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PERSEPHONE IS RISEN TODAY!

Persephone is risen today,

Alleluia!

...
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Let Us Proclaim the God Who Bleeds Now by Carol P. Christ

we need a god who bleeds now

we need a god who bleeds now
a god whose wounds are not
some small male vengeance
some pitiful concession to humility
a desert swept with dryin marrow in honor of the lord

we need a god who bleeds
spreads her lunar vulva & showers us in shades of scarlet
thick & warm like the breath of her
our mothers tearing to let us in

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Religions and the Abuse of Women and Girls by Carol P. Christ

At the 2009 meeting of the Parliament of World's 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 by a false interpretation of carefully selected religious texts and a growing tolerance of violence and warfare.” Carter discussed these issues in A Call to Action.

In my address to the Parliament of World Religions on November 5, I will agree with Carter that religions play a major role in the abuse of women and girls, but I will question his view that religion’s contribution to the abuse of women and girls stems from the misinterpretation of a few selected texts. Rather I will argue that patriarchal ideas permeate most of the so-called great religions.

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  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    Please accept my most sincere wishes for successful and triumphant presentations next month, and especially on November 5th.
  • Meredith Everwhite
    Meredith Everwhite says #
    No way have you gone too far, no way did I personally think that!...if anything, this kind of thing hasn't gone nearly far enough,

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.

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  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    A story, possibly apocryphal: A liberal synagogue, concerned about the implications of using gendered language for the divine, ma
  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    What a shame, Carol, that inbred fear of the paternal God's rage should have splintered your promising movement. Thank you for de
  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ says #
    Yes it is too bad that the feminist spirituality movement splintered as it did. There is a need for women working in different pla
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    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 m
  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ says #
    Love your posts Steven and look forward to hearing from you. Short of putting my personal email out there, you can contact me via
Ethics of Goddess Religion: Healing the World by Carol P. Christ

Nurture life.

Walk in love and beauty.

Trust the knowledge that comes through the body.

Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering.

Take only what you need.

Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations.

Approach the taking of life with great restraint.

Practice great generosity.

Repair the web.

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What Is “Egalitarian Matriarchy” and Why Is It So Often Misunderstood? by Carol P. Christ

In their purest form, “egalitarian matriarchies” place the mother principle at the center of culture and society. Their highest values are the love, care, and generosity they associate with motherhood. These values are not limited to women and girls. Boys and men are also encouraged to honor mothers above all, to practice the traits of love, care, and generosity, and to value them in others.

“Egalitarian matriarchal” societies are matrilineal which means that family membership and descent are passed through the female line. They are also usually matrilocal, which means that women live in their maternal home all of their lives. Family groups are usually extended rather than nuclear. Often there is a “big house” in which groups of sisters, brothers, and cousins live together with mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and great-aunts. In what I imagine to have been the original form of the system (still practiced by the Mosuo of the Himalayas), men also live in their maternal house, visiting their lovers at night, and returning home in the morning.

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  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    Thank you, Carol, for this thought-provoking explanation of terms. From my own experience as a 70 year-old male who was put on te
  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ says #
    Thanks Ted. Currently I am re-reading Women at the Center. The egalitarian matriarchal Minangkabau people believe that without (re
The Heraklion Museum: A Critique of the Neolithic Display by Carol P. Christ

If I had been asked to write the words that introduce visitors to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum of Crete to its earliest inhabitants, I would have said something like this:

While there is evidence that human beings visited Crete as early as 150,000 years ago, the first permanent settlers arrived from Anatolia in the New Stone Age or Neolithic era, about 9000 years ago, bringing with them the secrets of agriculture and soon afterward learning the techniques of pottery and weaving. As the gatherers of fruits, nuts, and vegetables and as preparers of food in earlier Old Stone Age or Paleolithic cultures, women would have noticed that seeds dropped at a campsite might sprout into plants. Women most likely discovered the secrets of agriculture that enabled people to settle down in the first farming communities of the New Stone Age. As pottery is associated with women’s work of food storage and preparation, and as weaving is women’s work in most traditional cultures, women probably invented these new technologies as well. Each of these inventions was understood to be a mystery of transformation: seed to plant to harvested crop; clay to snake coil to fired pot; wool or flax to thread to spun cloth. The mysteries were passed on from mother to daughter through songs, stories, and rituals.

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  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    Testify, sister! They should have asked for your input. Didn't they realize that you actually live and work in their backyard?

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