[Editor’s Note: This essay is from the same title, “Enchanting Christianity: Christian Goddess Thealogy” by Mary Ann Beavis included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018).]
Grassroots Christian Thealogy
The term “thealogy” was coined by Naomi Goldenberg to refer to academic discourse on the Goddess in her The Changing of the Gods.[1] An often-quoted definition is Charlotte Caron’s “reflection on the divine in feminine and feminist terms.”[2] To date, the term thealogy has almost exclusively been used to refer to a Goddessian enterprise, as distinct from feminist theology. However, feminist theology and thealogy have common roots in the 1970s, with, e.g., the publication of the feminist classic Womanspirit Rising,[3] edited by Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, where Witches like Zsuzsanna Budapest and Starhawk published together in a single volume with feminist Christian and Jewish scholars, such as Rita Gross, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Phyllis Trible. In that anthology, Rita Gross’s essay on “Female God Language in a Jewish Context” presaged a spate of influential studies of female God-language in the Bible and Jewish and Christian tradition,[4] and Carol Christ’s famous piece, “Why Women Need the Goddess: Phenomenological, Psychological, and Political Reflections,” emerged as a classic of Goddess Spirituality.[5] In effect, works such as Virginia Ramey Mollenkott’s The Divine Feminine (1994) and Elizabeth A. Johnson’s She Who Is (1992) constitute a kind of Christian theaology (especially by Caron’s definition), but the term has not caught on in Christian feminist circles, perhaps due to the “fear of the Goddess” cited by Schüssler Fiorenza in Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet;[6] in practical terms, the fear of overstepping the boundaries of approved forms of Christian discourse, for some, already stretched to the breaking point by feminist theology.[7] However, as one woman at Herchurch insisted, Goddess is the feminine form of the word God, and if, as Mollenkott, Johnson, Schüssler Fiorenza, and many other scholars have shown, God is portrayed in female terms (Mother, Midwife, Sophia, etc.) in the Bible and Christian tradition, then it should be feasible to speak of the divine as Goddess, and of Christian academic discourse on the female divine as thealogy.
Although the academic roots of CGS can be connected with the quest for the female divine by Christian (and Jewish) feminist scholars, most of my respondents had little knowledge of feminist theology, although a few had read authors such as Ruether, Schüssler Fiorenza and Mollenkott. More often, the interviewees had formulated their ideas about the female divine in relation to Christianity, as one of them put it, “from tough, personal experience.” In terms of literary influences, they were more likely to have read the works of Starhawk, Margaret Starbird, or Dan Brown, or to have consulted online sources, than to have read Schüssler Fiorenza, Ruether or Carol Christ. A significant minority, however, were theologically educated, and within this minority, approximately 15% were ordained ministers or seminarians (United Church of Canada, Lutheran, Anglican/Episcopalian, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist); two were Roman Catholic sisters.[8] Many of ordained respondents felt that they needed to be very discreet about their beliefs with the communities they served, although a few were more overt about sharing CGS with their congregations. It should be noted that a few respondents had been ordained as priestesses of one Goddess or another, and did not see any contradiction in self-identifying as Christian.
With respect to “thealogy proper”—discourse about the Goddess/female divine—my respondents overwhelmingly agreed with Giselle Vincett in that they mostly “hold together a theology of “the One and the Many”: though there is one God … that deity/force/energy may be expressed in many different ways (i.e. through specific deities or places).”[9] That is, CGS practitioners tend towards an “inclusive,” as opposed to an “exclusive,” monotheism, a notion that all the Goddesses (and Gods) are one, rather than that there is only one God and no other. For example, Rosa[10] remarked that Mary and Kali were different “aspects of the feminine divine.” Ariel mentioned going to “one of the aspects of the Goddess” when she needs help:
The Goddess who I feel very close to right now is Guan Yin, the Goddess of compassion. … The Celtic goddess Anu I also feel close to. I haven’t gone through individual Goddesses by name. As I am falling asleep I prayer to Mary, Theresa of Avila and the divine Goddess to bless the world and heal the suffering. Is it all one entity and these are just aspects of the Goddess? There is such splendour in a head of lettuce. I think of the divine like that. Each piece you pull off isn’t like the other but it is a whole.
For Catholic sister Kirsten, both biblical and non-Christian expressions of the Goddess “are simply embodiments of one sacred divine.”
However, as Vincett remarks, “Other Fusers tend toward a duotheism of God and Goddess, where all other male and female divinities are ultimately “aspects” of God or Goddess,”[11] or, perhaps more accurately for my respondents, where God/dess is seen as having both male and female qualities. For Dale, the Creator God must encompass both masculine and feminine. Alana admitted that she still prayed to a “male God” sometimes: “when I need male strength, when I need male energy.” Opal was uncomfortable with the word Goddess “because it seems to divide into male and female and I feel that God is more of a bringing together.” Lillian spoke of feeling “more nurtured” by a Christian “Goddess-ness” that combines the feminine and the masculine: “It feels so much more balanced.” Kara observed that if humans are created in the divine image, then God must have male and female attributes. Like Lillian, many spoke of the need for more “balance” in Christian notions of deity: male and female, Jesus and Mary/Mary Magdalene, God and Goddess: “Goddess Spirituality has a function as a more balanced way to understand who Christ is. I understand Christ as a cosmic presence, not just a male person” (Yolanda).
Like non-Christian Goddessians, CGS practitioners tend to see Goddess as many and as one, as immanent and transcendent, as the female divine within and without. However, a few interviewees who self-identified as Christo-Pagan or Christian-Wiccan insisted that they were polytheists, and on the importance of the gender polarity between Goddess and God: “my spirituality includes belief in the divine androgyny” (Petunia); “I need the dialogue of polytheism of the Gods and Goddesses of having their own mysteries” (Rosa). Respondents often indicated that their relationship to the female divine was more important than their Christian identity, in the sense that if they had to make a choice between one and the other, they would choose the female divine, since, as one respondent put it, Christianity is simply part of the history of the Goddess.
Vincett notes that “fusers” tend to reconceptualise “figures such as Eve and Mary” as Goddesses, making them “easy to celebrate in a Christian context.”[12] This observation dovetails with my finding that those CGS practitioners who are somewhat familiar with the Bible tend to see biblical women, and female saints, as expressions of the divine, especially (but not only) Mary Magdalene and the Mother Mary. Other biblical figures specifically mentioned by interviewees were Ruth, Hannah, Esther, Martha and Mary of Bethany, and Eve; saints specifically mentioned were Anne (the mother of Mary), Joan of Arc, Theresa of Avila, Hildegard of Bingen, and Brigid of Ireland, a Celtic Goddess transformed into a saint in Irish Catholicism.[13] Many resonated with biblically-related female personifications of the divine such as Sophia (especially), Shekinah, Holy Spirit and Ruach (Hebrew for “spirit”) although few related to the “Hebrew Goddess,” Asherah.[14] However, many respondents felt that the Goddess, and women, had been suppressed by the biblical authors.
Most respondents had no reservations about invoking Goddesses from non-biblical traditions. Goddesses specifically mentioned were: Isis, Guan Yin, Brigid, Tara, Pele, Kali, Durga, Anu, Artemis/Diana, Aradia, Venus, Athena, Hecate and Persephone, with Isis and Guan Yin being mentioned most often. The Celtic Goddess/Saint Brigid was specifically mentioned by several participants whose Celtic/Irish heritage was particularly important to them. Some preferred to relate to the female divine as Mother or Mother Earth. There was a strong tendency for respondents to see Jesus as a human teacher, model and guide, although a significant number regarded Jesus as divine, and for a minority of respondents, he was not an important spiritual figure. One young Christo-Pagan woman who had been raised in a coven and subsequently joined a church delightfully described Jesus as “the Oak and Holly King.” Many regarded Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ wife, and one Christian-Witchen respondent had adopted Jesus and Mary Magdalene as her chosen twin deities to embody the “whole God”: “a representation of the polarity that is the source of life of Earth.”[15]
Interview participants were asked two related questions: what elements they thought Christianity and Goddess Spirituality have in common, and how their worldviews, values and beliefs differed from what they perceived as “mainstream” or “traditional” Christianity. As illustrated amply above, many participants were convinced that the female divine was deeply entrenched in Christian tradition. Many mentioned Christian values such as love, peace, justice, forgiveness, compassion and justice as highly compatible with Goddess Spirituality: “At their best, both value divine and human love, ethical treatment of others, both human and non-human, respect for life and nature, a sense of the divine in everyday life” (Vanessa). For Asia, the commonalities were belief in a life beyond materialism, the practice of prayer, and a humanistic outlook: “the main thing they both share is the longing for something more than the materialistic life.” Sharon thought that Christianity and Goddess Spirituality had “everything in common: the same God, the same Holy Spirit—the feminine side was purposefully erased by man; men made a point to leave women out of it.” Many expressed the view that the teachings of Jesus, in particular, were consistent with the Goddess: “Jesus was not a Christian. Whatever pure teaching or knowledge may have sprung from Jesus that it would have been quite different from what his followers did. Because his teachings were pure, he would have had a place for God the Mother. I have no trouble blending that in my mind” (Xenia). Alana speculated that if Jesus was alive today, he would be part of a Goddess community.
Several interviewees mentioned Christian appropriations of ancient Paganism. Isabel’s mother had been a Catholic active in liturgical renewal, who wrote about the pre-Christian roots of Christian festivals: “I am not against integrating these rituals too, if it is possible and in many cases it is, particularly when the Catholic Church places feast days on days of Solstices; there is quite a lot of overlap.”[16] In Adela’s opinion, Christianity and Goddess Spirituality “mesh perfectly,” because Christianity has Pagan roots—”the two have always been intertwined.” As one focus group participant put it, “other religions called the Catholics … syncretists … because they incorporated Paganism and Judaism, because they took a little bit of everything.” Kirsten thought that Celtic Christianity had done the best job of integrating its Pagan precursors: “they kept the earth rituals, an honouring of the body, earth, and feminine,” Ellen observed that:
Ireland is a Catholic country, but all of the people believe in fairies and gnomes. Recently they stopped construction of the freeway because of evidence of the fairies’ ground. For me, that connect between Catholicism and paganism is cultural. The Catholic Church laid itself over pagan sites. You can see the double- tailed mermaid in the stonework in the Catholic churches.
A few mentioned mysticism as common to the Goddess and Christian traditions. Kirsten referred to Christian women mystics “who invited a sacred feminine presence, or knew of one.” Similarly, Renata mentioned women mystics as something common to Goddess Spirituality and Christianity. Tressa saw mysticism as at the heart of all religions. In general, interviewees regarded mystics and mysticism positively: “Christianity and Buddhism and Islamic mysticism all have the same message” (Patricia); “It seems like when you get into the real mystical that is where you find the feminine” (Kara); “There is a much more healthy version from mystics” (Yolanda); “When I experience Mary Magdalene and her energy she is very powerful, she is very much a mystic” (Lora).
Several interviewees described CGS as a sort of “Christianity plus,” like Dale, who felt that she had received a lot of good from the Church, but that she had to “add stuff.” Fleur integrated her Goddess Spirituality by just making Christianity “move over.” Tressa described Christianity as a “framework” or “foundation” for her spirituality: “I could’ve done it with Buddhism or Islam or even Judaism; since Christianity as a whole is familiar I can easily now move out of these things and I still have a strong solid structure and I can build it the way I need it to be built.” Viola regarded Christianity and Goddess Spirituality as complementary, rather than competitive. Bailey asserted that she had her own synthesis, that she didn’t feel the need to impose on anyone else, and objected to “this cookie cutter religion thing where there is only one true thing.”
The question of how interviewees perceived the differences between CGS and “mainstream” or “traditional” Christianity evoked a range of responses. Although there was considerable agreement that the female divine was consistent with the Christian tradition, many acknowledged that it had been suppressed, and continued to be downplayed: “Traditional Christianity puts “he” to everything and even draws God as male” (Bellatrix); “A lot of the people I hear talk at church are still sexist in my opinion” (Opal). Models of church that relied on patriarchy, dominance and the marginalization of women were specifically mentioned as contrary to CGS; the exclusion of women from priesthood was mentioned by several: “The whole idea that you have to be a male to be a priest drives me crazy” (Clair); “I think women should be priests and have equal roles in running the Church” (Freda); “The organized hierarchies in Christianity and Judaism are willing to consider women as members, but they won’t allow them to have a role as priestesses or leaders” (Isabel).
Another widely agreed upon theme was that CGS practitioners were more open to other religions, cultures and beliefs than mainstream Christians. Lillian described her spirituality as “much more expansive” and “embracing of a wide variety of beliefs.” Catholic sister Renata compared her traditional Catholic upbringing where everything was black and white to her current openness to different expressions of Christianity and other religions. Alana thought that she was more open-minded and accepting than other Christians she knew: “I just think I am more accepting … of where people are and I am okay with that.” This openness extended to sexual matters. Gina mentioned “more openness” to “homosexuality, gay and transgender.” Ivana described herself as having a “very earthy attitude towards sexuality,” and being angered by sexual repression. Yeliel remarked that as a queer theologian, most Christians would view her as “on the pretty radical side of beliefs and faith.” Several mentioned their greater willingness to ask questions that other Christians: “I am critically engaged and ask questions” (Jocelyn); “I question everything I was brought up with” (Luna); “being graced by God leaves so much room for ambiguity, for change, for growth, for questioning and engagement, that I feel less concerned about making boundaries, laws, and borders than I am to transgress those” (Helena).
Interviewees often contrasted their CGS with fundamentalist forms of Christianity. Dale remarked that “fundamentalist evangelicals” didn’t care about the feminine at all, and that they really scared her. United Church minister Eva lived in a Canadian prairie town where there were 27 churches, most of them “fundamentalist evangelical,” with which she had little in common. Fleur noted that it was the fundamentalist churches that had the most political visibility in the United States; her preference was for “justice-making” churches. A few specifically mentioned that they rejected biblical literalism: “we cannot take the Bible literally” (Jaycee); “I do not believe that the Bible should be taken in any way shape or form as literal or as a historical document in the sense that it actually contains historical facts” (Petunia); “Don’t hold the Bible to ‘this is it and there is nothing else’” (Hermione). Several noted the alignment of fundamentalist Christianity with right-wing politics: “what is being passed off as orthodoxy is extremely right wing” (Diane): “I am definitely not a right wing Christian” (Stella).
In Christian terms, respondents expressed more affinity with liberal or progressive churches: “I would probably land up more on the liberal or progressive side” (Tulip); “Today, I am a lot more liberal” (Louise). Asia observed that the further a brand of Christianity is from the progressive part of the spectrum, “the more you go to a male religion.” Kirti attended a “very liberal” church in her (Baptist) denomination; Diane described the Catholic college where she worked as devoted to “liberal, social justice Catholicism, not patriarchal Catholicism”; Petunia though that liberal Protestant denominations had more affinities with CGS than other churches. Louise saw herself as “a lot more liberal” and at the “extreme end of the spectrum” compared to “mainstream” Christians.
In terms of specific Christian doctrines rejected by CGS practitioners, the notions of substitutionary atonement and original sin were often mentioned. Kirti was critical of “the substitution theory of atonement that Jesus died for our sins. … I don’t do crosses, I do doves.” Marie thought that atonement theology was a “later corruption of the message [of Jesus].” Viola associated “penal substitution atonement” with the evangelical form of Christianity that she avoided. Kirti preferred Matthew Fox’s idea of “original blessing” to the traditional doctrine of original sin. Freda no longer bought into “original sin where children come in evil.” Nola had been brought up in a church that didn’t believe in original sin, but remembered that, as a child, she still felt that she needed Jesus to save her: “As I’ve grown older and know that I do have sins, I feel that I am responsible for them myself, and that I’m not saved by a man who died on the cross.” Others, like Nola, were critical of traditional doctrines of salvation: “Christianity still teaches that salvation is in the afterlife. Salvation to me is saving our earth, saving children who are starving, saving women in Afghanistan, saving me from beating myself up when I make a mistake” (Kirti); Freda contrasted the fundamentalist notion of salvation as an “end point” to her understanding of salvation as a “beginning”; Ginny rejected the notion that she needed to be saved: “I keep saying ‘saved from what?’” There is no need to be saved.” In addition to rejecting Christian exclusivity, interviewees criticized the doctrines of heaven, hell, and a punishing God: “If there is a God, that created the earth and its inhabitants, and if this is a God of love, then God is not going to limit salvation to those who believe Jesus is Christ and the son of God” (Nola); “In the church I was brought up in, we had the feeling that the Earth is a temporary place and our main home is in heaven; I don’t believe that anymore” (Kirti); “I don’t believe there is only one way to heaven or the next life” (Louise); “I think that the focus on who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell has really distracted us from the main message” (Marie).
Several related their rejection of traditional doctrines of other-worldly salvation to their concern for the earth. Clair noted that the idea that the earth was expendable—“to be devalued or trashed”—because the focus on the afterlife had been “very terrible for the earth.” Nola had been brought up to believe that the earth was a temporary staging ground for heaven, but now she felt that “the one mission of Goddess and the people is to do what we can to protect the earth from rape and so forth.” Adela observed that what is missing in the world today is respect for the earth as our Mother. Eva cited her belief in “total inclusivity of creation and to see the holiness in all of that,” in contrast to the goodness in the universe that “orthodox” religion doesn’t acknowledge. Vanessa succinctly summed up her differences with mainstream Christianity in a sort of negative creed that many CGS women would agree with:
I reject atonement theology, the excessive valorisation of self-sacrifice, the divinity of Christ, patriarchy, notions of an exclusively male God, the alignment of Christianity with social power elites, Christian exclusivism, the other-worldly, dualistic orientation of some forms of Christianity.
As noted above, her conclusion that “many liberal Christians would share these things” was shared by a number of interviewees.
(To be continued)
(Meet Mago Contributor) Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D.
[1] Naomi Goldenberg, The Changing of the Gods (Boston: Beacon, 1979), 96.
[2] Charlotte Caron, “Thealogy,” Dictionary of Feminist Theologies (London: Mowbray, 1996), 281.
[3] Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, eds., Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979).
[4] Alix Pirani, The Absent Mother: Restoring the Goddess to Judaism and Christianity (San Francisco: Mandala, 1991); Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female (New York: Crossroad, 1994); Asphodel P. Long, In a Chariot Drawn by Lions: The Search for the Female in Deity. (Freedom, CA: Crossing, 1993); Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992).
[5] Christ and Plaskow, eds., Woman Spirit, 273-87.
[6] Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza uses the similar term Sophialogy (as opposed to Sophiology) to refer to feminist theological discourse of divine Wisdom/Sophia; see her Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet (New York: Continuum, 1994), 131-62.
[7] Ibid., 178.
[8] Vincett counted five ordained women among her ‘fusers’, 10% of her sample (“Feminism and Religion,” 168).
[9] Ibid., 139.
[10] The interviews were undertaken on the understanding that their names and identities would be kept anonymous; aliases were assigned by a student assistant.
[11] Vincett, “Feminism and Religion,” 139.
[12] Ibid., 141.
[13] See Mary Condren, The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion and Power in Celtic Ireland (Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 1989), 47-58.
[14] See Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (New York: Ktav, 1967).
[15] St. Clair, Christian Witch, 78.
[16] See Also Vincett, “Fusers,” 140.
[Author’s Note: This essay is a revision and update of my article “Christian Goddess Spirituality and Thealogy,” Feminist Theology 24,2 (2016): 125-38; for the complete study, see my Christian Goddess Spirituality: Enchanting Christianity (New York: Routledge, 2015).]