This was originally posted on Sept. 9, 2011 In my last blog I wrote that the image of God as a dominating other who enforces his will through violence–found in the Bible and in the Christian tradition up to the… Read More ›
God-talk
The Patriarchy of Ki Tisa and a Call to Reimagine Divinity by Ivy Helman.
This week’s Torah portion is Ki Tisa, Exodus 30:11-34:35. Its events revolve around the theme of creation, destruction, and recreation. From a feminist perspective, it is quite clear that this cyclical process is a result of a patriarchal understanding of… Read More ›
Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: Why Don’t Feminists Express Anger At God? by Carol P. Christ
Moderator’s Note: We here at FAR have been so fortunate to work along side Carol Christ for many years. She died from cancer in July, 2021. Her work continues through her non-profit foundation, the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and… Read More ›
Of an Anniversary, a Methodology and the Parshah Yitro by Ivy Helman.
This month’s blog post marks my 10-year anniversary writing for feminismandreligion.com (FAR) and my 122nd post. I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge this milestone and thank the community for both its dialogue with me and support… Read More ›
Ha’azinu and Models of the Divine by Ivy Helman.
This week’s Torah parshah, as you can tell from the title, is Ha’azinu, or Deuteronomy 32:1-52. This is Moses’ final speech to the Israelites before he ascends Mount Nebo to die. It is traditionally associated with Yom Kippur and read… Read More ›
The Messy, Wild Mystery that’s Stronger than Wrong by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
I am an annoying feminist. I annoy pretty much everyone about it, because I’m never NOT applying a feminist lens to every aspect of life: science (looking at you, Larry Summers), politics (Joe Biden is a rapist), art (objectification is… Read More ›
What We Lost When We Became Monotheists by Ivy Helman
The Tanakh, Jewish scriptures, predominately call the deity king and lord and use the masculine pronoun. These images evoke a certain level of power. Just how powerful the deity is in then multiplied when “he” is addressed as “G-d of… Read More ›
Week 4 – Goddess Birthing Liberation: A Feminist Advent Daily Devotional by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
If you have not yet realized that the Christmas story is a story of liberation from oppression, it is time to realize that. I like to dust off the patriarchy and misogyny of scriptural writers to find the beautiful wisdom… Read More ›
The Lady Be With You – A Closer Look at Liturgical Idolatry by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee
Even though I realized at least 17 years ago that it makes no theological sense to limit our symbols of the Divine to male symbols – Lord, God, Father – it took several years for this idea to embed itself… Read More ›
Ariel, just fighting to get above water…by Yara González-Justiniano
I am all for the critical deconstruction of Disney Princesses, especially since now I see more of a commercial push for them as a collection than when I was growing up in the late 80’s. However, I too had a… Read More ›
Who is God? by Gina Messina
I often say I am a theologian who is uncomfortable with prayer and does not have a relationship with God. What I mean is that I am still trying to figure out how I understand the divine; conventional prayers feel… Read More ›
Mary Daly and Simone de Beauvoir: Sister Diagnosticians by Xochitl Alvizo
Mary Daly still causes me awe. I think about the way she was so keenly able to diagnose the Catholic Church’s collusion in creating, sustaining, the oppressive structures that directly impact women (and men, as she always affirmed). Mary Daly… Read More ›
Challenging Christian Feminists to Re-Imagine the Goddess by Carol P. Christ
From the 1993 Re-Imagining Conference: Our mother Sophia, we are women in your image: With the hot blood of our wombs we give form to new life. With the courage of our convictions we pour out our life blood for… Read More ›
My Church Won’t Let Me Call the Divine “Father” by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
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 ›
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 ›
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