my story in the hope that it can help others. In my twenties, thirties, and forties, I suffered severe intermittent… Read More ›
Exhaustion and Inspiration by Ivy Helman
Change takes time. If society takes years to change, religious institutions seem to take decades, maybe centuries. That ubiquitous intersection of religion and feminism seems neck high in mud and muck. Some religious institutions claim divine inspiration for keeping their… Read More ›
The Mosaic Language of God by Andreea Nica
Throughout my “bible-thumping, smitten with God” years, I scribbled countless thoughts and prayers in four devotional journals. Recently I came across these journals, wiping away the years of dust accumulated. As I have been detaching from the Pentecostal god, it… Read More ›
Women at the Secular Student Alliance Conference by Kile Jones
A few days ago I had the pleasure of giving a talk at the Secular Student Alliance Conference on how non-believing persons can work with Churches. Amidst the chaos of conferences–managing your time, deciding which talks to attend, and making… Read More ›
TWO MEANINGS OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM by Carol P. Christ
“The error of anthropomorphism” is defined as the fallacy of attributing human or human-like qualities to divinity. Recent conversations with friends have provoked me to ask in what sense anthropomorphism is an error. The Greek philosophers may have been the… Read More ›
Gendered Imagery of God (Part 2) by Elise M. Edwards
In my previous post, I shared some of the ways in which I’ve been wrestling with gendered imagery for God, the first person of the Christian Trinity often referred to as God the Father. In this entry, I’d like to… Read More ›
Gendered Imagery of God (Part 1) by Elise M. Edwards
I have been doing a lot of thinking about gendered imagery and language for God over the past few months. Honestly, a lot of this reflection was provoked by hostile comments I got from my college students at the end… Read More ›
“Immanent Inclusive Monotheism” with a Multiplicity of Symbols Affirming All the Diversity and Difference in the World by Carol P. Christ
In recent years monotheism has been attacked as a “totalizing discourse” that justifies the domination of others in the name of a universal truth. In addition, from the Bible to the present day some have used their own definitions of… Read More ›
To Do Justice for Jordan Davis by Kelly Brown Douglas
Theology is faith seeking understanding. Faith is that ineffable, intangible spiritual apparatus that keeps us in relationship to a transcendent, infinite god. It is, for Christians, the core of their relationship with the god of Jesus Christ. Yet, as Karen… Read More ›
The Great Commandment for Women: Love and Care for Yourself as You Love and Care for Others by Carol P. Christ
A rabbi known as Jesus of Nazareth taught that you should “love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.” Charles Hartshorne, philosopher of relationship and a twentieth century advocate of the “two great commandments,” added that it should… Read More ›
How is it That God Speaks? by Kelly Brown Douglas
A few weeks ago, after delivering a sermon, a young woman approached me and said she had a question about my sermon. I of course braced myself for the question as I ran my sermon back over in my head… Read More ›
Yes, You’re a Homophobe by John Erickson
Jesus loved sinners and Jesus would rather be dancing with me in West Hollywood on a Friday night than lugging through a swamp luring ducks into a trap with a duck caller made by a clan who think that my sexual actions are similar to that of an individual having sex with an animal.
What Does Jesus Have to Do with Whiteness? by Kelly Brown Douglas
It matters that he consistently affirmed, empowered, and befriended those who were the outcast, marginalized, oppressed, and rejected of his day—such as Samaritans and women. A firestorm has been set off recently concerning the self-assured observations by Fox News anchor… Read More ›
How I Loved Myself through Charismatic Worship by Andreea Nica
Breaking up with your first love can be an excruciating process; especially when it happens to be completely entangled with your being. God was my first love and he stayed for a long while. We had many exhilarating times together,… Read More ›
God the Father or Buffy the Vampire Slayer? by Linn Marie Tonstad
In the second season of the television show Buffy, the Vampire Slayer [spoiler alert!], Buffy is faced with an agonizing dilemma. She is condemned to save the world “again.” Buffy’s former lover is the evil Angelus. Angelus – once the… Read More ›
