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To Make and Make Again: Feminist Ritual Thealogy

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The study and reflection upon the feminine divine from a feminist perspective

For a complementary study of religion, come across Theology.

Thealogy views divine matters with feminine perspectives including only non just feminism. Valerie Saiving, Isaac Bonewits (1976) and Naomi Goldenberg (1979) introduced the concept every bit a neologism (new word) in feminist terms.[1] Its use and so widened to mean all feminine ideas of the sacred, which Charlotte Caron usefully explained in 1993: "reflection on the divine in feminine or feminist terms".[2] Past 1996, when Melissa Raphael published Thealogy and Apotheosis, the term was well established.[3]

Every bit a neologism, the term derives from 2 Greek words: thea, θεά , pregnant "goddess", the feminine equivalent of theos, "god" (from PIE root *dhes-);[4] and logos, λόγος , plural logoi, often plant in English as the suffix -logy, pregnant "word", "reason" or "plan", and in Greek philosophy and theology the divine reason implicit in the cosmos.[5] [half-dozen]

Thealogy has areas in common with feminist theology, the study of God from a feminist perspective, ofttimes emphasising monotheism. Thus the relation is an overlap as thealogy is not limited to deity in spite of its etymology;[7] [eight] the two fields have been described as both related and interdependent.[9]

History of the term [edit]

The term's origin and initial use is open up to continuing debate. Patricia 'Iolana traces the early use of the neologism to 1976 crediting both Valerie Saiving and Isaac Bonewits for its initial apply.[x] The coinage of "thealogian" on record by Bonewits in 1976 has been promoted.[11] [12]

In the 1979 book Changing of the Gods, Naomi Goldenberg introduces the term as a time to come possibility with respect to a distinct soapbox, highlighting the masculine nature of theology.[13] Also in 1979, in the first revised edition of "Real Magic", Bonewits divers "thealogy" in his Glossary equally "Intellectual speculations concerning the nature of the Goddess and Her relations to the globe in general and humans in detail; rational explanations of religious doctrines, practices and beliefs, which may or may not bear whatever connection to whatsoever religion every bit actually conceived and expert by the bulk of its members". Also in the same glossary, he divers "theology" with nearly identical words, changing the feminine pronouns with masculine pronouns appropriately.[14]

Carol P. Christ used the term in "Laughter of Aphrodite" (1987), claiming that those creating thealogy could not avoid being influenced by the categories and questions posed in Christian and Jewish theologies.[15] She further defined thealogy in her 2002 essay, "Feminist theology as post-traditional thealogy", as "the reflection on the meaning of the Goddess".[16]

In her 1989 essay "On Mirrors, Mists and Murmurs: Toward an Asian American Thealogy", Rita Nakashima Brock divers thealogy equally "the work of women reflecting on their experiences of and beliefs about divine reality".[17] Also in 1989, Ursula Male monarch notes thealogy'due south growing usage as a fundamental difference from traditional male person-oriented theology, characterized by its privileging of symbols over rational caption.[18]

In 1993, Charlotte Caron'due south inclusive and clear definition of thealogy as "reflection on the divine in feminine and feminist terms" appeared in "To Make and Make Again".[19] By this time, the concept had gained considerable status among Goddess adherents.

As bookish discipline [edit]

Situated in relationship to the fields of theology and religious studies, thealogy is a discourse that critically engages the behavior, wisdom, practices, questions, and values of the Goddess customs, both by and present.[twenty] Similar to theology, thealogy grapples with questions of meaning, include reflecting on the nature of the divine,[21] the human relationship of humanity to the environment,[22] the relationship betwixt the spiritual and sexual self,[23] and the nature of belief.[24] However, in contrast to theology, which oftentimes focuses on an exclusively logical and empirical discourse, thealogy embraces a postmodern discourse of personal experience and complexity.[25]

The term suggests a feminist approach to theism and the context of God and gender within Paganism, Neopaganism, Goddess Spirituality and diverse nature-based religions. Nevertheless, thealogy can be described as religiously pluralistic, as thealogians come from diverse religious backgrounds that are often hybrid in nature. In improver to Pagans, Neopagans, and Goddess-centred faith traditions, they are also Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Quakers, etc. or define themselves as Spiritual Feminists.[26] As such, the term thealogy has also been used by feminists within mainstream monotheistic religions to describe in more item the feminine attribute of a monotheistic deity or trinity, such as God/dess Herself, or the Heavenly Mother of the Latter Solar day Saint movement.

In 2000, Melissa Raphael wrote the text Introducing Thealogy: Discourse on the Goddess for the serial Introductions in Feminist Theology. Written for an bookish audience, it purports to introduce the main elements of thealogy inside the context of Goddess feminism. She situates thealogy as a discourse that can be engaged with by Goddess feminists—those who are feminist adherents of the Goddess who may have left their church, synagogue, or mosque—or those who may however belong to their originally established organized religion.[27] In the volume, Raphael compares and contrasts thealogy with the Goddess motion.[28] In 2007, Paul Reid-Bowen wrote the text "Goddess as Nature: Towards a Philosophical Thealogy", which can be regarded as some other systematic approach to thealogy, but which integrates philosophical soapbox.[29]

In the past decade, other thealogians like Patricia 'Iolana and D'vorah Grenn have generated discourses that bridge thealogy with other academic disciplines. 'Iolana'due south Jungian thealogy bridges belittling psychology with thealogy, and Grenn's metaformic thealogy is a bridge between matriarchal studies and thealogy.[thirty]

Contemporary Thealogians include Carol P. Christ, Melissa Raphael, Asphodel Long, Beverly Clack, Charlotte Caron, Naomi Goldenberg, Paul Reid-Bowen, Rita Nakashima Brock, and Patricia 'Iolana.

Criticisms [edit]

At least one Christian theologian dismisses thealogy equally the creation of a new deity made up by radical feminists.[31] Paul Reid-Bowen and Chaone Mallory betoken out that essentialism is a problematic slippery slope when Goddess feminists debate that women are inherently better than men or inherently closer to the Goddess.[32] [33] In his book Goddess Unmasked: The Ascent of Neopagan Feminist Spirituality, Philip Thou. Davis levies a number of criticisms confronting the Goddess movement, including logical fallacies, hypocrisies, and essentialism.[34]

Thealogy has also been criticized for its objection to empiricism and reason.[35] In this critique, thealogy is seen every bit flawed past rejecting a purely empirical worldview for a purely relativistic 1.[36] Meanwhile, scholars like Harding[37] and Haraway[38] seek a middle ground of feminist empiricism.

Art and culture [edit]

Creative person Edwina Sandys' 250-pound bronze statue of a bare-breasted female Crucifixion statue, Crista, was removed from the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine at the gild of the Jesus Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York during Holy Week in 1984. The bishop defendant the Cathedral Dean of "descrating our symbols" fifty-fifty though viewer reaction had been "overwhelmingly positive."[39] In 2016, Sandy'southward Crista was reinstalled at the cathedral, on the altar, every bit the centerpiece of the "groundbreaking" The Christa Project: Manifesting Divine Bodies. [40] The Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York wrote an article for the cathedral's booklet stating, "In an evolving, growing, learning church, nosotros may exist set up to see 'Christa' not simply every bit a work of art but every bit an object of devotion, over our chantry, with all of the challenges that may come with that for many visitors to the cathedral, or indeed, perhaps for all of us."[41] This exhibition of more than 50 contemporary works that "translate — or reinterpret — the symbolism associated with the paradigm of Jesus", in order to provide "an excellent vehicle for thinking about sacred incarnation, and 1 that reaches out to humans of all genders, races, religions and sexual orientations" included piece of work by Fredericka Foster, Kiki Smith, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Eiko Otake.[42] [43] [44]

Meet as well [edit]

  • Devi (Hindu goddess)
  • God and gender
  • Goddess movement
  • Goddess worship
  • Matriarchal religion
  • Matriarchy
  • Female parent goddess

References [edit]

  1. ^ Saiving had been developing feminist views of theology since the 1950s. Bonewits referred to "thealogian" 1976. Goldenberg used "thealogy" to mean "goddess-talk" expressing the hope that the word would come into use. For full references on all iii see under 'History of the Term.
  2. ^ Charlotte Caron, To Make and Brand Again: Feminist Ritual Thealogy (Crossroad, 1993) p. 281.
  3. ^ Melissa Raphael, Thealogy and Embodiment: The Post-Patriarchal Reconstruction of Female person Sacrality (Sheffield Academic Press:1996)
  4. ^ Online Etymology <https://www.etymonline.com/discussion/thea>
  5. ^ Britannica <https://www.britannica.com/topic/logos>
  6. ^ Raphael, Melissa (2005). "Thealogy". In Jones, Lindsay (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. thirteen (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference U.s.a.. ISBN0028659821.
  7. ^ Raphael, Melissa (2000). Introducing Thealogy: Discourse on The Goddess. Introductions in Feminist Theology. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press. p. 10. ISBN0829813799 . Retrieved vii December 2012. Although the boundary between feminist theology and thealogy can be a permeable one, the basic division between radical/Infidel and reformist/biblical feminism is a historical product and a microcosm of this internal dissension in the feminist customs.
  8. ^ 'Iolana, Patricia (January 2012). "Divine Immanence: A Psychodynamic Study in Women's Experience of Goddess" (PDF). Claremont Journal of Religion. one (1): 86–107 [90]. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-09-05. While seemingly inclusive in scope, theology often has a focal handicap – it is monotheistic in its thinking, examining God from a narrow and oftentimes monocular lens often concretised by its own dogma, and often exclusivist and hampered by truth claims. Thealogy, on the other hand, is pluralistic, syncretistic and inclusive. It is fluid and comprehensive, able to contain many different belief systems and ways of being. Thealogy does not stand in opposition to, but every bit a complement to, Theology as a branch of religious study.
  9. ^ Clack, Beverly (May 1999). "Thealogy and Theology: Mutually Exclusive or Creatively Interdependent?". Feminist Theology. 7 (21): 21–38. doi:10.1177/096673509900002103. S2CID 143523339.
  10. ^ 'Iolana, Patricia (2011). "Radical Images of the Feminine Divine: Women'south Spiritual Memoirs Disclose a Thealogical Shift". In 'Iolana, Patricia; Tongue, Samuel (eds.). Testing the Boundaries: Self, Faith, Interpretation and Changing Trends in Religious Studies. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 15. ISBN9781443826693. According to my inquiry Thealogy or Thealogian was offset used in publications by both Isaac Bonewits ("The Druid Chronicles (Evolved)") and Valerie Saiving ("Androcentrism in Religious Studies") in 1976. Naomi Goldenberg connected this new thread past using the term in The Changing of the Gods (Goldenberg 1979b, 96). Since so, many take attempted to define "thealogy".
  11. ^ Bonewits, Isaac (2007). Neopagan Rites: A Guide to Creating Public Rituals That Piece of work. Llewellyn Worldwide. p. 222. ISBN9780738711997. 86. In 1974 I wrote, and in 1976 published, the word thealogian in The Druid Chronicles (Evolved), a book about the Reformed Druids of Northward America and their offshoots.
  12. ^ Scharding, Philip Emmons Isaac (1996). "The Second Epistle of Isaac". A Reformed Druid Anthology: Existence an unofficial and unauthorized historical collection of some of the spiritual writings from the various Reformed Druid movements in North America; and being mostly a 20th anniversary reprint of The Druid Chronicles (Evolved) first published in Baronial 1976 c.e., which was edited by Isaac Bonewits and Robert Larson; merely prepared for reprinting with some new additions and historical commentary by the current associate editor, Michael Scharding, in August 1996 c.eastward. . Northfield, Minnesota, USA: The Drynemetum Printing. p. 67. ...C. Taliesin Edwards (the leading thealogian in the Neopagan movements) has called "The Da Mind" (in his Essays Towards a Metathealogy of the Goddess), and that others have chosen by a diversity of names. [ permanent dead link ]
  13. ^ Goldenberg, Naomi (1979). Changing of the gods: Feminism and the terminate of traditional religions . Boston: Beacon Press. p. 96. ISBN9780807011119. The discussion theology has also come up to be used virtually exclusively in regard to Christian god-talk. The appearance of witchcraft, with its colorful goddess-talk, requires a new term. I hope witches and scholars of feminist religion will adopt my proposition and name themselves thealogians.
  14. ^ Bonewits, Isaac (1989). Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise on the Basic Principles of Yellow Magic (Revised/reprint ed.). York Beach, ME: Weiser Books. ISBN0877286884.
  15. ^ Christ, Carol P (1987). Laughter of Aphrodite: Reflections on a Journey to the Goddess . San Francisco: Harper & Row. p. xii. ISBN9780062501462.
  16. ^ Christ, Carol P. (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  17. ^ Brock, Rita Nakashima (1989). Plaskow, Judith; Christ, Ballad P. (eds.). Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality . San Francisco: HarperCollins. p. 236. ISBN9780060613839.
  18. ^ Male monarch, Ursula (1989). Women and spirituality: voices of protest and promise. New Amsterdam. pp. 126–127. ISBN9780941533539. So far all the same, virtually writing on the Goddess, when not historical, is either inspirational or devotional, and a systematically ordered body of thought, even with reference to symbols, is only slowly coming into existence.
  19. ^ Caron, Charlotte (1993). To make and make again: feminist ritual thealogy. Crossroad. ISBN9780824512491.
  20. ^ Hope, Angela; Morgain, Shan. "What Is Goddess Thealogy & Deasophy?". Plant for Thealogy and Deasophy. Archived from the original on 8 May 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2012. Goddess thealogy and deasophy are reflections on both by and contemporary Goddess communities' behavior, wisdom, embodied practices, questions, and values.
  21. ^ Christ, Carol P. (2003). She Who Changes: Re-imagining the Divine in the World. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 11–12. ISBN9781403960832 . Retrieved x December 2012. The common thread in all of these examples is that feminist spiritual practice raises philosophical questions about the nature of divine power and its relation to our lives. Feminist theology and thealogy began as radical challenges to traditional ways of thinking virtually God and the world.
  22. ^ Crist, Carol P. (2012). Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. Psychology Press. p. 153. ISBN9780415921862 . Retrieved 10 Dec 2012. Goddess thealogy affirms that we all come from one course while stating that diversity is the neat principle of the earth body.... We are both different and related in the web of life.
  23. ^ Clack, Beverly (September 1995). "The Denial of Dualism: Thealogical Reflections on the Sexual and the Spiritual". Feminist Theology. 4 (x): 102–115. doi:10.1177/096673509500001009. S2CID 143348693.
  24. ^ Eller, Cynthia (1995). Living In The Lap of Goddess: The Feminist Spirituality Motility in America. Beacon Press. pp. 140–141. ISBN9780807065075 . Retrieved 10 Dec 2012. "Believing" in goddess is more than a matter of adopting a new term for an old experience to call attention to its sacredness and its femininity. This is the closest matter one gets to a consensus thealogy in feminist spirituality, merely information technology does non truly do justice to the thealogies that grow upward all around it.
  25. ^ Raphael, Melissa (1996). Thealogy and Embodiment: The Post-Patriarchal Reconstruction of Female Sacrality. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 228–229. ISBN9781850757573 . Retrieved 10 December 2012. The postmodern theological/thealogical shift from a God of law presiding over a catholic car to a divinity holding cosmos in a nexus of complex relations has -- similar one of its forerunners, process theology -- brought the divine into the very heart of change: the Goddess does not sit down and watch the cosmos but is dancing at its very centre.
  26. ^ Raphael, Melissa. "Thealogy". Encyclopedia of Organized religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. 2nd ed. Vol. 13. Detroit: Macmillan Reference Usa, 2005. pp. 9098–9101. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Spider web. 6 Dec. 2012. "There are those on the gynocentric or woman-centered left of Jewish and Christian feminism who would want to term themselves theo/alogians considering they notice the vestiges of the Goddess or 'God-She' within their own traditions as Hochmah, Shekhinah, Sophia, and other 'female faces' of the divine."
  27. ^ Raphael, Melissa (2000). Introducing Thealogy: Soapbox on The Goddess. Introductions in Feminist Theology. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press. p. sixteen. ISBN0829813799 . Retrieved vii December 2012.
  28. ^ Raphael, Melissa (2000). Introducing Thealogy: Discourse on The Goddess. Introductions in Feminist Theology. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press. p. 10. ISBN0829813799 . Retrieved seven December 2012. [T]his volume is not an empirical study of the feminist wing of the Goddess move. Rather, it is an exposition of a body of thought—thealogy—that derives from Goddess women's feel and from a broader history of emancipatory ideas and which can exist defined equally feminist reflection on the femaleness of the divine and the divinity of femaleness, and, more generally, spiritual, eithical and political reflection on the significant(southward) of both.
  29. ^ Reid-Bowen, Paul (2007). Goddess every bit Nature: Towards a Philosophical Thealogy. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 200. ISBN9780754656272.
  30. ^ Grenn, Deborah J. (north.d.). "Connecting With Deity Through a Feminist Metaformic Thealogy" (PDF). Metaformia: A Journal of Catamenia and Civilisation . Retrieved 10 December 2012.
  31. ^ Damian, Constantin-Iulian (January 2009). "Radical Feminist Theology: From Protestation to the Goddess". Scientific Register of the "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi – Orthodox Theology (one): 171–186. Retrieved eleven December 2012. Finally, we betoken out the antichristian character that animates the construction of this new deity, created "afterward the prototype and likeness of man".
  32. ^ Reid-Bowen, Paul (2007). Goddess Every bit Nature: Towards a Philosophical Thealogy. Ashgate Publishing. p. 156. ISBN9780754656272 . Retrieved 10 December 2012. Commencement, in that location are those feminist thealogical claims that suggest that women are essentially caring, nurturing and biophilic, while men are essential violent, destructive and necrophilic.... 2nd, there are those claims that propose that women are somehow closer to the Goddess and/or nature than men.
  33. ^ Mallory, Chaone (2010). "The Spiritual is Political: Gender, Spirituality, and Essentialism in Forest Defense". Periodical for the Report of Faith, Nature and Civilisation. 4 (1): 48–71. doi:10.1558/jsrnc.v4i1.48. ISSN 1363-7320. Archived from the original on 22 January 2013. Retrieved eleven December 2012. The deployment of such textual imagery in the service of a woman-centered environmentalism that strongly suggested—at times even explicitly asserted and celebrated—that women have an inherent, likely biological connexion with nature that men do not generated the typical criticisms of ecofeminism already noted.
  34. ^ Davis, Philip Thou. (1998). "The Foundations of "Theology"". Goddess Unmasked: The Ascent of Neopagan Feminist Spirituality. Dallas: Spence Publishing Company. pp. 86–100. ISBN0965320898.
  35. ^ Graham, Elaine L. (2002). Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Pop Civilization. Rutgers University Press. p. 215. ISBN9780813530598 . Retrieved 10 Dec 2012. While this valorization of feel and suspicion of reason is a valuable cosmetic, the danger comes when every bit a result women deny themselves a stake in rational thought. Critics of thealogy have pointed out its lack of rigour, equally for example over the result of valid historical show.
  36. ^ Fang-Long, Shih (2010). "Women, Religions, and Feminism". In Bryan South. Turner (ed.). The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion. John Wiley & Sons. p. 234. ISBN9781444320794. One the i hand, there are social constructivists, postmodernists and relativists for whom there are no facts, only rhetoric and power, and on the other, in that location are positivists and empiricists for whom facts are value-free and given directly to experience, waiting patiently to be discovered.
  37. ^ Harding, Sandra G. (1991). Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives. Cornell Academy Press. p. 142. ISBN9780801497469 . Retrieved 10 December 2012. A feminist standpoint epistemology requires strengthened standards of objectivity.... They call for the acknowledgement that all human beliefs – including our best scientific beliefs - are socially situated, but they also require a critical evaluation to determine which social situations tend to generate the most objective noesis claims.
  38. ^ Haraway, Donna J. (1991). "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective". Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. pp. 312. ISBN9780415903875 . Retrieved 10 December 2012. So, I think my problem and 'our' trouble is how to have simultaneously an account of radical historical contingency for all noesis claims and knowing subjects, a disquisitional practice for recognizing our own 'semiotic technologies' for making meanings, and a no-nonsense commitment to faithful accounts of a 'existent' world
  39. ^ "Bishop Attacks Brandish Of Female person Christ Figure". The New York Times. Apr 25, 1984. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  40. ^ Schwartz. "5 Wounds by artist Bettina WitteVeen at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York". Art & Artworks. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  41. ^ Barron, James (October four, 2016). "An 'Evolving' Episcopal Church building Invites Back a Controversial Sculpture". The New York Times . Retrieved 16 Dec 2020.
  42. ^ Schwendener, Martha (December 29, 2016). "What to Come across in New York Metropolis Galleries This Calendar week". The New York Times . Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  43. ^ "The Value of Sanctuary". stjohndivine.org. Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Retrieved ix September 2019.
  44. ^ "The Crista Project: Most the Artists". stjohndivine.org. The Catherdral of Saint John The Divine. Archived from the original on 2017-06-22. Retrieved 14 Jan 2021.

Farther reading [edit]

  • Goldenberg, Naomi (1990) Returning Words to Flesh: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Resurrection of the Body. Boston: Beacon Press.
  • Miller, David L. (1974) The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses. New York: Harper & Row.
  • Raphael, Melissa (1997) 'Thealogy, Redemption and the Call of the Wild' from Feminist Theology: The Journal of the Britain and Ireland School of Feminist Theology No. fifteen, May 1997 Lisa Isherwood, et al. (eds) (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press) p. 55-72.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thealogy

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