By Linda P. Harvey
No, there was not a pre-Christian matriarchal utopia--just twentieth century revisionist history, says a compelling new book.
A recent article in U.S. News & World Report covered a meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. At that meeting, feminist theologians spoke about the quest for new interpretations of Scripture. "The Word According to Eve," was the title of the article.1
And at this spring's meeting of the now infamous "Re-Imagining Conference" in Minneapolis, feminists---many ordained ministers from mainline Christian denominations--- declared their allegiances to goddesses like Isis, Aphrodite, Brigid and Sophia.2
Most of these women call themselves "Christians" while they deny basic tenets of the faith such as Christ's divinity, the virgin birth, Christ's atoning sacrifice at the cross, and His resurrection. At the same time, spiritism, channeling, even outright witchcraft ritual, as well as lesbianism and bisexuality, are all accepted as appropriate expressions of individual faith and lifestyle choice.
This is routine business within current circles of feminist spirituality, which bases its beliefs on a core assumption: that Christianity is a patriarchal plot foisted upon the world in order to suppress an earlier, utopian faith centered around the real deity--a great mother goddess. Women were equal if not exalted participants in this original nature-based religion, it is claimed, and world history has been in decline since its demise. The remedy? Re-establish the goddess and women to their proper places, revising the foundations of Christianity where necessary, and peace and harmony will reign supreme.
There's just one small problem with the "original mother goddess" claim: there's no evidence it is true, says Philip G. Davis, professor of religious studies at the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada and author of a stunning new book, Goddess Unmasked: The Rise of Neopagan Feminist Spirituality ( Spencer Publishing, Dallas, 1998). In painstaking detail, Davis thoroughly debunks the roots as well as most of the branches of the pre-Christian goddess myth, for anyone who wants to actually put this theory to the test of evidence.
With radical feminist academics and writers, this alone is challenge enough, Davis explains. The whole point of the goddess claim, and a fundamental argument of second-wave radical feminism in general, is that standard evaluation procedures don't apply. Only feminists, they contend, are qualified to measure the validity of feminist neopagan "truth." One wishes this book would be objectively considered and its presentation weighed--- but it may not be able to slow the rapid rise of trust in this ideology. In our universities, the nursing profession, the media, and most disturbingly, in mainline Christian denominations and seminaries, those who have been seduced into goddess-acclaim will probably continue to cling to these alleged "new" discoveries, in spite of their false foundations. Davis' thoroughly-documented work will be dismissed as one more male chauvinist plot, and the inmates will continue to run this asylum.
But for those who are honestly interested in facts and reason, Davis traces the development of current goddess worship and Wiccan practice in a step-by-step fashion.This strange brew began bubbling with the Romanticists' narcissism and idealization of women. Into the pot were thrown liberal scoops of nineteenth and twentieth century occultism. Modern psychology, particularly the ideas of Carl Jung, transferred the whole mixture from the traditional realm of the supernatural, to become a delicate and mysterious souffle of man's own mind and soul. In the heat of current feminist politics, it only remained for several enterprising if unscrupulous chefs to name this concoction and invent a heritage for it, when in truth, it is nothing more than a casserole of leftovers.
Davis follows this illegitimate lineage, with all its curious and unscrupulous characters, showing the tradition of exaggeration, deception, sloppy scholarship, and wild invention along the way. He also outlines the widening influence of feminist spirituality throughout our culture--how, through the media and especially through literature, Biblically-uninformed middle American women are being recruited in droves to this seductive philosophy.
There are many fascinating nooks and crannies of this book, but one that was especially interesting to me was the influence of Jungian psychology. Davis points out that radical feminists believe that spiritual transcendence --that is, worshipping a deity who is separate and more powerful than ourselves--is an oppressive male-oriented concept. "Spiritual transcendence... is portrayed as a classically male value, alienating the inner self from the body and the world." (p. 359) Males, it is believed, are not in touch with all of their potential as human beings, and women are naturally more "holistic" in body, mind and spirit. The extension of this belief is, of course, that Christianity is flawed and somehow falls short--and so any of its claims to truth about a transcendent God are just part of the male power game.
What is left, then, is the conclusion that women are more spiritual than men; that by a more "united" personhood, they have more understanding about divinity; and that this divinity is largely within themselves. Feminist spriituality also typically contends that the universe itself is divine, and that this is expressed in the form of the original great mother goddess, with all of us "naturally" already part of her (it?) through our own human potential for divinity. Those who gain enlightenment recognize and tap into this cosmic power, it is believed.
This is why Jungian psychology is such a core component of New Age and feminist spirituality, with its philosophy of a "collective unconscious" to which we all supposedly belong, and its exporation of some inner "power" believed to exist within each individual. Jung called this self-actualization. He experimented with the occult beginning in his youth, experiencing visions and encountering other "beings" during the process, which he described in his writings.Jung also considered myths to be unconscious memories retained by all humans about actual early human experience, and he considered the archetype of the goddess to be one expression of this. (pp. 293-305)
It is easy to see through Davis' book that goddess worship is just one more form of narcissism disguised as enlightenment here in postmodern America. Our same human sins keep surfacing in all times and among each era's special interest groups, and will continue, probably. The real danger is acceptance of feminist spirituality in the Christian church by men and women who should know better, and should readily recognize the Garden of Eden and the "You-will-be- like-God" temptation of Satan that appeals to human pride, curiosity and appetitite.
How people can shake their fists at God the Father, "re-imagine" Christ, then continue to consider themselves Christian, is difficult to fathom. If we can so readily forget the first commandment, and go wandering after gods or goddesses devised out of our imaginations, we should not be surprised when our prayers are met with something else most women hate: silence.
Goddess Unmasked: The Rise of Neopagan Feminist Spirituality, Philip G.Davis, Spence Publishing Company, Dallas, 1998. For information, call toll free 888-773-6782.
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Sources:
1. Cullen Murphy, "The Word According to Eve," U.S.News &World Report, August 10, 1998, p. 46.
2. "Gays, radical feminists despise Scripture, continue assault in mainline churches," AFA Journal, June 1998, p. 9.
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me."
(Exodus 20:1 NIV)
"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
(Acts 4:12 NIV)
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