Just over a month ago and shortly before Greece went into Coronavirus lockdown, I signed the contract on my new apartment in Crete (after waiting 6 months for the owner to submit his paperwork). Though I did not realize it… Read More ›
feminism and religion
Dignity of Women Across the World’s Wisdom: Parliament of World Religions Webinar by Carol P. Christ
I have been asked to post my contribution to the Parliament of World Religions Webinar: Dignity of Women Across World’s Wisdom. I am participating in this discussion as a representative of women who are on a Goddess path. I do… Read More ›
Women’s Circles Need Well-Established Structures to Ensure that Everyone’s Voice Is Heard by Carol P. Christ
In a recent blog on Feminism and Religion, “Insights on Sisterhood,” Eirini Delaki opened a dialogue about problems that arise in women’s circles. According to her, many of us are reacting against the poisonous pedagogy of control which is all… Read More ›
Insights on Sisterhood: An Offering to the Great Goddess by Eirini Delaki
I have been facilitating women’s circles in Europe since 2006. This has involved years of deep, challenging, thankful, and fun teaching and learning. During that time, I have collaborated with different facilitators in the fields of art and spirituality and… Read More ›
Grief, Disappointment, and the Big Comforting White Guy Who Can Make It All Right by Carol P. Christ
As the results from America’s Super Tuesday election primaries came in, I found myself feeling disoriented. I could not focus on any task and found myself obsessively reading the news and checking my Facebook timeline. Many of my friends who… Read More ›
“And a Rich Old White Man Shall Lead Them”? by Carol P. Christ
“And a rich old white man shall lead them.” Is this saying found in the Bible or any other collection of sacred texts that those committed to social justice admire? If not, then why are liberal pundits (and even some… Read More ›
Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchies, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies. They are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, mothering. This holds for everybody: for mothers… Read More ›
I Hope “This Changes Everything” by Elise M. Edwards
Last week, I attended a film festival in Waco, Texas that showed the 2019 documentary This Changes Everything. Spending Friday evening at a film festival seemed like an enjoyable and appropriate way to kick off a weekend that would culminate… Read More ›
A Lonely Mystic by Molly Remer
I want to be a lonely mystic dwelling in devotion, constantly dialoging with divinity, drenched in wonder, and doused with delight in knowing my place in the family of things. I want to weave spells from wind and wildness, soak… Read More ›
I’m Getting Triggered by the Impeachment Trial and I Bet I’m Not Alone by Janet Rudolph
This process is rattling my bones and aching my heart. How often have we seen angry men (and sometimes women) abusing women, abusing the earth, abusing the vulnerable, abusing immigrants, abusing power? And yet the pattern never seems to end…. Read More ›
Do We Have to Hate Our Mothers? No, We Do Not! by Carol P. Christ
It is commonly accepted in American culture that children–boys especially–must go through a “phase” where they hate their mothers in order to grow up. We are told that the mother-child bond is so intense as to become suffocating. We are… Read More ›
The Matricide Basic to Patriarchy’s Birth by Carol P. Christ
About 20 years ago I witnessed a performance of the 3 plays of the Oresteia (the Orestes plays) by Aeschylus. I was stunned. Watching them in sequence, I understood that the plays were one of patriarchy’s “just so stories” and… Read More ›
Quaker Ancestor Buys 6 Year-Old Indian Captive by Carol P. Christ
When I wrote about Anne Hutchinson as America’s first feminist theologian a few years ago, I mentioned that I had a Sackett ancestor living in Boston at the time, who might well have been a follower of Hutchinson. That branch… Read More ›
Liminal Space by Carol P. Christ
From the Latin word limen meaning threshold. When I returned to Lesbos in mid-October, I imagined I would be living in my new apartment in Crete for the holidays. In fact, my lawyer and my realtor insisted that I arrange… Read More ›
Old Men Get Away with It: Why? by Carol P. Christ
A few days ago, a friend told me she had just learned that she had a 2x great-aunt who was a beloved and honored single white teacher in the US south in the first half of the twentieth century. The… Read More ›
Rituals of “Re-birth” Are Based in Matricide by Carol P. Christ
The other night, while I was having dinner with two Greek women friends, one of them asked me what I learned studying theology at Yale. I responded that I learned that woman was created second; that she brought sin and… Read More ›
Celibacy Is the Lynch-Pin of Male Dominance according to Matilda Joslyn Gage by Carol P. Christ
Matilda Joslyn Gage was an activist in the nineteenth century struggle for women’s rights equal to Susan B. Anthony, and a writer and theorist equal to Elizabeth Cady Stanton. That she is not remembered is due in large part to… Read More ›
Susan B. Anthony’s Bargain with the Devil by Carol P. Christ
[T]he most grievous wrong ever inflicted on woman has been in the Christian teaching that she was not created equal to man, and the consequent denial of her rightful place in Church and State. –Matilda Joslyn Gage, Woman, Church,… Read More ›
Firebird’s Song by Sara Wright
In response to Carol Christ’s latest post… She came on the wings of the Owl flew out of the crack of our imagining, swooped low over the underground forest hooing, hooing, hooing screeching and clacking – Haunting the night with… Read More ›
Endings, Beginnings, and Dreamings by Carol P. Christ
Fifteen years ago, I bought my dream home in Molivos, Lesbos, one of the most stunning villages in the world. Over the next two years I renovated a listed Neoclassical house that had been neglected for over thirty years, restoring… Read More ›
The Fierce Initiation of Menopause by Mary Sharratt
Modern Western culture despises aging. Aging women are held in particular contempt. Menopause is meant to be something embarrassing and uncomfortable. The pharma industry peddles hormones and other drugs meant to mask our symptoms. Few women see menopause as something… Read More ›
This is for colored girls who are movin to the ends of their own rainbows: Ntozake Shange’s Choreopoem of Spiritual Healing by Carol P. Christ
Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has reopened at the Public Theater in New York City to rave reviews. I first saw for colored girls in 1976 after my friend Carolyn Broadaway, who… Read More ›
FAR Project Intern Applications Due Sept. 15, 2019
It’s about every three years when we at Feminism and Religions put out a solicitation for a new intern to join our team. Back in 2013 we had the great privilege of having Kate Brunner join us. She came on… Read More ›
Harriet Boyd Hawes, Marija Gimbutas, and the Religion of Ancient Crete by Carol P. Christ
One of the projects I am working on these days is an essay on the religion of ancient Crete for a series of books on various aspects of the Minoan site of Gournia. Harriet Boyd excavated the Minoan town of… Read More ›
FAR Project Intern – Application Window Extended to Sept. 15, 2019
It’s about every three years when we at Feminism and Religions put out a solicitation for a new intern to join our team. Back in 2013 we had the great privilege of having Kate Brunner join us. She came on… Read More ›
Finding Missing Pieces of My Ancestral Story: Scotland and Ireland by Carol P. Christ
When I began researching years ago, I knew the names of my grandparents and what country in Europe their ancestors were from, but not much more. I have now traced most of my ancestors back to the Old Country, some… Read More ›
On Believing Things That Are Not True by Carol P. Christ
Anyone who is following American politics these days knows that the American President and his acolytes have little respect for what the rest of us consider to be the truth—or at least the best approximation of the truth that we… Read More ›
Pain and Pausing, by Molly Remer
“I pin my hopes to quiet processes and small circles, in which vital and transforming events take place.” —Rufus Jones Last year in August, I wrote here at FAR about my own pattern of getting sick each July and the… Read More ›
The Devil’s Bargain: “If You Can Convince a White Woman” by Carol P. Christ
This week’s news from America. Where to begin? When will it end? The President of the United States is a racist who incites racist violence. Republicans have been slow to condemn the President and are not likely to pass a… Read More ›
And We Are Singing, Singing for Our Lives! by Carol P. Christ
Last week I wrote about the grief I feel for the state of my nation (the United States) and of the world. A few days later one of my favorite writers, Katha Pollitt, asked why we are not all in… Read More ›
