core doctrines – Feminism and Religion

This was originally posted on April 29, 2013

What factors are most important in the decisions of spiritual feminists to leave or to stay affiliated with traditional religions? My friend Jewish feminist theologian Judith Plaskow and I discuss these questions in our forthcoming book, Goddess and God in the World. In this excerpt I speak to Judith about our different choices.

For me no longer identifying with Christian tradition had a great deal to do with belief. At some point I came to the conclusion that I did not believe in Christianity’s “core doctrines” of Trinity, incarnation, and salvation through Christ. Yet these doctrines are expressed in the Nicene Creed, which is accepted by all Christians. In an interview at a Christian seminary early on in my career, I was asked to define and defend my Christology or theory of salvation through Jesus Christ. My answer that feminism had put a question mark over all doctrines for me was not considered acceptable.

Judaism, on the other hand, is not a religion that stresses belief. Indeed your husband Robert used to love to shock me and other Christians by saying that for a Jew belief in God was not required as long as he or she followed the law. Understanding this difference between Judaism and Christianity helped me to understand that the question of belief in “core doctrines” simply was not as central for you as a Jewish theologian as it would necessarily be for me as a Christian theologian.

However, my reasons for leaving Christianity did not only have to do with my lack of belief in its core doctrines. For me the issue I call the power of “core symbols” was equally if not more important. Once I began to understand the way in which the “core symbols” of the Bible had influenced people and cultures, “I” simply could not ally “myself” with traditions that continued to promote them in liturgies. Continue reading “Deciding To Leave the Religion of Your Birth–Or Not by Carol P. Christ”