Inspired by the Goddess

Carol P. Christ writes about the rebirth of the Goddess, feminism, ecofeminism, feminist theology, societies of peace, and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete.

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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 1993 Re-Imagining Conference and movement is that it was a product of a wider feminist awakening. The critique of patriarchal religions that emerged in the academy and in churches and synagogues in the late 1960s and early 1970s was part of the emerging feminist uprising. The feminist movement placed a question mark over all patriarchal texts and traditions, secular and religious, and as such was beholden to none.

In the spring of 1971, Roman Catholic Christian Mary Daly published “After the Death of God the Father” in the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal. She asserted that the God whose death was touted in the “Death of God” movement was an idol fashioned in the image of male power and authority. She called for “the becoming of new symbols” to express the new becoming of women.

In the summer of 1971, a group of nuns from Alverno College convened the first Conference of Women Theologians. Besides sparking dialogue about the role of women in religions, the conference endorsed my call to form a women’s group at the fall meetings of the American Academy of Religion, up until then a gathering of several thousand male scholars of religion, with only a handful of women scholars in attendance. At winter solstice, Z Budapest launched the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 in Los Angeles publishing a Manifesto calling on women to return to the ancient religion of the Goddess.

In those early and exciting days, women seemed to be joining together in a common critique of patriarchal religions and a common search for alternatives. But cracks in the sisterhood soon emerged. At the 1972 meetings of the American Academy of Religion, Mary Daly resigned her position as the first chair of the Working Group that would become the Women and Religion Section of the American Academy of Religion, stating that she was no longer interested in working with women who wanted to reform patriarchal religions. Her 1973 book Beyond God the Father was not only widely embraced by grass-roots feminists, but also critiqued by Rosemary Radford Ruether and other Christian feminists who felt that Daly was throwing the baby out with the bathwater. At the 1974 celebration at Riverside Church of the irregularly ordained Episcopal priests, patriarchal language for God was on full display. I was told that the group felt it was enough to demand to join the priesthood and that making a fuss about God language would hurt their cause. Only in 2018 did Episcopalians vote to consider whether or not to revise the Book of Common Prayer to become gender inclusive. When the ancient religion of the Goddess was introduced to the New York Feminist Scholars of Religion as a contemporary religious possibility in 1976 by Anne Barstow, Naomi Goldenberg, and myself, all hell broke loose. Almost immediately, Beverly Harrison declared that because there can be no ethics in Goddess religion, Christian feminists should reject the Goddess movement. Lynn Gottlieb, who was a rabbinical student at the time, and who would become a strong advocate of female language for divinity, described the fear of judgment by her tradition evoked in her that night in her book She Who Dwells Within. The lively arguments and conversations that continued in the group for months did not repair the rift that was forming among feminists in religion.

By the time the Re-Imagining Conference was called, Christian feminists were learning to deflect criticisms that they were going too far, by defining boundaries. Thus, the 1993 conference was explicitly called a coming together of Christian women to re-imagine God and tradition. All of the invited speakers were Christian. Mary Daly, Carol P. Christ, Starhawk, Z Budapest, Merlin Stone, Charlene Spretnak, Rita Gross, Naomi Janowitz, Maggie Wenig, and many others who had contributed to the wider dialogue about female God language were not invited to speak. The Goddess was also not invited, but She came anyway, disguised as Sophia.

The conference closed with a ritual in which these words were spoken:

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 justice.
Sophia-God, Creator-God
let your milk and honey pour out,
showering us with your nourishment.
Our mother Sophia, we are women in your image:
With the milk of our breasts we suckle the children;
With the knowledge of our hearts we feed humanity.
Sophia-God, Creator-God,
let your milk and honey pour out,
showering us with your nourishment.
Our sweet Sophia, we are women in your image:
With nectar between our thighs we invite a lover, we birth a child;
With our warm body fluids we remind the world of its pleasure and sensations.
Sophia-God, Creator-God,
let your milk and honey pour out,
showering us with your nourishment.
Our guide, Sophia, we are women in your image:
With our moist mouths we kiss away a tear, we smile encouragement.
With the honey of wisdom in our mouths, we prophesy a full humanity to all the peoples.
Sophia-God, Creator-God,
let your milk and honey pour out,
showering us with your nourishment.

Those who created the Sophia ritual did not use the word “Goddess” and understood Sophia to be rooted in Biblical traditions.“Sophia” is the Greek word for wisdom and a translation of the Hebrew word “hokmah.” A personification called hokmah is mentioned in Proverbs and Sophia is pictured as the female face of God in the Wisdom of Solomon, written in Greek by Jews in the  second century BCE and included in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible used by Greek-speaking Jews in the Roman Empire. The Wisdom of Solomon was recognized by early Christian theologians and is considered part of the Bible by Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics, but not by Jews and Protestants. Some have argued that Jesus was influenced by the Wisdom tradition and may even have viewed Sophia as the female face of God. The authors of the Re-Imagining liturgy refrained from describing Sophia. The images of breasts flowing with milk and honey-drenched thighs describe women in the image of Sophia, not Sophia herself. Moreover, the poem is careful to pair images referring to the creative powers of the female body with more conventional references to justice, knowledge, and prophesy.

. . .

I was not at the Re-Imagining Conference, but when I read the words of the Sophia liturgy, I recognized the Goddess. This was not the heavenly Sophia of the intertestamental period and Orthodox Christian tradition, nor the Sophia invoked from time to time by Jesus, possibly as the female counterpart to the Father God he spoke of more frequently. This was Great Goddess, She who creates the world through Her body, She whose body is the world. I imagine that participants in the ritual felt this too. And this of course is what worried those who criticized the Sophia ritual.

This blog is excerpted from the beginning of my address for the celebration of twenty-fifth anniversary of the Re-Imagining Conference at Hamline College on November 1. Criticism of the conference led to the firing of its organizer and created a climate of fear that more or less ended experimentation with female language for divinity in the churches. At the end of my speech I urge Christian women to “sin boldly” and to affirm that yes they are Christians and yes they are invoking divinity as Goddess and then to let the chips fall where they may. To hear the rest of what I have to say, join us at Hamline.

 

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer, activist, and educator currently living in Greece. Carol’s recent book written with Judith Plaskow, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology, is on Amazon. A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess is on sale for $9.99 on Amazon. Carol  has been leading Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete for over twenty years: join her in Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Bakas. Carol will be speaking at the 25th Anniversary Celebration of the Re-Imagining Conference at Hamline University in St. Paul Minnesota on November 1 and 3; on “Religions and the Abuse of Women and Girls” at the Parliament of World Religions in Toronto, Canada on November 5; and at Memorial University of Newfoundland on November 7-10.

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Carol P. Christ is a author of the much-loved books Rebirth of the Goddess, She Who Changes, Weaving the Visions, and Womanspirit Rising, and forthcoming in 2016. Goddess and God in the World and A Serpentine Path. She leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in spring and fall.

Comments

  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch Tuesday, 23 October 2018

    Delighted to hear that you'll be here in Paganistan for the holidays, Carol, and can't wait to hear your talk. (I've already got my ticket.)

    Doubtless your schedule while you're is here is already full and then some. But if you'd care to spend Samhain Eve dancing with the witches, please feel free to drop me a line.

    Steven

  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ Tuesday, 23 October 2018

    Love your posts Steven and look forward to hearing from you. Short of putting my personal email out there, you can contact me via institute@goddessariadne.org (I think that is right, otherwise check my website www.goddessariadne.org for the correct address).

  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor Friday, 26 October 2018

    What a shame, Carol, that inbred fear of the paternal God's rage should have splintered your promising movement. Thank you for detailing this; I had always wondered what had happened to it. Have you seen my new favorite movie, The Man From Earth? The explanation given therein of what became New Testament doctrine is so wonderfully simple (some would say blasphemous) that my inner core yearns for it to be true! It occurred to me recently that if Abraham had been alive today when Yahweh came to him, offering to be the God of his people but also hinting that He was a jealous God who exacted severe punishments from any follower who indulged in individual thinking, Abraham might have recognized the signs of abusive parenthood and said, "Thank you very much for the offer, but perhaps you should take it to some other group."

  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ Saturday, 27 October 2018

    Yes it is too bad that the feminist spirituality movement splintered as it did. There is a need for women working in different places and groups, but distancing from each other is not always so good. Christian women need the Goddess too!

    Sadly the backlash against the Re-Imagining Conference occurred despite attempts to draw boundaries. The movement to change God language in the churches pretty much ended there. I suppose those who care have mostly left the churches and those lwho remain don't see the social and political implications of the language they use or alternatively, they do and they are happy with that!

  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch Saturday, 27 October 2018

    A story, possibly apocryphal:

    A liberal synagogue, concerned about the implications of using gendered language for the divine, made the decision to rewrite the liturgy so as to include both. They decided to alternate: one prayer would retain the original masculine pronouns and imagery, the next would use female pronouns and imagery, and so on through the service.

    After the first service, the rabbi was talking with a first-time visitor to the synagogue.

    Rabbi: "So, what did you think of our gender-balanced language?"

    Visitor: "They sound like a wonderful couple."

    :-)

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