Tag: Divine Feminine
Hersay: Songs for Healing and Empowerment
"As people of faith, we are already familiar with the ability music has to bring our own communities together, but Katie and Jann go further, to explain how “singing creates unity and builds a foundation for a peaceful and sustainable world..."
Gender-Bending Rhetorical Strategies in the Odes of Solomon
"Unlike the Western Church, which developed a propositional theology using the language of philosophy, Eastern followers of Jesus expressed their theology in the language of poetry – a fundamentally different, holistic approach."
Shekinah
August 2020 Poetry Selection
Who is like the Lord?
A woman who helps a child walk
An eagle spreading her wings over young
A woman who searches for something lost...
Who is like the Lord?
A woman who helps a child walk
An eagle spreading her wings over young
A woman who searches for something lost...
From Under the Air
July 2020 Poetry Selection
When you weep
and grow weary
of the pain
in this world you made...
When you weep
and grow weary
of the pain
in this world you made...
Redeeming Mother
May 2020 Poetry Selection
I cannot forget you, child.
“I ache to nurture you, to feed you;
my breasts fill and must give.”
I cannot forget you, child.
“I ache to nurture you, to feed you;
my breasts fill and must give.”
Is God “Father” on Father’s Day?
"I usually feel closer to God when I visualize her as a mother, another gentle man introduced me to Abba in a way that broke through my resistance to Father God."
The Gospel and #MeToo
April 2, 2018
Today's link is a surprisingly good piece from a mainstream news outlet, "How Easter became a #MeToo moment."
"The Gospels are full of...
Anita Peebles Asks, “Is ‘Our Father’ It?”
September 18, 2017
Anita Peebles, writing for Christianity Now, makes an argument for the expansion of God language to include divine feminine terminology.
"Why do we...
Wonder Woman: A Divine Feminine Myth for our Time
Wonder Woman is truly a divine feminine myth for our day, filled with beautiful truths empowering for people everywhere. As we experience this narrative, may we find our inner feminine divine and join Dianna as love saves the world.
Where can I find music and hymns that use inclusive language?
Hymns, anthems, and other songs that don’t jolt women out of their seats are available and becoming more widely used. “I will make you fishers of men” is so last-century.
A Provocative Representation of The Divine Feminine: Eric Drooker’s “Crucifixion”
I view this piece and know I can gather the hurting world in my womb. I can allow my feminine-specific suffering under patriarchy to be the conduit for my passionate pursuit of justice and my spark of love I extend toward others. For truly, I am the arms stretched out inside the fallopian tubes. The darkest night of my soul under patriarchy can become the very hope for others to find light.
Revisiting Re-Imagining
"We worshiped as feminists, sharing rituals grounded in women’s experiences and using feminine language for God. These rituals included a milk and honey ritual that celebrated the goodness of women’s bodies and a song that affirmed the wisdom of women as created in the image of God..."
How I Learned to Call God Mother: A One-Person Experiment
I can see now that, like my spiritual director said long ago, my image of God was all wrong. My gut feeling was that my own best interest was second to God’s. The image of God as Father left me with too few harbors to go for emotional safety. He would send me out to sea, endlessly, on some errand of his own design, as he did Jonah.
Women’s History Month: Honoring the Sacred Feminine
For all who came before and all who follow in our footsteps, we will honor the feminine, eternal, life-giving force of this Universe. And then, women will join together, once again, in the sacred circle dance that is our power and our divine source.
When God Was a Little Girl
I was curious as to how such a unique story was received by the public, and I found that When God Was a Little Girl has garnered overwhelming praise and support from readers. The book was published with the assistance of a Kickstarter campaign that received nearly double the amount of pledges requested to publish the book. Reviews on sites like Amazon and Goodreads are glowing, and the book received two prestigious book awards in 2014.
Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology
I think this book is of value for anyone, particularly women, struggling without or within their religious tradition and anyone interested in feminist theology. Younger people, especially, might benefit from the perspective of time it provides. From Christ’s and Plaskow’s examples, challenges clearly exist on any path, but they also present a hopeful model of continuing engagement, intellectual rigor, and self-empowerment.
Developing A Divine Feminine Version (DFV) of the New Testament
"Of course we were confronted with innumerable problems and questions as we worked through the text. We understood that our task had to be about more than simply swapping out a few words and changing some pronouns. "
Toward an Inclusive Incarnation: Easter and Male Divinity
Don’t question what it means that a man saved us from sin; don’t question what it means that it was a man who died for humanity; and don’t question why it is a man who promises to raise us all in the same way.
My Life Was Transformed by a Children’s Book— Heart Talks with Mother God
Just two months ago I found that the only thing which comforted me on a day I felt heartbreakingly useless and worthless was sitting in Mother God’s lap and letting Her hold, pat, and comfort me until I felt completely soothed. When I soon after found that there is a book that teaches children such behavior from an early age I knew it was something about which I needed to spread the word.
A Testimony: God’s Kindness to Me
God has been really merciful and kind to me. She has supplied real-life experiences just when I needed them most, in order to help me feel something I otherwise could not have grasped. Lately I have been sensing that before I die—after all, 84 is a pretty ripe age—I should acknowledge God’s kindness to me, and do it in writing. So here goes!
The 2015 Parliament of World Religions— Sophia Lives!
Without a fundamental shift in how we conceive of God, we will continue to be a people of oppression, bondage, war. And yet there is a failure in our faith traditions to see that oppression, bondage, and violence are by-products of masculine portrayals of God; of patriarchy baptized by religion. If we fail to recognize the interconnection between our theology of God and how we treat others, we cannot work for justice, liberation, or peace.
Calling God “She” — It’s Just Another Pronoun!
To linguistically portray God as a father, or God as a woman giving birth, or an eagle, or a sacred wind, all of those things put a limiting image up to represent God. And, for that matter, so do the three letters, G-O-D. All the ways we choose to refer to God are images, all are limited representations, all are potentially idolatrous symbols. But all our metaphors and ways of referring to God are not necessarily idolatrous. Only potentially.
A Different Route to the Divine Feminine – “God Is Not Alone”
"Widmalm’s 450 pages are also worth struggling through (grammatical errors and all) because they give so many flashes of insight into so many related topics. Among them: the dating of various Gospels, canonical and otherwise; the textual sources for Shekinah as God’s female presence on earth; the Essene lifestyle; biblical ecology; Jesus as a Pharisee; the Sibylline Oracles; the concept of the divine Word in Judaism..."
“God the Mother”— The Sacred Feminine In Christianity
Something CFT members have been writing and speaking about for years, embracing inclusive language and using female pronouns and metaphors for God, is no longer the taboo subject it once was.
Immersion in the World of “Our Mother Saint Paul”
Central to all of Paul’s writings is his not only holding to the practical daily tasks of keeping a congregation faithful to Christ, but also seeing at the same time the cosmic and apocalyptic features that accompany the lives of such a community. Gentiles as well as Jews make up this new gathering of the believers in Jesus Christ, who lived with his people but was risen as a cosmic figure.
Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God
We confront the “self-hiding God” or at least hints of that fullness but never a final face-to-face experience during this life. Winner states, “The self-hiding God seems to be the God who wills Her own disclosure”(p. 236).
Biblical Feminists, Meet Anthrosophia!
For Gabriel, Sophia is a threefold Goddess who rules the past, present, and future. As the sevenfold Goddess, she rules time and the planets in the solar system as well as the seven organs in the human body. And as the twelvefold Goddess, She is the collective consciousness of humanity...
In Search of Life-Giving Christian Symbols
For many years I have also believed that a symbol other than the cross should be at the center of Christianity. The emphasis on the cross leads to the glorification of violence and death rather than the love and abundant life that Jesus taught.
She Lives! — A New Book by Jann Aldredge-Clanton
"She Lives!" (the exclamation point is part of the title), helps us move beyond the limited gender binary to see God as both male and female, yet strictly speaking, neither male nor female, and at the same time inclusive of all gender identities.”
Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God’s Delivering Presence in the Old Testament
With this insightful book, Claassens has articulated a female trinity for our times, ... [presenting] a God who weeps at suffering, cares for the hurting and needy, and works with us to bring about positive change.
Blind Spots and New Vision: Virginia Mollenkott’s The Divine Feminine
If you are grappling with lifelong patriarchal teachings about God and Christianity, pick up this gentle book! It is packed with information that will help. It will enrich your life. It has truly enriched mine. Through these pages, I see that my precious God and Savior not only is reflected in my father, but is also a God who “looks” like my mother —and me!
How can you call God “Mother?” Isn’t that goddess worship?
Learn why many Christian feminists believe it's important to use inclusive language for God.
Sex-Positive Marital Fidelity and the Feminine Face of God
Where the problem is objectification of the female, restoration comes in knowing the divinity of the female. Where the problem is profanity and commodification of our sexual selves, restoration comes in knowing sex as a sacred union: a mystical union between two expressions of God's presence in the world.
The Female Breast: Our Culture’s Obsession and Ambivalence
"It seems we humans can’t make up our minds about whether to think of women’s breasts as natural physical structures designed to provide nourishment for infants, or as distracting and exciting erotic appendages, or as just something else about the human body to be ashamed of—or dissatisfied with."
God is Not a Guy, and Neither Am I!
"Just when I thought we’d about eliminated the so-called 'generic' use of 'man' because it really is exclusive, up pops 'you guys' almost everywhere. Women and girls seem to use 'you guys' as much as men and boys do. So why do females think they’re included in 'you guys'?"
Birthing God: Women’s Experiences of the Divine
Interviews with forty women from a variety of religious traditions—Taosim, Judaism, Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, Indigenous, Hindu, Religious Science, and Christianity, including several women who are part of Ebenezer Lutheran Church, more commonly known as “herchurch.”
Gender Remixed: Sophia and Word
Lesson 2 - "What would Greek-speaking Jewish readers have drawn from this opening reflection on logos? [One of the possible interpretations of the meaning] was Wisdom. Hebrew sages of old were part of a movement that emphasized gaining wisdom through close observation of the natural world. See, for example, Proverbs 6:6-11, about observing the behavior of ants in order to live well. But these sages were not inventing wisdom; they were discovering it. For Wisdom was personified as a woman co-creating with God from the very beginning. Read her exquisite poem in Proverbs 8:22-31. Before all of God’s creative acts, 'I was beside him as a master worker, and I was daily his delight…' (v 30)."
The “She” in My Pocket
Over time She became a part of my everyday awareness. She became part of my language. And gradually, She became something I understood, as I understood myself. In the process God became something like me, something OF me, not something entirely different. I have never believed that men were better than women. As someone who carries the awareness and expression of both genders, I realize there exists no real duality, just many different expressions of the same humanity.
Fearing the Feminine or Embracing Our Mother
"Multiplied over the course of a lifetime, it is easy to see how our culture reinforces male preference at the same time it methodically undermines any sense of well-being and confidence a woman works to cultivate. Our exclusive language continues to make women invisible and in some cases our derogatory language aimed at women reinforces an insidious sexism that is more difficult to expunge than the more easily located, explicit variety."
Why Inclusive Language Is Important
The more controversial issue is language about God – the capital “He.” Some people seem to be convinced that God really is male. Many of these are the same people who answer, “God made man is His image” and assume that is, in some way, a literal statement.
Why Inclusive Language Is Still Important
The prevalent worship of an exclusively male Supreme Being is the strongest support imaginable for the dominance of men. Some advocate using only female divine references for the next 2000 years to rebaptize our imaginations that have been so fully immersed in masculine divine images.
Commentary on “We Sound a Call to Freedom” Video
The Bible links Sophia (Wisdom) to Christ. The apostle Paul refers to Christ as the “power of God and the Wisdom (Sophia) of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), and states that Christ “became for us Wisdom (Sophia) from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Transforming Vision: Explorations in Feminist The*logy
Wisdom does not make distinctions between public and private or spiritual and sacred. For wisdom, all of life is full of the divine and to be lived to the full.
Changing Church: Stories of Liberating Ministers
Jann Aldredge-Clanton, a Baptist minister, is crystal clear about the relationship between God-language and social systems: “The strongest support imaginable for the dominance of men is the worship of an exclusively masculine Supreme Being.”
Jann Aldredge-Clanton Interview
In Changing Church I tried to reflect not only racial and ethnic diversity, but also diversity in sexual orientation and Christian denominations. To pursue their calling some of these ministers have overcome obstacles not only of sexism but also of racism and/or heterosexism.
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Much that Sue Monk Kidd writes about her journey from complicity as a "good daughter" of patriarchal Christianity to her rebirth as a daughter of the Feminine Divine resonates with me. I have traveled much of the same path as she.
God the What? What Our Metaphors for God Reveal About Our Beliefs in God
Bringing the examination of God's power and will into the discussion, Bohler discusses how in many life crises and natural disasters, what we perceive about God's power, ability and willingness to control events, and how we perceive God's care for us in that crisis, affects what we pray, how we pray, and whether we feel God answers or even cares.
Kathryn Christian: Mysticism, Music, Marriage, and Ministry
One day I profoundly needed comforting by God, and I needed to be sung a lullaby like a mother and child. So I started strumming around with lullabies in three-quarter time, and then I was thinking of images of God as my Mother, caring for me.
Is It Okay To Call God “Mother”?: Considering the Feminine Face of God
I was convinced before I read this book that it was okay to refer to God in feminine ways. Yet reading the book was refreshing and rejuvenating. It encouraged me to use "she" and "her" more often when referring to God, both when talking one-on-one and when talking to my classes. Sometimes conviction also needs courage, and this book gives it.
God’s Motherly Care for Us
"I have been blessed with many images of the Divine which have helped me to pray and find comfort. But the one image that I return to, that I cling to when I am in my most desperate moments, is Mother. 'As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you,' God says in Isaiah 66:13."
A Reluctant Feminist: The Books That Led Me
by Peggy Michael-Rush
I first came across Helen Bruch Pearson's book, Do What You Have the Power To Do: Studies of Six New Testament Women (Nashville, TN:...
Songs as Yet Unsung
by Mary Louise Bringle
My vocation as a Christian feminist hymnwriter began accidentally—and perhaps even a bit irreverently. Never let it be said that God...
Calling Her by Name
When I call Her by name, / especially in community, / I find comfort, support, solace, strength, / I am held in Her loving arms. / In relationship, I pray / and worship.
God the Mother
You cannot be God / Without being mother / To those you have birthed, / Whom you have held in your arms / And fed at your breasts.
Latest Posts on CFT
Damaris of Athens
September 2023 Poetry Selection
Damaris peered into alleyways, stumbled along porticos,
her eyes enflamed by the hot light of stones...
Damaris peered into alleyways, stumbled along porticos,
her eyes enflamed by the hot light of stones...
