The first time I called myself a feminist, I think I was twelve years old. Growing up in a traditional Sicilian Catholic household, misogyny was ever-present. There were clear expectations of me and my brother based on our gender and… Read More ›
feminist theology
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 ›
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 ›
Religions and the Abuse of Women and Girls by Carol P. Christ
At the 2009 meeting of the Parliament of World Religions, former US President Jimmy Carter called the worldwide abuse of girls and women the greatest unaddressed human rights crisis of our time. He stated that this problem is “largely caused… Read More ›
EcoJustice and Our Relationship with God by Gina Messina
This semester I am teaching the course EcoJustice and chose Sallie McFague’s A New Climate for Theology as our foundational text. Something I greatly appreciate about McFague is that she continually calls us to radically redefine our understanding of the Divine… Read More ›
Sophia, Goddess, and Feminist Spirituality: Imagining the Future by Carol P. Christ
Though represented by its detractors as an incursion of paganism into Christianity, and presented as an integrally and intrinsically Christian phenomenon by its supporters, the truth about the Re-Imagining Conference and movement is that it was a product of a… Read More ›
Another One Bites the Dust: Orthodox Priest Defrocked for Declaring God Our Mother and Father Is Love by Carol P. Christ
While trying to find a topic for today’s blog, I came across a facebook post from July 10 by former Orthodox priest Christoforos Schuff in which he announced: After reaffirming my beliefs on gender, sexuality, faith and the Church…and sharing… Read More ›
Beginning with Death on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete by Carol P. Christ
Our first ritual on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete is a death ritual in which we honor the memory of those who have gone before us. Like so many things on the pilgrimage, the death ritual evolved. I did not… Read More ›
“He Owes Us Nothing”: A Very Bad and Very Sad Theology by Carol P. Christ
While waiting to get off a plane last week, I overheard a serious young woman explaining a recent theological insight to her half-asleep and equally young husband. “You see,” she began, “what I just learned is that though He owes… Read More ›
The Social Structures of Religious Identity and the Decision to Leave or Stay by Carol P. Christ
Reflecting on our different choices to “stay or leave” the religions of our upbringings while writing Goddess and God in the World with Judith Plaskow, I was prompted to think again about the social and ethnic structures of denominationalism. One… Read More ›
A Serpentine Path: The Dance Is About To Begin by Carol P. Christ
Entering the archaeological site of Kato Zakros, which includes a Sacred Center and part of a town on a small hill above it, I felt too tired to continue with the others. As we passed a stone bench to the… Read More ›
“And God Said It Was So”: Donald Trump Is the Spittin’ Image of Bad Theology by Carol P. Christ
I try very hard this election season to avoid reading about, watching, or listening to Donald Trump: the man is a liar, a cheat, a bully, a narcissist, a racist, a sexist, the list goes on. Yet even progressive commentators… Read More ›
Can Good Theology Change the World? Part 3: Embodied Theology by Carol P. Christ
In an earlier blog I asserted that one of the hallmarks of good theology is understanding that the only valid source of authority is to be found in individuals and communities that continually interpret and reinterpret texts and traditions in… Read More ›
Can Good Theology Change the World? Part 1 by Carol P. Christ
Theology is often viewed as abstract and removed from the problems of the real world. Yet many of the problems of the real world are caused by bad theologies. If bad theologies shape the world, might the same not be… Read More ›
Thinking about Goddess and God by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ
Talking about our deepest beliefs and feelings can be surprisingly intimate. In our new book Goddess and God in the World, we discuss our different theologies and challenge each other’s views. In the conclusion, we consider whether there is any… Read More ›
Maiden, Mother, Crone: Ancient Tradition or New Creative Synthesis? by Carol P. Christ
The image of the Goddess as Maiden, Mother, Crone is widespread in contemporary Goddess Spirituality. The Triple Goddess honors three ages of women, in contrast to the wider culture that: affirms young women as sex objects while shaming them as… Read More ›
Embodied Theology: Goddess and God in the World by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow
Today is the official release date for Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. It just so happens that August 1 is also a day for celebrating the harvest. An excerpt from the Introduction introduces the embodied… Read More ›
The Emergence of Feminist Theology: Remembering our Roots by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ
This blog is an excerpt from our new book Goddess and God in the World which will be published by Fortress Press in just one week — on August 1. As we look forward to its release, we remember the… Read More ›
Feministing Sarah and Hagar by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente
One story that has marked my life as a feminist is that of Sarah and Hagar. This is a story of pain and enmity among women under patriarchy that despite its age, is still relevant to illustrate the negative effects of the… Read More ›
A Tale of Two Sisters by Carol P. Christ
When I first returned from my ancestor quest in Germany, I fell ill with a bad cold and cough and had little physical energy. For two weeks I lived in the dreamtime, communicating with the ancestors and trying to make… Read More ›
Islamic Feminism and Heterosexual Dogma by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente
Reza Aslan says in his book “No God But God” that religions are myths. He explains that “religion” is a set of stories fluctuating between truth and fantasy that serve to explain and answer questions about human fate. Taking this idea… Read More ›
“God is Not a Man, God Is Not a White Man” by Carol P. Christ
“The pictures that line the halls speak volumes about the history of racism and sexism and they shape the future in powerful ways.”–Simon Timm The author of these words recently posted a short video on Youtube entitled “Mirror Mirror on… Read More ›
Declaring a Theological State of Emergency: Trump’s Ignorance Must Not Be Ours by Mary E. Hunt
On CNN’s State of the Union, Donald Trump reiterated his call to bar Muslim immigration to the U.S. and predicted that his fellow presidential candidates would soon come around to his position. This prompts me to declare a theological state of emergency…. Read More ›
Announcing A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess by Carol P. Christ
“The serpentine path is the path of life, a snakelike, meandering path, winding in and out, up and down, with no beginning and no end, into the darkness and into the light.” As the year draws to a close, I… Read More ›
Birth and Community by Sara Frykenberg
My daughter Hazel was born on a November afternoon. Just over two weeks old, my own individual role as mother is too young to comment on much here—I am thinking too much and too little about what it means, adjusting… Read More ›
Friendships That Save Lives: For Rita M. Gross 1943-2015, by Carol P. Christ
When Rita Gross visited me in Lesbos two summers ago, we spent many long hours discussing our lives and work. Rita and I met at the Conference of Women Theologians at Alverno College in June, 1971 when we were young… Read More ›
DO RELIGIONS HAVE AN “ESSENTIAL” “CENTRAL” CORE THAT IS–OR IS NOT–SEXIST? by Carol P. Christ
Though often asked, this is the wrong question. Every statement about the “essential” or “central” teaching of any religion is based on a prior interpretation rooted in a particular standpoint. Thus, the idea that there is a “central” or “essential”… Read More ›
The Book Is Finished, Now On to Publicizing It by Carol P. Christ
Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, forthcoming from Fortress Press in 2016. In Goddess and God in the World, two leading theologians model a new method of embodied theology,… 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 ›
Barth and Woman at Yale by Carol P. Christ
I recently located a copy of an essay on Karl Barth and women that I wrote as a graduate student at Yale University in the Alverno College archives. Rereading it decades later, I am a-mazed at the brilliance and tenacity… Read More ›
