Carol P. Christ – Page 48 – Feminism and Religion

What is the Cause of Violence? A Response to Karen Armstong by Carol P. Christ

“So, when we in the West talk about religion as the cause of this violence, how much are we letting ourselves off the hook, and using religion as a way to ignore our role in the roots of this violence?” Karen Armstrong, author of Fields of Blood
This statement was made by scholar of religions Karen Armstrong in an interview in Salon magazine in response to characterizations of Islam as a violent religion by Bill Maher and others. Speaking in the context of the rise of anti-Islamist prejudice in Europe, Armstrong said that Maher’s demonization of “the other” was the kind of talk that could lead us back to the concentration camps.

Bill Maher makes blanket statements against religion in general and Islam in particular. Maher clearly does not have a nuanced view of any religion. He is fueling anti-Islamic sentiment when he singles out Islam as a violent religion. If religions are going to be criticized as violent, then we must not limit ourselves to criticizing Islam, but must begin closer to home, by discussing the relation of religion and violence in the Bible, in Christianity, and in Judaism. My rule of thumb is always to begin with Christianity because it is the hegemonic religion of western cultures. Continue reading “What is the Cause of Violence? A Response to Karen Armstong by Carol P. Christ”

The Spirit of Capitalism vs. the Spirit of Traditional Rural Life by Carol P. Christ

In this picture, Marika from Skoteino Crete toasts our group and downs a glass of her homemade raki. Marika, who is best friends with Christina who makes lunch for us, has just returned from her home next door with her gift of a glass of raki for each of us.

Marika, who has little, is eager to give to us. Hers is but one of many gifts from the heart we receive on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Why is it that we who have so much do not give as spontaneously?

One answer is that capitalist individualism has taught us to count our worth by how much we have and to fear for the day when we will have nothing.

These words may be a cliché, but they hold a profound truth nonetheless.

Heide Goettner-Abendroth tells us that in matriarchal societies with small-scale sustainable agricultural economies, people did not hoard or save for a rainy day. With the labors of their bodies and minds, they took only what they needed from the land. When there was a surplus, they gave parties, sharing what they had with others. Even with the coming of patriarchy, ancient matriarchal customs of generosity survived among rural farmers. Continue reading “The Spirit of Capitalism vs. the Spirit of Traditional Rural Life by Carol P. Christ”

A Message from the Ancestors by Carol P. Christ

In recent weeks and even months I have not been my usual cheerful self. After returning from sharing companionship and spiritual vision with a group of wonderful women on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, I have been feeling lonely. This feeling came to a head on December 7 when it was cold and grey here in Lesbos, as had it been for weeks.

Feeling particularly sad that morning, I realized that December 7 was my mother’s Yahrzeit, the twenty-third anniversary of her death. The fact that I must use a Yiddish word to speak of this important day reflects the fact that we do not have a word (let alone a ritual) in the English language, in our versions of the Christian tradition, or in Goddess feminism to recognize the day a loved one died. As we Americans all know, we are supposed to get on with it and not dwell on death and dying.

A friend called that day to let me know that she was planning to visit me for few days during the holiday season, adding that she was looking forward to enjoying my tree and holiday decorations. “Oh,” I said, “my (live) Christmas tree is so heavy and hard to get into the house, I was thinking of not even bringing it in this year.”

That afternoon, I girded my loins and knocked on a neighbor’s door to ask for help. Of course one of the reasons that I was feeling sad is that as I live alone, I have no one to help me move a heavy tree. The neighbor’s shy son was more than willing to help, and we were lucky that we got the tree in a day before the pounding rains that would have doubled the weight of the soil in its pot.

As I decorated my tree over the next two days, memories of my mother flooded into my mind. How I miss my mommy. “Do you still think of your mother?” I asked an older friend shortly after my mother died. “Yes,” she replied, “Every day.” Me too, I thought, as I unwrapped the Christmas tree skirt, one of the last gifts Mom had given to me, and the dolls and pink doggie she had saved for me.

The ritual of decorating my tree for Christmas is my memorial to my mother’s love. How much fun we had choosing what was usually a scrawny tree—the largest we could afford, but not the smaller prettier one my mother would have preferred. How I remember baking and decorating cookie cutter cookies—eating the raw dough, licking the sugar icing from our fingers, and always putting what Mom said were too many red hots and silver dots onto the cookies.

My mother’s memories of Christmas were not all happy. But my Mom tried her best not to dwell on sadness. Shortly before she died, I found my mother baking cookies for a man who also had cancer. “I was feeling sorry for myself,” she said, “so I decided to do something for someone else.” I could hear my mother’s mother speaking through her in that moment.

My grandmother’s attitude, which was Midwestern, Christian, and deeply female, was nearly lost to me, for I come from the generation that discovered therapy. In the process of dealing with our feelings, we criticized our ancestors for not doing the same. As Christmas approaches this year, I wonder: were my Mom and my Grammy right? Is there a profound truth in their knowledge, transmitted through the generations, that the best way to deal with one’s own sorrows is to do something for others?

***

If so, then I guess it is time to plan my winter solstice birthday party (which I was also thinking of cancelling this year)–pick up the phone and start inviting friends over to enjoy my home, my tree, and my food, the gift of life shared with others.

Happy Winter Solstice to all and to all a good night!

***

Carol leads the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete (facebook and twitter) spring and fall–early bird discount available now on the 2015 tours. Carol can be heard in interviews on Voices of the Sacred Feminine, Goddess Alive Radio, and Voices of Women. Her books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and with Judith Plaskow, the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions and the forthcoming Turning to the World: Goddess and God in Our Time. Photo of Carol by Michael Bakas.

The Cop on the Beat is Not Ice-T, the Prosecutor Is Not Sam Waterston, and Mariska Hargitay and S. Epatha Merkerson Are Not in Charge, by Carol P. Christ

I have watched every episode of Law and Order and Law and Order SVU, and most of them more than once. Though there is police violence on these programs, it is usually investigated, and viewers are given the sense that it is not OK. Not living in black America or even in the United States, I guess I was under the illusion that police forces are no longer primarily white and male, that police reforms advocated decades ago have had some effect, and that cops cannot get away with murder.

This despite the fact that I knew that inmates in US prisons are far more likely to be black than their numbers in the population warrant, and that I knew that stop and frisk and arresting black men for petty crimes are ordinary police policies.

For readers who don’t watch MSNBC as avidly as I do, stop and frisk, now banned in New York City, is the policy of searching (primarily) young black men hanging around on street corners to see if they have illegal drugs or weapons on their persons. This policy can lead to the incarceration of young black men for having one or two marijuana cigarettes intended for personal use in their pockets. Stop and frisk is not a policy on college campuses, where police are just as likely to find young white men and women in possession of illegal drugs. Why? Because college authorities and parents of white college students simply would not allow it. Continue reading “The Cop on the Beat is Not Ice-T, the Prosecutor Is Not Sam Waterston, and Mariska Hargitay and S. Epatha Merkerson Are Not in Charge, by Carol P. Christ”

An Archaic Trinity of Goddesses? Not Necessarily. by Barbara Ardinger

Barbara Ardinger In her comment following my last post which was about mythology, my friend, Carol Christ, expands on my paragraph about how the so-called “ancient triple goddess” was really invented in 1948 by Robert Graves in his book, The White Goddess. (Thanks, Carol.)

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when the Goddess movement was just getting up on its feet and our ovular books were being published, the idea arose that if “they” have a holy trinity, “we” have one, too. And ours is older and holier. We see it in the three phases of the moon, new (Virgin), full (Mother), and dark (Crone). Here’s a tiny sample of these books that changed the lives of so many women and men:

Woman’s Mysteries Ancient and Modern by M. Esther Harding (1971, but first published in 1933)
The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (1974) by Marija Gimbutas
When God Was a Woman (1976) by Merlin Stone
Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths (1978) by Charlene Spretnak
The first edition of The Spiral Dance (1979) by Starhawk
The Chalice and the Blade (1987) by Riane Eisler
Laughter of Aphrodite (1987) by Carol P. Christ
The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries (1989) by Z. Budapest
The Reflowering of the Goddess (1990) by Gloria Feman Orenstein
Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book (1990) by Miriam Robbins Dexter

Triple goddess? ’Tain’t so. Our beloved triple goddess is one of our foundational myths. It’s nice and it’s perhaps inspiring, but it’s only a myth. Anyone who looks at a calendar or almanac—or up into the sky every night for a month—can easily see that the moon doesn’t have three phases. It has four: waxing, full, waning, and dark. And since the late 20^th century, women have lived long enough to go through more than three stages of life. Continue reading “An Archaic Trinity of Goddesses? Not Necessarily. by Barbara Ardinger”

Dance of the Bees: Reading the Language of the Goddess by Carol P. Christ

The image from an ancient Cretan bowl (c.1700 BCE) from the Sacred Center of Phaistos pictured here has often been interpreted as an early depiction of Persephone’s descent or rising. But are clues from later Greek mythology pointing in the right direction in this case?

Recently, my colleague Mika Scott posted the Phaistos bowl image on our Goddess Pilgrimage Facebook site in conjunction with the bee pendant from Mallia. This juxtaposition led me to think again about the importance of bees and pollination in agricultural societies and to offer an alternative reading of the symbolism on the bowl. Continue reading “Dance of the Bees: Reading the Language of the Goddess by Carol P. Christ”

Has the Phaistos Disk Been Cracked? by Carol P. Christ

Recent headlines in the international press announced that the enigmatic language of the ancient Cretan “Phaistos Disk” has been translated—in part—by the Welch-Cretan scholar Gareth Owens. Owens states that the Phaistos Disk records an ancient hymn to a Mother Goddess. More specifically he claims that one side is dedicated to a Pregnant Goddess and the other to a Birth-Giving Goddess.

All of this is very exciting, but is he right? Continue reading “Has the Phaistos Disk Been Cracked? by Carol P. Christ”

Death with Dignity by Carol P. Christ

In the summer of 1960 when I was 14 years old my much loved grandmother Mae Inglis Christ died of a cancer that affected her brain. The last time I saw my Nannie was shortly after her diagnosis in the early spring. While we were visiting, the cancer affected her back, and she took to her bed. In those days children were not allowed in hospitals. I never saw my grandmother alive again, but my mother told us that our grandmother was hooked up to tubes much longer than she should have been. Mother vowed, “This will never happen to me.” I was driven to the funeral in a limousine with my grandmother’s girlfriends. They spoke about my grandmother’s last days, describing how (because her mind was affected by cancer) my little grandmother had screamed and screamed at them for not visiting–even though they were with her every day. They found my grandmother’s outbursts so traumatic that they said they were relieved to see her looking so peaceful in her coffin. Continue reading “Death with Dignity by Carol P. Christ”

The Ancestors Live in Us by Carol P. Christ

On the recent Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete women had the option of riding up a winding road on a mountainside in the back of a farm truck singing “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” or could choose to go with the guard in his closed automobile.

That evening one of the older women who had chosen to ride in the car said, “I saw how much fun you were all having, but I have done that before. This time I was happy to let the rest of you do it.”

“That’s exactly how I feel about death,” I responded. “Some people want to live on after death, but I don’t. I am happy to let others do it. The only thing that would upset me would be if life did not go on after me.” Continue reading “The Ancestors Live in Us by Carol P. Christ”

Anne Hutchinson, America’s First Feminist Theologian: 1591-1643 by Carol P. Christ

“She had rather been a husband than a wife; and a preacher than a hearer; and a magistrate than a subject.” Reverend Hugh Peter of Salem

Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy in 1637 and excommunicated from the Puritan Church of Boston in 1638. Her banishment came just three years after she, her husband, and eleven living children arrived in America seeking the freedom to practice their religion as they saw fit. Governor Michael Dukakis pardoned her in 1987. Historian Howard Zinn called her a true American hero.

I managed to get through graduate school in Religious Studies without ever having studied the theology of Anne Hutchinson,* though I vaguely remember references (probably with smirks of disapproval) to the “Antinomian Controversy” which is associated with her name. I recall Anne Hutchinson’s name because of an article published in Feminist Studies in the 1970s, when I had just begun to study women and religion. However it was not until recently that I learned of her place in history through reading American Jezebel by Eve LaPlante.

Hutchinson was accused of theological errors in her trials. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination figured heavily in the accusations. But the real issue at stake was that Anne dared to follow her own inner knowing, to articulate it theologically, and to teach her views against the grain of the Puritan authorities in Boston. Continue reading “Anne Hutchinson, America’s First Feminist Theologian: 1591-1643 by Carol P. Christ”