Judith Plaskow

Carol P. Christ: Weaver of Visions by Beth Bartlett

Author’s Note: Today’s post is the 4000^th FAR blog post! I first became aware of the Feminism and Religion blog when participating in a symposium honoring the life and work of Carol P. Christ in October 2021. I was inspired to write a piece on Christ’s contribution to ecofeminism, that was posted in the FAR blog a year ago today. I wanted to post another piece on Christ on the anniversary of that first post. I’m delighted that it is the 4000^th, and so fitting that it is written in honor of Carol Christ, who was such an important part of the FAR blog.

A while ago, a friend asked me what spiritual reading I’d been doing lately. I told him that I’d been revisiting classics from the past. When he asked me who specifically, the first name I mentioned was Carol Christ. Even though he was a minister, he had never heard of her. Sadly, I suspect the same would be true for the vast majority of ministers, priests, rabbis, theologians, and other religious leaders. Yet, I can think of no one who has had a greater influence on my religious and spiritual thought and beliefs.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ:“Ursula Niebuhr, Ursula Niebuhr”: Unacknowledged Co-author of Great Works of Theology?

This was originally posted on August 26, 2019. It fits in with our new project of Unsung Heroines.

A few days ago while watching the movie The Wife, I kept hearing the words “Ursula Niebuhr, Ursula Niebuhr,” in my mind. I knew the reason was Ursula’s unacknowledged collaboration on the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, which I discovered while writing an earlier blog on uncredited co-authors.

I had not been particularly interested in seeing The Wife because I assumed it was the familiar story of the woman who gives up her career interests when she marries. Want to become a rabbi? Marry one. Want to become an artist? Live with him and become his muse. This is a very old story, and for me, not a very interesting one.

Carol P Christ’s Legacy: Gratitude and Sharing: Two Fundamental Principles of Goddess Spirituality

Moderator’s Note: Carol Christ died from cancer in July, 2021. Her work continues through her non-profit foundation, the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. This blog was originally posted February 4 2013. You can read it along with its original comments here.

The more I practice the spirituality of the Goddess, the more I understand that earth-based spiritualities are rooted in two fundamental principles: gratitude and sharing. We give thanks to the earth for the gift of life. As we recognize our interdependence and interconnection in the web of life, we are moved to share what has been given to us with others. *

When I first began to lead Goddess Pilgrimages in Crete, I was inspired by a line in Homer to begin a pilgrimage tradition of pouring libations of milk, honey, water, and wine on ancient stones. At first I knew the form, but not its deeper meaning. It gradually dawned on me as I thought about the large number of pouring vessels in the museums, the altar stones, and the Procession Fresco from Knossos, that an important part of Minoan rituals involved processions in which people offered first fruits back to the Mother whose body had produced them, and poured libations on altars.

Be Strong and Resolute by Judith Plaskow

January 29, 2021

Dear President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Members of the 117th Congress,

At a crucial moment of leadership transition in the history of ancient Israel, the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan River without Moses at their head. As Moses passed on the mantle of authority to Joshua, he enjoined his successor and the assembled community, “Be strong and resolute” (Deuteronomy 31:8). The challenges before the people were multiple and daunting, but Moses urged them not to be afraid or dismayed. His powerful words, which are repeated three times in Deuteronomy 31 (vv. 6, 7, 23), contain a bracing message for the new administration and new Congress as you confront multiple crises facing our divided nation. Continue reading “Be Strong and Resolute by Judith Plaskow”

Write on Lilith! (Write on Eve!) by Ivy Helman

Over the past few months, I’ve been struggling to write posts. This month is no different. I am currently sitting with four different half-drafts on three semi-related topics, none of which I seem to be able to complete. I’ve gone back to each of them numerous times. I write. I erase. I rewrite. I copy bits of one into another to save for some other time. I’m left with one sentence: this week’s Torah parshah is Bereshit (Genesis 1:1-6:8). Great. Glad to know that. Now what?

When writing, I often find myself in one of two camps given the current state of the world. Either, I have so much to say that I have no clear idea where to start, so I write three pages of more or less nonsense. Or, I find myself just so inundated with information that I don’t know where my opinion begins and another’s ends. I write another 3 pages of completely different nonsense. I get fed up with both. I start praying better thoughts will just write themselves. They don’t.

Eve, Revisited by Jill Hammer

About six months ago I was hired to write a curriculum for a Jewish organization on biblical women in ancient and contemporary midrash. Midrash—the ancient process of creative interpretation of sacred text that began two thousand years ago and continues to this day—has been one of my fields of expertise, and women in midrash is a particular specialty. I knew the first lesson I wrote would be on Eve (Chava in Hebrew), the first woman of Genesis. Yet as I began to write lessons, I started with Sarah and Hagar, then proceeded to Rebekah and Lot’s wife, Rachel and Leah, even Asnat (Joseph’s wife) and Naamah (Noah’s wife). It became clear over the months that I was avoiding Eve. Whenever I began to think about beginning “her” lesson, I grew anxious and immediately began to think of something else. Only when I had already written six of my ten lessons did I finally, reluctantly, begin to research ancient legends and modern feminist poems on the first foremother of the Bible.

Why was I avoiding Eve? In part, because she seemed like such a huge topic. Generations of Jews (and, of course, Christians) have had a great deal to say about Eve, her creation, the fruit of knowledge, the serpent, Eve’s relationship with Adam, and more. How would I encapsulate it all? And then there was Lilith, Eve’s alter ego, and all of the legends about her. Choosing a handful of midrashim out of this vast corpus seemed impossible. Plus, there was a whole literature about the relationship between Eve and ancient Near Eastern myth I wanted to allude to—Eve as a kind of human version of the Goddess with her Tree. How to choose what to put in and what to leave out? Continue reading “Eve, Revisited by Jill Hammer”

“Ursula Niebuhr, Ursula Niebuhr”: Unacknowledged Co-author of Great Works of Theology? by Carol P. Christ

A few days ago plus one, I was watching reruns of Judge Judy on Youtube when the recommendation to watch Sarah Plain and Tall with Glenn Close came up on the screen. While watching it, I was directed to an interview with Glenn Close that turned out to be about her starring role in The Wife. Close told the interviewer that for her the big question was: “Why didn’t she leave him?” Continue reading ““Ursula Niebuhr, Ursula Niebuhr”: Unacknowledged Co-author of Great Works of Theology? by Carol P. Christ”

Of Monument(al) Importance by Esther Nelson

I remember being blown away when I read Judith Plaskow’s book, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, shortly after it was published in 1990. She writes, “The need for a feminist Judaism begins with hearing silence.” She notes it’s a “silence so vast [it] tends to fade into the natural order….” Women’s presence throughout Judaism has not been reflected in Jewish scripture, Jewish law, or in liturgical expression.

Plaskow zeroes in on the story in Exodus where the entire Israelite congregation, gathered at the base of Mt. Sinai, eagerly anticipates entry into the covenant, “the central event that established the Jewish people.” Before this communal event, the covenant had been entered into by way of the individual patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The particularly disturbing verse for Plaskow is Exodus 19:15: “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”

The specific issue Moses addresses is ritual impurity since the emission of semen renders both parties that engage in coitus temporarily unfit to engage with the sacred. Both women and men need to be ceremonially purified before approaching the holy. However, Moses does not say “Men and women do not go near each other.” At this crucial juncture in Jewish history, “Moses addresses the community only as men.” The text makes women invisible. Clearly it was men’s experience that shaped Torah.

Plaskow writes that “[Jewish] women have always known or assumed our presence at Sinai.” Exodus 19:15 “is painful because it seems to deny what we have always taken for granted. Of course we were at Sinai; how is it then that the text could imply we were not there?”

Why make a big deal of this? Can’t the text, asks Plaskow, be relegated to a time in history “way back then” when people and communities accepted gender inequality as the natural order? Why not just accept the past for what it was and get on with things? Because Torah (Hebrew Bible) is not “just” history, “but also living memory.” When the story of Sinai is read and recited in services as part of the lectionary reading over and over again, year after year, “women each time hear ourselves thrust aside anew, eavesdropping on a conversation among men and between men and God.” Continue reading “Of Monument(al) Importance by Esther Nelson”

Omnipotence: The Ultimate Homage to Male Dominance as Control by Carol P. Christ

The concept of divine omnipotence is the ultimate expression of male dominance as control. Divine omnipotence is the view that everything that happens in the world happens according to the will of a divinity, who is in control of everything that happens in the world. When someone dies or great suffering occurs, we are told, “everything happens for a purpose,” “it was meant to be,” or “everything happens according to the will of God—or Goddess.” In our recent book Goddess and God in the World, Judith Plaskow and I criticize and reject this view on both rational and moral grounds.

The doctrine of divine omnipotence is widely assumed, not only in Christian theologies, but in Islam and to a lesser extent in Judaism. Moreover, it is also to be found in western metaphysical and mystery traditions and in the many New Age and Goddess theologies based upon them. Thus we not only hear that whatever happens in the world must be “the will of God,” but increasingly that it must be the “will of the Goddess.” Traditional views of divine omnipotence create and fail to resolve the theological conundrums known as “the free will problem” and “the problem of evil.” Continue reading “Omnipotence: The Ultimate Homage to Male Dominance as Control by Carol P. Christ”

Reflections on Death, Evil, and Divinity by Carol P. Christ

In our book Goddess and God in the World, Judith Plaskow and I discuss and debate our contrasting and conflicting views of the nature of divinity and the cause of evil. In the passage that follows, I respond to Judith’s questions.

This brings us to the major philosophical issue that divides us: the nature of divine power and the relation of divine power to the world. It is fair to say that our major difference in this regard is whether the divine power is personal, conscious, intelligent, loving, and good. You ask, “If all we know of that exists is a mixture of the good and the bad . . . , if our creativity and the creative power that births and sustains the world brings forth both good and evil, then how can the Goddess be less than ambiguous? How can the Goddess be ‘the ground of all being’ if she does not ‘form light and create darkness, make weal and create woe’ (Isa. 45:7)? This question lies at the heart of our differences.

. . .

You ask whether “evil finally has less metaphysical warrant or reality than good” in my worldview. Continue reading “Reflections on Death, Evil, and Divinity by Carol P. Christ”

Painting Lilith, Queering Lilith by Angela Yarber

angela Lilith has been a misunderstood, appropriated, and redeemed woman throughout the ages. Many feminists claim her as an empowering figure in Jewish mythology, her story reclaimed by contemporary artists such as Sarah McLachlan, who created the all-women music tour, “Lilith Fair.” Some queer scholars have surmised that Lilith had a romantic relationship with Eve. Others have claimed that Lilith was a demon who seduced men and strangled children in the night. Quite a disparity, isn’t it?

The first time I painted her, I wrote about my subsequent leaving of the church here on Feminism and Religion. Based almost entirely on Judith Plaskow’s beautiful midrash, “The Coming of Lilith,” I’ve painted a second Holy Woman Icon rendition of Lilith. In the Jewish tradition, midrash is akin to climbing inside the story—inside the Torah—and imagining what happened in the places where the text offers no description; it is the space between the letters, the creative imagination within the narrative that makes the story come alive.

According to Plaskow’s midrash, God created Adam and Lilith from the same earth. Tired of Adam demanding that she be subservient to him, Lilith left the Garden of Eden. She was later befriended by Eve and her legacy of empowering women continues today. Adding a queer twist to this feminist midrash, some claim that Lilith and Eve became lovers, as well. Continue reading “Painting Lilith, Queering Lilith by Angela Yarber”

Can Good Theology Change the World? Part 3: Embodied Theology by Carol P. Christ

carol p. christ photo michael bakas 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 new situations.

For most of its two thousand year history, Christian theology was understood to involve rational reflection on revealed truths. It was assumed that revealed truths found in the Bible, the decisions of church councils, and church traditions are a fixed set of facts (such as the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) and doctrines (such as the Trinity) that are eternally true. It was further thought that the theologian is able to rise above his body and history in order to contemplate these eternal truths. Thus, it was said, theology considers eternal truths from an objective and essentially unchanging vantage point.

For the past several hundred years, theologians have begun to realize that both of these traditional assertions are false. There is increasing recognition that the Bible can no longer be understood as having been dictated by God. Instead, revelation (if it exists at) comes through the minds and bodies and experiences and histories of those who write the sacred texts and doctrinal statements. Revelation can only be expressed in the language or languages known to the individual or group who receive it, and experiences and ideas will inevitably be conveyed using symbols and metaphors taken from a wider cultures.

As “the process of interpretation” is acknowledged, it is also understood that theologians can never reflect on eternal truths in any simple way. They must consider the circumstances in which facts and doctrines are received and written down. Some seek to remove the wheat from the chaff, hoping to discover a kernel of eternal truth encased in language and symbols that are relative. Thus, for example, it has become commonplace for liberal theologians to say that the kernel of truth in Genesis 1 is that God created the world, while the story that He created it in 6 days is not literally true.

While non-fundamentalist theologians generally understand that the process of interpretation of revealed truths is complex, they have been less eager to turn a critical eye on the standpoints from which they carry out the process of interpretation themselves. Many theologians recognize the relativity of all standpoints in principle, yet do not hesitate to assert that they have found “the true” meaning of a particular text or tradition. Rosemary Radford Ruether believes that her reading of the Bible from a liberation perspective is more true to the original meaning of the texts than alternative readings. Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, in contrast, always qualifies her readings, stating that what she asserts about the early Jesus tradition is true from the perspective of “wo/men seeking liberation.”

Schussler Fiorenza’s position is rooted in “standpoint theory,” which argues that every interpretation of a text or tradition is influenced by the standpoint of the interpreter. Taking standpoint theory seriously means that we cannot make statements like “the message of Jesus was concern for the poor” without adding that this interpretation is made “from a liberation perspective.” This qualification makes a lot of people—and not only fundamentalists—uncomfortable, because it means that all so-called “truths” are in fact relative to those who assert them.

It is not surprising that those whose voices are relatively new to the theological conversation are more likely to acknowledge their standpoints than those writing from traditional white male European perspectives. Many white male theologians continue to believe that they are writing “theology,” while theologians of color and female theologians of all colors are writing from particular perspectives. When theologies are acknowledged to be perspectival, more often than not, the perspective is a general one, such as “black,” “Asian,” “African,” “feminist,” “womanist,” or “queer.” But even standpoint thinking can fail to be inclusive. A ground-breaking book on black women’s studies pointed out that All of the Women Are White, All of the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave. By the same token, some have wondered why all of the feminist theologians (who are invited to contribute to books and conferences) are Christian. And so on.

In our new book Goddess and God in the World, Judith Plaskow and I reconsider the question of standpoint in theology. We have been engaged in a theological argument about the nature of divinity that we could not resolve through rational argument for a number of years. We have discussed the general differences in our standpoints as reasons for our differences. Both of our theologies are “feminist” and both of us are “white.” As white and feminist, our theologies have certain commonalities, yet they also diverge.

My view that divinity is a loving and personal but not omnipotent is based in Goddess Spirituality, yet it is virtually identical with the views of Christian process theologians such as John Cobb and Monica Coleman and Jewish process theologians like Bradley Shavit Artson. Judith’s view that divinity is an impersonal creative power that is the ground of both good and evil is as likely to be shared with Neo-Pagans as with other Jews. Thus, we found that it would not do simply to further locate Judith’s position as “Jewish feminist” and mine as “Goddess feminist.”

We discovered that the ways in which our theological viewpoints are rooted in our experiences cannot be explained through a simple application of standpoint theory. Thus, we took the radical step of combining autobiography and theology in our new book, Goddess and God in the World, exemplifying a new method we call “embodied theology.” Embodied theology is rooted in personal experiences in our individual bodies. At the same time, we all live in a relational world, shaped by social and historical events and forces that are shared. The relationship between theologies and experiences is embedded in complex webs, with the precise factors that lead to the differences in view being impossible to untangle from the whole.

Still, we found that theological views can be judged by criteria that are in the broadest sense rational and moral: do they make sense of the world we share; and do they promote the flourishing of the world? Though different experiences may lead to different views of divinity, we can enter into conversation with each other about them, based on criteria that are shared. In the process of debating our views, Judith and I concluded that both of our views make sense of the world we share (though we each remain committed to our own view) and that both promote the flourishing of the world. At the same time we agree that other views such as the notion that divinity is exclusively male, or omnipotent and totally transcendent of the world, not only make less sense of our shared experience, but also hinder and obstruct the flourishing of the world.

At the end of our book, we invite others to join with us in a fully embodied theological dialogue that heretofore has been unimaginable, unthinkable, unspeakable. In an embodied theological discussion, we will be able to identify relatively more and less adequate theologies, but we will not be able to prove the truth of particular views.

Also see: Part 1 and Part 2.

This is discussed further in the newly published Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow –order now. Ask for a review copy (for blog or print) or exam or desk copy. Please post a review on Amazon. Share with your friends on social media using the links below.

Listen to Judith and Carol’s first interview on the book on Northern Spirit Radio.

Carol P. Christ leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Space is available on the fall tour October 1-15. Join now and save $150. With Judith Plaskow, she is co-editor of Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions. Carol wrote the first Goddess feminist theology, Rebirth of the Goddess and the process feminist theology, She Who Changes.

Digging My Well by Joyce Zonana

I write this from the heart of a ten-day silent yoga retreat deep in central Virginia. The peace within and without fills me as I gaze over the James River, meandering through its wide valley, thickly carpeted in green. The late summer thrum of cicadas rises and falls around me, and in the far distance I hear what sounds like a mower circling a field. Earlier today, during meditation, I watched a pileated woodpecker pry its meal from the hollow of an ancient oak. Rather than silently repeating my mantra with eyes closed, I had my eyes open, and I experienced the sacred vibration in the bird’s rhythmic taps.

440px-PileatedWoodpeckerFeedingonTree — Pileated Woodpecker

Now a soft breeze touches my face, bringing with it the sweet scent of wet grass. “There is a blessing in this gentle breeze,” I remember the opening of William Wordsworth’s Prelude, and I am reminded as well of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s heroine Aurora Leigh, celebrating “the body of our body, the green earth.” Yes. This earth is my body, and I am blessed to be in it, here, at the ashram of my guru, Swami Satchidananda, silently practicing hatha yoga, meditating, breathing, simply being.

Continue reading “Digging My Well by Joyce Zonana”

Can Good Theology Change the World? Part 2 by Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ by Michael Bakas high resoultion In the first blog in this series, I argued that one of the hallmarks of a good theology is recognizing that the source of authority must be located in individuals and communities who interpret texts and traditions as they encounter divinity anew in the present. In our new book Goddess and God World, Judith Plaskow and I suggest that a second hallmark of good theology is the “turn to the world.” What we mean by this is not only that divinity is immanent in the world, but also that the purpose of human life is to be found in this world—not the next.

The God of traditional theologies is pictured as an old man with a long white beard who rules the world from heaven. It is commonly assumed by those familiar with this picture that the purpose and meaning of human life is not to be found in this world—but rather in heaven. This assumption is increasingly being challenged. Many people no longer believe in life after death. The purpose of morality is increasingly being understood as improving the conditions for the flourishing of human and other forms of life—not on gaining the approval of a God who has the power to assign individuals to heaven or hell in the next world. Continue reading “Can Good Theology Change the World? Part 2 by Carol P. Christ”

Can Good Theology Change the World? Part 1 by Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ by Michael Bakas high resoultion 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 true of good theologies?

Opposition to a woman’s right to choose birth control and abortion is fueled by appeals to the command of God to protect life. Opposition to lgbtqi rights is couched in divine authorization of normative heterosexuality. Opposition to efforts to counter climate change are challenged by those who claim to believe in the Bible, not science.

All of these claims are rooted in a prior claim that God is and must be the only source of authority for human beliefs and moral decision-making. This view can and often does lead its adherents to distrust scientific and other humanly created forms of knowledge. In America, supporters of Donald Trump routinely dismiss not only the claims of modern science, but also every attempt to disprove the assertions of their candidate by citing facts. Continue reading “Can Good Theology Change the World? Part 1 by Carol P. Christ”

Thinking about Goddess and God by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ

Goddess and God in the World final cover design

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 way to judge between our positions. While we believe that theologies are rooted in experience, we also insist that they must make sense of the world we share and provide the orientation we need as we face the social, political, and environmental crises of our time.

Theologically, we disagree on two fundamental issues: whether divinity is personal or impersonal; and whether divinity is good or inclusive of good and evil. Does one of our views meet our criteria for adequacy more fully than other?

Does the notion of a personal or impersonal deity make more sense of our experience of the world? Carol argues that if consciousness and intelligence is a fundamental aspect of human existence and is found in varying degrees throughout the web of life, then it makes sense to think of divinity as also having consciousness and intelligence. Judith responds that the notion of a personal deity seems to her a holdover from the biblical picture of God and that she can find no evidence in her experience or reflection that a divine individual who is conscious and intelligent exists. We seem to be at a standoff here. There is some consolation in recognizing that this is a fundamental divide in the history of religions, but this insight does not resolve our disagreement.

Does one or the other of our views offer better guidance in making moral decisions? Judith argues that her view places moral responsibility firmly in human hands, which is where it belongs. Carol agrees with Judith that humans and other individuals are the ones whose decisions will determine the fate of the world, and she finds recognition of the interdependence in the web of life sufficient grounds for moral decision-making. But she would add that the love and understanding of a divine individual inspires her to love and understand the world and to promote its flourishing. Judith believes that the idea of one divine presence that enlivens and unites the universe is a sufficient basis for ethical action.

Our other major theological difference concerns whether divinity is good or inclusive of good and evil. Judith argues that if divinity is inclusive of the world, it must be inclusive of both good and evil. Carol counters that if divinity is reflective of what is best in ourselves and in other individuals in the world, then divinity must be good, not evil.

Does one of our views provide better moral guidance? Carol argues that a divinity who is good inspires us to try to make the world better. Judith replies that the notion that divinity is good leads us to idealize ourselves and to forget or deny our capacity to do evil. Carol feels that a clear focus on the world is sufficient to remind us of our capacity for evil.

Does one of our views offer a more adequate account of the existence of evil in the world? Judith asserts that the idea that divinity is the ground of both good and evil provides a better answer to the problem of evil: the potential for both good and evil are inherent in the creative process that is the foundation of life. Carol believes that the world is created by a multiplicity of individuals, including the divinity. The capacity for good and evil is inherent in the creative process that structures the world. The divinity is good but not omnipotent. What we call evil is created by individuals other than the divinity. Judith replies that this view does not adequately account for the origin of evil.

Is there any way to choose between our different positions? Each of us is firmly convinced that her view is clear, consistent, coherent, and comprehensive, that it takes full account of the complexity of human experience, and that it provides the moral orientation we seek….Each of us has tried without success to win the other over to her perspective. In the process, we have gained a deeper appreciation of each other’s views and clarified our own. This is as far as we have been able to go. We acknowledge that, in the end, we cannot know which, if either, of our theologies expresses the nature of ultimate reality or provides the crucial ethical guidance we need. Our views have been shaped by our standpoints, including personal, communal, cultural, and historical factors, and this means that they are relative and partial. Because we cannot see into the future, we cannot know the long-term effects of either of our theological worldviews.

At the same time, we are unwilling to throw up our hands and declare that all theological perspectives are of equal value. We firmly reject the fundamentalist insistence that particular texts, traditions, or truths are universally and eternally valid. This position denies that people create and interpret traditions, and it has repeatedly led to intolerance and violence. We continue to insist that the views of divinity we have articulated make more sense of the world as we know it and provide better orientation as we face the problems of our time than the traditional views we have criticized. On the one hand, all theologies—and all worldviews—are relative to experience and limited by human finitude. On the other hand, they can be examined, evaluated, and debated in relation to their understanding of the world and the kind of life they make possible for both the self and others.

Excerpted from Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology–order now. Ask for a review copy (for blog or print) or exam or desk copy. Post a review on Amazon. Share with your friends on social media using the links below.

Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow are co-authors of Goddess and God in the World and co-editors of Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions. Judith wrote the first Jewish feminist theology, Standing Again at Sinai, while Carol wrote the first Goddess feminist theology, Rebirth of the Goddess. Judith is co-founder of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Carol leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Space available on the fall tour!

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 theological method” we hope will turn the field of theology upside down.

People who reject the popular image of God as an old white man who rules the world from outside it often find themselves at a loss for words when they try to articulate new meanings and images of divinity. Speaking about God or Goddess is no as longer simple as it once was. Given the variety of spiritual paths and practices people follow today, theological discussions do not always begin with shared assumptions about the nature of ultimate reality. In the United States, the intrusion of religion into politics has led many people to avoid the subject of religion altogether. In families and among friends, discussions of religion often culminate in judgment, anger, or tears. Sometimes the conversation is halted before it even begins when someone voices the opinion that anyone who is interested in religion or spirituality is naïve, unthinking, or backward—or, alternatively, that religious views are a matter of personal preference and not worth discussing at all.

Talking about divinity is also surprisingly intimate. Continue reading “Embodied Theology: Goddess and God in the World by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow”

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 critical works that started us on a journey of discovery that continues to unfold. In a jointly written chapter, we describe the beginnings of feminist theology.

Feminism was welling up from under during [the late 1960s]. We became feminists early in graduate school but did not discover feminist theology until we were preparing for our comprehensive exams. As Judith was later to write, feminism placed a question mark over absolutely everything for us: the maleness of God, the male authorship of the Bible, and the male perspectives from which virtually all theologies had been written. Three key essays set the stage for future work in the field, including our own. We have already mentioned these essays, but it is important to address the challenges they posed to traditional theology, and our own responses to them, in more detail here. Continue reading “The Emergence of Feminist Theology: Remembering our Roots by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ”

“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 the Wall: The Legacies of Sexism and White Supremacy at Yale Divinity School.”* The video begins with a catchy little ditty with the words, “God is not a man, God is not a white man.” It tracks paintings and photographs of professors and other luminaries in the field of theology on the walls of the Yale Divinity School. By Timm’s count: 99 white males, 6 women, and 3 blacks. The single black woman is counted in both categories.

Continue reading ““God is Not a Man, God Is Not a White Man” by Carol P. Christ”

Jewish Feminists and Progressives Protest the Man Who Could Become America’s Hitler by Carol P. Christ

carol p. christ photo michael bakas Just before I went out on Friday night in Lesbos, my friend and sister feminist theologian Judith Plaskow emailed me from New York: “Right now we’re headed down to the Plaza Hotel to attend and try to disrupt a Trump luncheon!” That night, a friend asked me how I felt about Donald Trump. I threw my hands in front of my face and said: “I’m really glad I am not an American anymore.” Of course I am an American, but sometimes I don’t want to be one.

The next morning, I received an update from Judith: “We were part of a small group from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice in New York City who got inside the Trump fundraising luncheon and disrupted it. We were interviewed afterwards by CBS news, AP, Reuters, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.” Continue reading “Jewish Feminists and Progressives Protest the Man Who Could Become America’s Hitler by Carol P. Christ”

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” core in any religion is not a matter of fact, but rather a matter of interpretation.

In discussions of religions, we often make global statements about our own and other religious traditions, such as: “Christianity is patriarchal to its core,” or alternatively, “The core teaching of Christianity is to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.” Or: “The true Islam teaches that God is love,” or alternatively, “Islam always teaches the subordination of women.”

These sorts of claims are made from time to time here on Feminism and Religion too. Every global statement that a particular religion “is” or “ is not” oppressive, calls someone to assert the opposite in the comments. I believe that statements about the “true” nature of any religion should should always be qualified. Continue reading “DO RELIGIONS HAVE AN “ESSENTIAL” “CENTRAL” CORE THAT IS–OR IS NOT–SEXIST? by Carol P. Christ”

Feminism and Faith by Judith Plaskow, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and amina wadud

“Feminism saved my faith” is the concluding phrase of one of the writers in Faithfully Feminist, and though not everyone would say it that way, most of these women have found feminism and faith vibrantly interrelated. The contributors to this anthology articulate a range of reasons that feminists might choose to remain within a patriarchal religious tradition. They also remind us that women reconcile their faith and feminist identities in diverse ways. This volume testifies to the dynamism within the religious communities of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the United States, and to their internal diversity. This diversity allows for the contributors to engage in a process of their own development as feminists of faith that interacts with similar processes of development going on in their religious communities.

The overriding common bond for these women of faith is the shared conviction that the conflict between religion and feminism is real— even when it is generated by other people’s expectations that those two identities are separate and irreconcilable. Once each woman arrived at a place where she no longer felt an imperative to abide by an either/or dichotomy, she was able to define the terms of her religion and feminism for herself and to own both identities as significant.

Multiply the individual accounts in this volume by tens of thousands, and the effect of these women’s decisions and the concerted actions for change that have flowed from them has been enormous. For example, feminism has profoundly altered American Judaism in the last forty-plus years. Women are ordained in all branches of liberal Judaism and, in all but name, in modern Orthodoxy. New denominational prayer books written in English use inclusive language and incorporate writings by women. Feminists have written Torah commentaries, designed rituals for important turning points in women’s lives, and created new scholarship on women that contributes to a fuller history of the Jewish people.

Likewise, Christianity has been significantly impacted by the work of feminist theology. While some branches continue to refuse leadership roles to women, many others have acknowledged that every person embodies the spirit of Christ and have embraced the ordination of women. In 2006 the Episcopalian Church ordained its first woman bishop, the highest office in the church. Inclusive language has found its way into the prayers and rituals of many churches and feminist commentaries have shifted thinking on scriptural interpretations. Dialogue within and across branches of Christianity are expanding borders, and movements like Woman Church and online feminist spaces have created opportunities for women to claim agency and participate in roles that have been traditionally withheld.

In the long road to Islamic feminism, women have sometimes lacked agency to define either Islam or feminism. Traditional definitions of these words which operate as a constraint on work within Islam towards justice, equality and dignity; feminism was connected to Western imperialism and invasion into Muslim-majority nation states, and centuries of patriarchal control and interpretation stifled women’s efforts to claim Islam for themselves. This is changing, aided by campaigns such as the 2009 launching of the Musawah movement for equality and justice in Muslim family law. A new freedom is emerging that allows Muslim women the dignity and honor of defining Islam and feminism for themselves—no matter how little they might know of global discourses and historical traditions. All that was necessary was to, identify as a believer and expect a life of justice within that belief. Islam has also witnessed women-led prayers and a move toward inclusive prayer spaces.

The profound changes feminists have inspired and worked for do not mean that all problems have been solved and that women’s subordination is a thing of the past; there is plenty of work for a new generation. The difficulties with overcoming the glass ceiling and balancing work and life that women within the larger society face also bedevil women in all three religious communities. Panels, boards, and publications often exclude women’s voices completely or have only token female participation. Ordained women in Judaism are paid less than their male counterparts and rarely become senior rabbis in large or prestigious congregations. If women “choose” to serve smaller synagogues —the explanation often tendered to explain these gaps—that is partly because the expectations surrounding the rabbinate have not kept pace with its changing demographic, and women who want to combine rabbinic work with raising a family face considerable obstacles. Christian ordained women face similar obstacles within the priesthood and continue to be denied leadership roles in some branches, including Catholicism and Mormonism. Similarly, Muslim women are often excluded from panels at religious conferences and are underrepresented on the boards of religious institutions. The idea of women leading Muslim prayers remains controversial. And too often, discussions about women’s role in Islam still revolve around the issue of hijab, or covering.

The challenge for feminists today is passing on feminist insights and gains to the next generation. Is women’s history being incorporated into elementary and high school texts, or are students being taught the same parade of male names and faces? More particularly for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, when a girl or woman wants to mark some nontraditional ritual occasion, is it clear where to turn for resources? Do most Jews, Christians, and Muslims even know that it is possible to create new rituals that feel deeply meaningful and religiously authentic?

Finally, when teachers—and parents—talk about God, how is God imagined? Are children still growing up thinking about God as a distant male figure, or are they offered a range of images, and emboldened to create their own? Are children being encouraged to talk about and challenge passages in and interpretations of the Torah, Bible, and Qur’an that are misogynist or otherwise unethical? Are they developing critical tools that will allow them to engage with and transform difficult parts of tradition?

The next generation of feminists should consider a move beyond rhetoric and terminology towards substance and personal affirmation. Identifying as feminists of faith helps forge global alliances towards meaningful dialogue across difference—even the differences within. It is only when these deeper levels of change are addressed that the question, “Why stay?” will cease to be relevant.

This essay is the Foreword for Faithfully Feminist: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Feminists on Why We Stay edited by Gina Messina-Dysert, Jennifer Zobair, and Amy Levin.

For more on Faithfully Feministclick here.

Join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtags #FaithfullyFeminist and #WhyIStay.

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Why We Stay

Judith Plaskow is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Manhattan College and a Jewish feminist theologian. Co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, she is co-editor of Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions and author of Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective and The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics 1972-2003.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, Ph.D. is Professor of Feminist Theology at Claremont Graduate University and Claremont School of Theology. She is also the Carpenter Emerita Professor of Feminist Theology at Pacific School of Religion and the GTU, as well as the Georgia Harkness Emerita Professor of Applied Theology at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. Rosemary has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a scholar, teacher, and activist in the Roman Catholic Church, and is well known as a groundbreaking figure in Christian feminist theology. Ruether is the author of multiple articles and books including Sexism and God-Talk, Gaia and God, Women Healing Earth and The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Her most recent books include Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican: A Vision for Progressive Catholicism(2008), Many Forms of Madness: A Family’s Struggle with Mental Illness(2010), and Women and Redemption: A Theological History, 2nd ed.(2011).

amina wadud is Professor Emerita of Islamic Studies, now traveling the world over seeking answers to the questions that move many of us through our lives. Author of Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective and Inside the Gender Jihad, she will blog on her life journey and anything that moves her about Islam, gender, and justice, especially as these intersect with the rest of the universe.

Experiencing Divinity in the World by Carol P. Christ

As I work on revisions of the new book, Goddess and God in the World, that Judith Plaskow and I are writing, I am thinking again about John Cobb’s notion of the “two ultimates” as two different ways of thinking about divinity. Cobb suggested that religions have defined the nature of ultimate reality as personal and as impersonal, as God and as the ground of being. The ground of being is the impersonal ultimate: the metaphysical principles that structure all of life, principles that he described as creativity or the creative process.

Judith describes God as the impersonal creative process and views personal language for divinity as metaphoric or symbolic. I define Goddess as personal, yet also view the impersonal ultimate, the creative process, as sacred. For me, this raises the question of the relationship between Goddess and the creative process.

In Cobb’s view, the two ultimates are co-eternal: the personal God did not “create” the creative process, nor was the personal God “created” by the creative process. Rather, for Cobb, God as the personal ultimate, like all other individuals, participates in the creative process. What then is the creative process? Although the term “creativity” has multiple meanings, in process philosophy it has a specific one.

Whitehead’s description of the creative process is rooted in the insight of modern science that the most basic components of our universe are particles of atoms that defy being categorized as either matter or energy, but seem to move and change, depending on their relationships. It is from the relationships of these tiny individuals that the evolutionary process of our universe began. This insight led Whitehead to recognize that the nature of reality (or being) is not fixed and static (as Western philosophers before him had concluded) but is always moving, changing, or “in process.” Whitehead’s understanding of the creative process is summed up in his much-quoted phrase, “the many become one, and are increased by one.”

The creative moment in the creative process (which is in fact every moment in the life of an individual) is the moment when the individual (whether particle of an atom, cell, animal, human, or divinity) in an act of creative freedom unifies the world (the many) into a new synthesis (the one): this new synthesis adds a new fact to the world (the many is increased by one). This is an abstract description of the creative process in its most basic form. In fact, however, we do not experience the world in the abstract, but in the concrete.

In this moment I (Carol) remember my past (many different Carols situated in many different worlds and some of the books I have read) as I shape this sentence (with my hands on my computer acting in concert with the feelings of my body and the thoughts that are flowing in my mind) and unite myself and my world in a new synthesis (which is this sentence). As I do so, I add a new fact to the world (the many are increased by one), a sentence that may be read by others in the future, therefore influencing their lives.

The reader who reads my words (you) reflects on them in relation to her or his memory (your memories of your past selves in your past) and asks if what I am saying makes sense: in the moment that she or he (you) decides if it does or it doesn’t, a new fact is added to the world (the many are increased by one), an opinion that in turn may be expressed to someone else (the many is again increased by one) who in turn responds to it (the many is increased by one more).

Though this description of the creative process focuses on mental actions, our mental processes are not divorced from our bodies and feelings, and the relations of mind, body and feeling are complex. In some creative moments, feelings are primary, while in others the body leads. This second richer description of the creative process is still an abstraction. We do not generally experience life as a series of moments but as a flow in which one moment is indistinguishable from the others; nonetheless, we can recognize that our lives are made up of a series of moments in which we along with others create the world anew.

Sometimes we take a longer and broader view of the creative process, recognizing patterns and cycles within the world that we share with other than human life. Traditional peoples, for example, often speak of or invoke the creative processes of birth, death, and regeneration that are the basis of life on this earth. This is also an important way of describing the ground of being because it situates human creativity within the creativity of the web of life. In our time we might also speak about the evolution of life. Taking a long view, we experience the sacrality of the web of life.

I experience—feel and sense—the personal ultimate, the presence of Goddess as intelligent love in my body, mind, and spirit and in all bodies, minds, and spirits, as I go about my everyday life. She is always there: feeling the love and joy I feel; supporting and understanding me when things are difficult; inspiring me to share the grace of life with everyone and everything. I also feel the power of the impersonal ultimate, the creative process that supports the creativity or freedom of all individuals who interact with each other in the web of life. For me the two ultimates—Goddess and the web of life—are both real.

Though the two ultimates are separate in the abstract, in the concrete experience of those of us who affirm a personal divinity, they are intertwined because the personal divinity is experienced through the creative process that is the basis of life. Thus, at one and the same time, I experience myself and divinity within me, other individuals and the divinity with in them, the creative process and the divinity within it.

I celebrate the creative process and its fruits, the powers of birth, death, and regeneration and the evolutionary process as a whole, as the ground of all being as well as the Goddess I experience as a personal, intelligent, loving, compassionate presence who cares about me, all other individuals in the world.

Carol leads the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete (facebook and twitter). Carol’s books include She Who Changes and and Rebirth of the Goddess; with Judith Plaskow, the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions; and forthcoming in 2016, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.

Gender, Friendship, Collaboration, and Unacknowledged Authorship by Carol P. Christ

In recent weeks Judith Plaskow and I have been revising the manuscript of our new book Goddess and God in the World in preparation for sending it to the publisher. Yes, we have a publisher. We signed a contract with Fortress Press a short time ago. The book should be out in 2016.

We have been hard—and I mean very hard—at work revising the four chapters in the book that are jointly written. The versions have been going back and forth and forth and back as we revision what we want to say and revise each other’s revisions of the drafts we have. We both want the final manuscript to say things just right and it is very hard not to make one more set of (alleged) improvements.

In the process we have realized that while we often disagree on words and wording, we have come to think alike on a wide variety of issues to the point that it becomes hard to say who had the ideas first. In addition we have both become so familiar with each other’s positions that we can each easily articulate both sides of our dialogue on the issues on which we disagree.

All of this has gotten me to thinking again about authorship and co-authorship and original and shared ideas. This train of thought led me back to the subject of Judith’s and my first essay together originally titled “Against My Wife” but published as “For the Advancement of My Career: A Form Critical Study in the Art of Acknowledgement.” We discussed 5 formulaic tropes used in acknowledgements to wives in academic books, ending with “the wife as unacknowledged co-author.” Continue reading “Gender, Friendship, Collaboration, and Unacknowledged Authorship by Carol P. Christ”

Good Theology is Feminist Theology by Carol P. Christ

Judith Plaskow and I are just now completing the draft of the manuscript of the book we have been working on for the past 2 ½ years. It has a new title: Two Views of Goddess and God for Our Time.* I have been thinking of little else for the past few weeks. An editor who is considering our book said that she was hoping we could address our book to an audience larger than the feminist theology community. Thinking about this, a light dawned: if feminist theology is right that traditional theology denies the full humanity of women, then good theology must be feminist theology. Our work is not tangential to the theological mainstream, but is at its center.

We have revised the Introduction and Conclusion to the book with the assumption that our work should appeal not just to other feminists, but to a wide range of intelligent readers and thinkers. The fact that we were asked to participate in a dialogue about the nature of God in Tikkun magazine’s Summer 2014 inspires us to hope that we are right that feminist theology is becoming part of the progressive theological mainstream.

We began our new book because – though we agree about many things – we disagree about God and Goddess. After working together for decades with shared commitments to feminism, justice, the environment, and the flourishing of life, it was a bit of a shock to come face to face with our differences on such a major theological issue as the nature of divinity. We began our discussion with a shared critique of the God of Biblical traditions as a dominating male other. We agreed that this God has justified not only male domination of women, but other forms of domination as well, including myriad forms of injustice and war. We questioned the theological doctrine of divine omnipotence in light of the holocaust, the on-going domination of one half of the human race, and other oppressions including slavery, colonialism, and war.

But as we articulated our own views of divinity in light of this critique, our views diverged: Judith concluded that God is an impersonal power of creativity that is the ground of all being and becoming, including all good and all evil. Carol understands Goddess as the intelligent embodied love that is the ground of all being and becoming, a personal presence who cares about the world and all individuals it, but who does not have the power to intervene with a mighty arm to set things straight.

We both can give reasons for our views, and in the course of our theological discussion in our book, we give many. Our different views of Goddess and God are significant both theologically and personally. Is God or Goddess good? Or does the divine power include both good and evil? Does Goddess or God care about the fate of the world and our individual lives? Or are love, care, and understanding qualities that are not appropriately attributed to divinity? Is there someone listening to us when we worship, pray, or meditate? Or is addressing Goddess or God a metaphoric way of speaking that inspires feeling in individuals and communities but not in a divine individual? Is the notion that Goddess is love likely to inspire us to love the world more deeply and to promote its flourishing? Or does the notion that God includes both good and evil remind us more clearly of our own capacities to do both?

The fact that we could not agree about the nature of Goddess or God despite our many attempts to persuade each other with rational arguments, led us to conclude that the philosophical, theological, and moral reasons we give in justification of our views are only part of the story. All of these reasons are situated in our individual bodies and in communities and histories. We do not believe there is any simple link between experience and theological views. On the other hand, our experiences form the matrix from which we all begin to think theologically. As we develop our theological views, we constantly test them against our experiences, asking if they ring true, if they help us make sense of our personal, communal, and social lives.

In the first chapters of our book Judith and I locate our theologies in the contexts of our lives. We not only articulate our views of Goddess and God, but also situate them in community. Judith is committed the feminist transformation of Judaism, while I am one of the early voices of the feminist Goddess movement. In the concluding chapters we probe and query each other’s views–from experiential, rational, and moral perspectives. We are hoping to model the kind of feminist dialogue we would like to see more of—one that crosses religious boundaries and is not afraid to probe the differences in standpoints and theological views.

We also hope that our book will inspire a lively feminist–and wider–dialogue about the nature of divinity—something that has been oddly missing heretofore in feminist theology. Engaging in a thoroughly open and honest theological debate is not always easy—even among friends. But we can both testify that doing so has not only illuminated important issues in feminist theology, but also has strengthened our friendship.

*Much this essay is adapted from a draft of the book.

Carol P. Christ is looking forward to the fall Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete which she leads through Ariadne Institute. Space available. Carol can be heard in a recent interviews on Voices of the Sacred Feminine, Goddess Alive Radio, and Voices of Women. Carol is a founding voice in feminism and religion and Goddess spirituality. 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. Follow Carol on GoddessCrete on Twitter.

“Immanent Inclusive Monotheism” with a Multiplicity of Symbols Affirming All the Diversity and Difference in the World by Carol P. Christ

In recent years monotheism has been attacked as a “totalizing discourse” that justifies the domination of others in the name of a universal truth. In addition, from the Bible to the present day some have used their own definitions of “exclusive monotheism” to disparage the religions of others. Moreover, feminists have come to recognize that monotheism as we know it has been a “male monotheism” that for the most part excludes female symbols and metaphors for God. With all of this going against monotheism, who would want to affirm it?

In response to some or all of the above critiques, many modern pagans define themselves as polytheists, affirming at minimum, the Goddess and the God, and at maximum a vast pantheon of individual deities, both female and male, from a single culture or from many, including divinities with animal characteristics. Other pagans define themselves as animists, affirming a plurality of spirits in the natural world. A group of Christian feminists have argued that the Christian Trinity, the notion of God Three-in-One, provides a multiple and relational understanding of divinity.

While also rejecting exclusive monotheism and male monotheism, Jewish poet, ritualist, and theologian Marcia Falk provided a definition of inclusive monotheism that I find compelling.

Monotheism means that, with all our differences, I am more like you than unlike you. It means that we all share the same source, and that one principle of justice must govern us equally. . . Continue reading ““Immanent Inclusive Monotheism” with a Multiplicity of Symbols Affirming All the Diversity and Difference in the World by Carol P. Christ”

Painting Lilith, Leaving Church by Angela Yarber

Lilith has been a misunderstood, appropriated, and redeemed woman throughout the ages. Many feminists claim her as an empowering figure in Jewish mythology, her story reclaimed by contemporary artists such as Sarah McLachlan, who created the all-women music tour, “Lilith Fair.” Others have claimed that Lilith was a demon who seduced men and strangled children in the night.

Based almost entirely on Judith Plaskow’s beautiful Midrash, “The Coming of Lilith,” this new Holy Woman Icon with a folk feminist twist has empowered me to reject the sexism and heterosexism that was rendering me broken. So, she joins Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, and Miriam as powerful women who have done holy and remarkable things. First, her story. Then—if I may—my own.

Continue reading “Painting Lilith, Leaving Church by Angela Yarber”

Deciding to Leave or Remain in the Religion of Your Birth – Part II by Judith Plaskow

This is a response to Carol P. Christ’s blog of April 29, 2013 on why she decided to leave the Christian tradition. Carol and I discuss these questions further in our forthcoming book Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.

You raise the important question of what factors lead feminists to leave or remain within the religion of their birth. Your central challenge to me is how I can commit myself to a tradition in which God is imagined as a violent warrior when these images have harmed and continue to harm women and the world. How can I not recoil from using such images in worship? Why is the power of symbols less important to me than to you?

The first thing I would say is that, like you, I find these images profoundly problematic. One of the projects I have taken on in my retirement is reading the Bible from cover to cover, and I was appalled in going through all the prophets together at the amount of violence in their teachings. When I have spoken on the topic of dealing with difficult texts in the Jewish and Christian traditions—a subject that is dear to my heart—I always talk about God’s violence in addition to texts that demean women. And, yes, I have sometimes asked myself how I can remain part of a tradition in which God is depicted in this way. So I do not disagree with your critique of this imagery, but obviously for me, it is not decisive. Why not? Continue reading “Deciding to Leave or Remain in the Religion of Your Birth – Part II by Judith Plaskow”

Deciding To Leave the Religion of Your Birth–Or Not by Carol P. Christ

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”

Gratitude and Sharing: Two Fundamental Principles of Goddess Spirituality by Carol P. Christ

Over twenty years of performing the ritual of pouring libations has convinced me that this was not “a” but “the” central Minoan ritual. Its purpose is to thank Mother Earth for the bounty She has bestowed on us. Continue reading “Gratitude and Sharing: Two Fundamental Principles of Goddess Spirituality by Carol P. Christ”