Seeking the Feminine Face of God

LA HONDA, Calif. —  In the womb of the Great Mother Earth, enveloped by the towering redwoods of the Santa Cruz mountains, a bare-breasted Hawaiian beauty and a stately crone prepare to receive ordination. A purifying bonfire illuminates the black night as five women slowly circle with incense, a candle, a bell and bowls of water and earth.

“Tonight we welcome ourselves into the lap of the Goddess,” elder priestess Ruth Barrett calls out. “We acknowledge, honor and celebrate . . . the resurgence of the Goddess.”

The two women are smudged with the smoke of burning sage, anointed with sacred oil and given the ceremonial accouterments of the Dianic tradition of witchcraft: a necklace symbolizing rebirth, a scepter of leadership and a crown of honor. Now high priestesses, they pledge to help women everywhere find their “strength, courage and beauty.”

The circle of women erupt into a delirium of dance, some prostrating themselves to the Great Mother and others sensually swaying like snakes.

Some may titter, but this ritual represents one expression of a broad phenomenon that is sweeping not only alternative culture but the hallowed halls of mainstream religion as well: a surging desire, even demand, for recognition of the feminine face of God--and of women as sacred sources of moral authority.

“Throughout history, women as a group have not had their experiences influence, develop and further the understanding of religion,” said Susan Maloney, director of the feminist spirituality program at Immaculate Heart College Center in Los Angeles, which offers the nation’s only master’s degree in the field.

Pondering whether feminist spirituality represents the next “intellectual revolution,” Cullen Murphy--the managing editor of Atlantic Monthly magazine--writes that the “assessment may seem overblown, but in all likelihood it is not.”

“Feminism engages doctrine, liturgy, ministry and leadership, and it engages them all at once,” said Murphy, author of a survey of feminist biblical scholarship, “The Word According to Eve.”

Feminist spirituality is a hodgepodge of theologies, movements and motives, much of it sharply controversial and practiced both in and out of mainstream faiths. But the various strands are bound by a conviction that women are as godly as men and must regain their rightful place of respect and leadership in the world’s spiritual communities.

Assertions of God’s maleness--the father, lord and master--and biblical decrees for women to be silent and subordinate to men have propped up centuries of patriarchal practices, feminists argue. Recognition of a “divine feminine”--or at least an all-embracing God that did not endow man with dominion over women--would remove an enduring justification for sexist oppression, they say.

Embracing the feminine aspect of God would also free women and men alike to fully tap their creative, life-giving powers--and counteract violence, war and ecological destruction, says Episcopal priest and radical theologian Matthew Fox, whose Oakland-based University of Creation Spirituality teaches about the Goddess and other feminine wisdom traditions.

Nature as a Metaphor for God

Among the myriad expressions of feminist spirituality, some people are choosing Mother Nature as their metaphor for God or reviving the ancient worship of female deities--Diana of Rome, Isis of Egypt, Kali of India.

Some subscribe to a controversial archeological theory that Neolithic cultures once worshiped a life-giving Goddess and, as a result, were models of peace, harmony and female leadership until they were invaded by warmongers who smashed the goddess faith and installed a patriarchal god.

Others accept as articles of faith that Christianity ripped off some of their symbols and celebrations: the sacred trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they believe, was lifted from the pagan female trinity of maiden, mother and crone used to symbolize the cycle of life.

Some among the religious faithful are rallying against the Goddess movement with indignation and alarm.

“The whole Goddess movement is creating a false god in the image of woman,” said Diane Knippers, president of the Washington-based Institute of Religion and Democracy. The institute trains people to “counteract the influence of radical feminist spirituality”--which she says bears such telltale ideological signs as denial of the Bible’s divine authority, acceptance of lesbianism and rejection of the Christian trinity.

The group also protests such practices as women at one feminist religious conference lining up to take a defiant bite of an apple--a symbolic celebration of Eve’s heroics in seeking knowledge and wisdom.

“It horrified me,” Knippers said. “Eve was disobeying God and that is not something to be copied.”

Rabbi Bradley Artson of the Board of Rabbis in Los Angeles said Goddess ideology--sometimes promoted by women with “a chip on their shoulder” who see the feminine as blessed and masculine as cursed--can disenfranchise feminist men like himself.

Artson also criticized theories that blame the Hebrews for smashing the Goddess faith and installing patriarchy. Those notions, promoted by such luminaries as the late mythologist Joseph Campbell, are tinged with anti-Semitism, he says.

“I find that no less oppressive than old-fashioned sexism,” he said.

Knippers and others argue that the Jewish and Christian heritages, with their emphasis on individual, God-given rights, have in fact helped elevate women’s status in many parts of the world.

And defenders of the Catholic faith, which has come under particular fire for its ban on women’s ordination, say it boasts a rich history of female saints, mystics, nuns, leaders of hospitals and colleges--and a celebrated adoration of arguably the most famous woman of the ages, Mary.

“I find it ironic that the Catholic Church is charged with reducing the role of women when it most strongly utilizes the gifts of women,” said Helen Hull Hitchcock, director of the Minneapolis-based Women for Faith and Family, an organization of women faithful to the church’s teachings.

“If you don’t like this religion, why try to deform it? Why don’t you start your own?” Hitchcock asked critics.

Such attitudes find a ready retort from women like Andrea Johnson, national coordinator for the Women’s Ordination Conference, a Catholic organization aimed at winning women’s right to become deacons and priests.

Echoing the cry of feminists bound to reform their church from within, Johnson said: “The conservatives want us to leave, but our answer is: ‘This is our church as much as it is yours. You don’t throw people out of the family.’ ”

For many of the women involved, however, the grand debates over competing religious visions are less immediate than the personal impact feminist spirituality has had on their lives.

Goddess followers say their experience of God the Mother is connected to the cycles of life and rhythms of nature and is powerfully healing. Aging women are honored as wise crones; overweight women find ancient Goddess figures abundant; women surrounded by male authority find inspiration in the power and beauty of such goddesses as Diana, the Roman huntress and protectress of living creatures.

Rethinking Myths and Values

San Francisco resident Melusina Del Mar is organizing a theater to retell myths with a feminist twist--”Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty”--and hopes to launch a line of comic books featuring goddesses and super-heroines. Catherine Wright left 20 years of life as a Catholic nun and now works in Los Angeles to raise the image of Mary Magdalene from redeemed prostitute to a powerful leader of the early church.

Venice apartment manager Karen Tate started organizing tours to ancient Goddess sites after feeling the pain of women’s disempowerment symbolized, she said, by the abuse and slaying of Nicole Brown Simpson, and the frustration stemming from the subsequent murder trial.

Paula Vigneault of Santa Barbara came to embrace her own feminine nature, which she said she devalued for years while pursuing a competitive career in the sciences among the preferred company of men.

“I viewed females or even women I knew as weak, wishy-washy, ineffective, boring. They would sit around at work and talk about the great sale in toilet paper,” said Vigneault, who proceeded to chuck a career in medicine and now runs a metaphysical bookstore and organizes annual Goddess conferences. “Now I see the [feminine nature] is inclusive, healing, a good listener, also a fierce warrior like a mother bear. Now I look at women, all women, and feel a connection.”

The “Goddess movement” has also spawned a busy conference circuit replete with events like the recent La Honda “Goddess 2000” festival, which drew about 200 women for workshops featuring Native American pipe rituals, Hawaiian altar making, drumming, sacred dance and the like.

A panoply of services offer Goddess books and newsletters, tours to ancient Goddess shrines, specialty stores like “The Goddess Shop” in West Hollywood and sometimes quirky goods--such as bright silk “moon scarves” to wear as a proud reminder of menstruation’s blessing, rather than curse.

Some spiritual feminists are tackling the grueling academic discipline of biblical scholarship. These scholars, masters of ancient languages and extraordinarily arcane analytical techniques, are reinterpreting traditional scripture and drawing on alternative documents to challenge what they see as sexism’s theological grounding: the diminished role women have played in the Bible and the largely male interpretations of Scripture, such as blaming Eve for humankind’s downfall in the Garden of Eden.

Still others aim to reform mainstream faiths from within. They are flocking to theological schools and rabbinical institutes, taking on careers as ministers and rabbis, demanding that masculine references to God in Scripture, hymnals and prayer books be neutralized.

According to the new book “Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling,” women make up between 10% and 20% of all clergy for most American Protestant denominations, with the Unitarian-Universalist Assn. recording the highest proportion at 30%.

The study found that 63% of women, compared with 46% of men, strongly supported more use of female imagery of God and non-sexist language; 52% of women and 23% of men strongly supported greater leadership roles for women, including the use of affirmative action.

“They don’t want to be female leaders of the same old church, but want to challenge the church to think differently about faith,” said Barbara Brown Zikmund, the book’s lead author and president of Hartford Seminary.

And many more women are poised to enter the field, judging by the number who are now studying at theological schools. Women comprised nearly one-third of students in master of divinity programs--which typically lead to ordained ministry--in 1997, compared with 4.7% in 1972, the Assn. of Theological Schools reports.

Women are also reshaping Judaism, and now comprise about half the students in Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbinical institutes, Artson said. Many Jewish prayer books have been updated--including those at Goddess priestess Barrett’s synagogue in Pacific Palisades. In them, matriarchs are listed alongside patriarchs and God is described in such gender-neutral terms as “compassionate one,” said Barrett, religious director for the Los Angeles-based Goddess group, Circle of Aradia. As a result, she comfortably practices both Goddess worship and Reconstructionist Judaism.

But the road to reform is not easy. Ask Phyllis Trible, a renowned biblical scholar who broke ground more than 20 years ago with the first feminist reinterpretation of the Adam and Eve story.

Among other things, Trible has argued that the original Hebrew version of Genesis described Eve with the same word for “helpmate” used for God--denoting at least equality with man. She also asserts that Eve suffered subordination to man because she disobeyed God, not as a condition of her creation, thereby rendering her punishment inapplicable to women at large.

But her work remains controversial--and still little-known.

“The ways the Bible can be interpreted has opened up, and there is a growing bibliography of women’s perspectives,” said Trible, a biblical studies professor at Wake Forest University. “But this has not melted down into the Sunday schools or churches yet.”

Impatient with that process, other women have created their own liturgies and rituals.

Challenging the Church to Change

Pat Reif, a former Catholic nun who started Immaculate Heart’s feminist spirituality program, has belonged to a group for 12 years. At a recent Sunday gathering, they shared the latest in their lives and spiritual journeys, lit candles to honor women of inspiration, partook of the blessings of bread and wine and read a cultural potpourri of prayers.

“It’s the only time I go to church, so to speak, where I don’t get angry,” Reif said. “It’s a way for us to be nurtured in our faith at the same time we’re constantly challenging the church to change.”

Over at the Goddess gathering, such angst appears absent. The mood is high--a tone set by Z Budapest, the jovial free spirit who was one of the first women to merge feminism and spirituality in Goddess worship nearly three decades ago.

In 1971, in a tiny Hollywood apartment, she and five other women formed the Susan B. Anthony Coven No. 1 and raised a chalice to the Goddess. They asked that an owl in a nearby tree hoot seven times if the movement was destined to go global. Budapest swears it did.

Twenty-seven years later, Budapest has written several books, helped nurture the movement into Europe, Canada and Australia--and, on this particular night, ordained two more high priestesses.

As the bonfire burns low, the black night closes in. All that is left is to dance, drum and close the ritual with the refrain that has ended most every such gathering for as long as Budapest can remember. She throws back her head of silvery hair and sends out an ecstatic call:

“And the Goddess loves her women!”