Feminism and Religion

A Visionary History of Women

Part One: Hildegard’s Holy Wisdom

I’m on a mission to write women back into history, because, to a large extent, women have been written out of history. Their lives and deeds have become lost to us. To uncover their buried stories, we must act as detectives, studying the sparse clues that have been handed down to us. We must learn to read between the lines and fill in the blanks. My writer’s journey is about reclaiming the lost heroines of history. My quest is to give voice to the ancestral memory of that lost motherline.

My novels address spiritual themes. As a spiritual person, I’m very interested in women’s experience of the sacred. As well as being written out of history, we women, for the past five-thousand years of patriarchy, have been side-lined and marginalized by every established religion in the world. Even in alternative spiritual movements, male teachers and leaders have abused their authority over their female students and followers.

But in every age, there have been women who have heroically rebelled against this patriarchal stranglehold to claim their authentic spiritual experience. Often it has involved looking within rather than without for spiritual guidance.

One of these women was Hildegard of Bingen, the heroine of my novel Illuminations.
Born in the lush green Rhineland in present day Germany, Hildegard (who lived from 1098–1179) was a Benedictine abbess and one of the most accomplished people of her time. She founded two monastic communities for women, composed an entire corpus of sacred music, and wrote nine books on subjects as diverse as theology, cosmology, botany, medicine, linguistics, and human sexuality, an intellectual outpouring that was unprecedented for a 12th-century woman. Her prophecies earned her the title Sybil of the Rhine.

Hildegard’s vision of Sapientia, Divine Wisdom.

An outspoken critic of Church corruption, she courted controversy. Though women were forbidden to preach, Hildegard embarked on four preaching tours in which she delivered apocalyptic sermons warning her male superiors in the Church that they must reform their evil ways or suffer divine wrath. But she had to pay the price for being so outspoken. Late in her life, she and her nuns were the subject of an interdict (a collective excommunication) that was lifted only a few months before her death. Hildegard nearly died an outcast, her fate hauntingly similar to that of many canceled women in our contemporary cancel culture.

Hildegard’s theology of the Feminine Divine has made her a pivotal figure in feminist spirituality.

A key concept in her philosophy is Viriditas, or greening power, her revelation of the animating life force manifest in the natural world that infuses all creation with moisture and vitality. To her, the divine was manifest in every leaf and blade of grass. Just as a ray of sunlight is the sun, Hildegard believed that a flower or a stone was God, though not the whole of God. Creation revealed the face of the invisible creator. Hildegard celebrated the sacred in nature, something highly relevant for us in this age of climate change and the destruction of natural habitats.

I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon and stars . . . . I awaken everything to life.
Hildegard von Bingen, Liber Divinorum (Book of Divine Works)

Hildegard’s philosophy of Viriditas went hand in hand with her celebration of the Feminine Divine. Although the established Church of her day could not have been more male-dominated, Hildegard called God Mother, and said that she could only bear to look upon divinity in her visions if God appeared to her in feminine form. Her visions revealed God as a cosmic egg, nurturing all of life like a womb. Masculine imagery of the creator tends to focus on God’s transcendence, but Hildegard’s revelations of the Feminine Divine celebrated immanence, of God being present in all things, in every aspect of this greening, burgeoning, blessed world.

According to Barbara Newman’s book Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine, Hildegard’s Sapientia, or Divine Wisdom, creates the cosmos by existing within it.

O power of wisdom!
You encompassed the cosmos,
Encircling and embracing all in one living orbit
With your three wings:
One soars on high,
One distills the earth’s essence,
And the third hovers everywhere.
Hildegard von Bingen, O virtus sapientiae

This might be read as an ecstatic hymn to Sophia, the great Cosmic Mother.

Mary Sharratt is committed to telling women’s stories. Please check out her acclaimed novel Illuminations, drawn from the dramatic life of Hildegard von Bingen, and her new novel Revelations, about the mystical pilgrim Margery Kempe and her friendship with Julian of Norwich. Visit her website .

When Rabbis Abuse: Power, Gender, and Status in the Dynamics of Sexual Abuse in Jewish Culture, Part 2 by Dr. Elana Sztokman

Moderator’s note: This is a book excerpt in 2 parts. Part 1 was posted yesterday. When Rabbis Abuse will be published on June 14th, information on ordering below.

Grooming tactics: Targeting the victim

Although there are many ways to target a victim, there is a particular type of grooming that is available to rabbinic figures and other clergy, which comes in the form of pastoral care. Many stories involve glaring examples of this—funeral, bat mitzvah class, depression, or other moments of emotional vulnerability. Often the rabbi-abuser will target people who are going through a divorce—or even worse, recovering from sexual abuse. …

Brenda, for example, says that the rabbi targeted her when she was at a very stressful time in her life and having what she described as “emotional issues”:

I was making my son’s bar mitzvah, and it was a lot of work. I was having some emotional issues because I’m more observant than my family and most of my family is pretty secular and it’s always challenging to get my family to be engaged, and I was feeling stressed and hurt because a lot of my relatives had decided not to come.

When Rabbis Abuse: Power, Gender, and Status in the Dynamics of Sexual Abuse in Jewish Culture, Part 1 by By Dr. Elana Sztokman

Moderator’s note: This is a book excerpt in 2 parts. Part 2 tomorrow. When Rabbis Abuse will be published on June 14th, information on ordering below.

When I started this research in 2015, I was not expecting rabbis to be the headliners. I was looking at abuse in general in our community. When I began conducting interviews on this topic, I was startled to discover how many of the abusers described by interviewees were rabbis.

Discovering rabbis

Although anthropology does not claim to offer statistical evidence or representative sampling, and although I efforted to maintain listening neutrality and non-judgment, I was nonetheless swept away by hearing so many of these accounts of rabbis who sexually abuse. The title of this book is a result of an incomprehensible number of interviewees in which the abuser was a rabbi. I decided to examine the profile of the rabbi-abuser more carefully to understand what this means for our culture and our community, and to use those insights to analyze other cases of high-profile abuse using those paradigms of power in our culture….

Crowning the Mother Tree by Sara Wright

Crown the trees

that feed

the bees,

one more

keystone species.

Crown the trees

that purify

poisoned air,

ground, water,

create clouds

for rain,

return fish

to streams…

Crown trees

that shelter birds

as they turn

light to sugar

releasing oxygen

so that we may

breathe

Abundant Greening.

During this month

of her Crowning

let us gather round

The Mother Tree

to accept communion.

at gnarled old feet.

The Legacy of Carol P. Christ: GOD AND WOMAN AT YALE*

This was originally posted on June 25, 2012

As a graduate student, I was told in every way possible that I could not be a woman and a theologian.

When I was studying for my Ph.D. at Yale in theology in the late 1960s and early 1970s, my skirts were short as was the fashion of the day. The male faculty and students and their wives dressed in ways that would not call attention to themselves or their sexuality. I was also over 6’ tall. When I walked into a room, I was consciously and unconsciously perceived as a threat to a world which these men had simply assumed was “theirs.” Their response was to categorize me as a sexual being (I was once introduced as “our department bunny”) and to erase my mind. I was to discover that the male graduate students were making bets in the dining hall about “where she will sit today.” One of my friends frequently fell down and feigned to “worship” me when I passed him in the hallways. I had never received so much attention from men before and it was flattering.

From the Archives: The Eldest, Truest Olympians

This was originally posted on June 7, 2020

Scene: A comfy lecture hall in the temple on the summit of Mount Olympus. The feminist historians have taken their seats. The eldest Olympians rise to speak. Let us attend to their words.

I am Hera, Queen of All, Daughter of Gaia, Daughter of the Great Mother, whose body is our holy earth, whose bodily fluids are our springs and oceans, whose mind is our precious air and holy fire. I am Mother of the Fates, Sister of Hestia, protector of homes, and sister of Memory, whose daughters are the Muses, sponsors of our culture. I live in contentment with my wife, Zeusina.

From the Archives: Artio, Celtic Goddess of Wild Life, Transformation and Abundance by Judith Shaw

This blog was originally posted August 26, 2015. You can read the original comments here.

Artio, Celtic Goddess of Wild Life, Transformation, and Abundance, is one of the more obscure goddesses in the Celtic pantheon. She is often shown with baskets of plenty and surrounded by animals. Artio is frequently depicted as a bear. Her name comes from the old Celtic word for bear, arth(e), which the Romans Latinized to artos.

Artio arrived in western Europe with the Helvetii a Celtic tribe who migrated to Switzerland around 450 BC. They worshiped Her as the “She-Bear”.

But Her origins could be even older than that. Some feel that the bear is the oldest European deity as bones and skulls of bears have been found lovingly arranged on niches found in caves across Europe. In 1840 in Ireland, during the restoration of Armagh Cathedral, ancient, small stone carvings of bears were found.

“For I know the plans I have for you:” The coming out story of a queer Catholic raised in the Purity Culture Movement part 2 by Emma Cieslik

You can read part 1 here.

Growing up, I sat through lessons about how my body was inherently evil, that my thoughts and attractions were sinful and unhealthy. I grew up in the age of the Purity Culture Movement, the height of purity culture dated between the 1990s and early 2000s, amid the flush of “modest is hottest” theologies. I grew up surrounded by language codified around victim-blaming, slut-shaming and heteronormativity. I had attended retreats where we were told to pray for our future husbands, where we placed white roses on the altar as an homage to our purity in veneration of the Virgin Mary. I did not wear a purity ring or sign a purity pledge, but the expectations placed on me reinforced the ideas embedded in these objects none the less. I learned over and over to keep my candle unlit until marriage.

I had repressed my sexuality so far that it felt non-existent. I had shamed and punished myself for years whenever I felt any sexual attraction. If I felt ashamed of my attraction to men, my response to my feelings towards women was far worse, avoiding the eyeline of Victoria Secret models and magazine covers. I didn’t know who to talk to about these feelings—I was conditioned that my thoughts about men were sinful but forgivable. Everyone struggles with attraction prior to marriage. But who could I ask or talk to about my attraction to women? I was worried that what I told a priest in confession would somehow make its way back to my parents or friends. Despite their unconditional love, I worried that this would be the line in the sand, a sin so ugly and unnatural that I wouldn’t be welcome back in our Church.

“For I know the plans I have for you:” The coming out story of a queer Catholic raised in the Purity Culture Movement part 1 by Emma Cieslik

It was my last interview for the Muncie LGBTQ+ History Project. I was a senior in college, and I was about to complete my tenth interview focused on the intersections of Christian religion and queer identity. I was slated to conduct an oral history interview with Rachel Replogle, a nonbinary lesbian who runs Indiana’s only queer-affirming wedding videography business. I had expected to explore elements of her work in churches and religious spaces—and I had encountered experiences of trauma, both familial and religious, through the project—but Replogle’s story touched a nerve about my own experiences and made my question the project’s impact on the people conducting it.

Since 2018, the Muncie LGBTQ+ History Project has been collecting the stories of queer people who grew up in and around Muncie. I worked with the project for over a year as a research associate, conducting ten long-form oral history interviews with members of the Muncie LGBTQ+ community about their experiences growing up in Muncie, a small town in East-Central Indiana in the heart of the Rust Belt. Spearheaded by Dr. Emily Johnson [1] the project seeks to uplift and celebrate queer experience in the Midwest. I entered the project with an interest in how queer individuals engage with religious identity, especially in spaces that deny their personhood and/or invalidate their relationships.

I’m Not “Fit” to Judge Another Woman’s “Fit”ness by Liz Cooledge Jenkins

In recent conversations around abortion rights—spurred by a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade—everyone has opinions. The financially comfortable, often-white, often-evangelical women in my circles have opinions. And these opinions often involve the lives and choices of materially poor women and women of color.

In her recent book The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism, Rutgers University professor Kyla Schuller profiles seven pairs of feminist activists over the last two hundred years. Each pair includes one woman who operated from a framework of white feminism—a framework that, according to Schuller, “consistently…wins more rights and opportunities for white women through further dispossessing the most marginalized.” And each pair includes a woman who embodied intersectional feminism—a feminism that “expose[s] sexism to be a powerful structure of systemic inequality and attempt[s] to untangle its deep threads with other forms of domination, while also building new practices of care, coalition, faith, and solidarity.”^[1] This is not just history but a live tension in the present day.