Christian Goddess Spirituality

Christian Goddess Spirituality PDF Author: Mary Ann Beavis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317385551
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This monograph focuses on "Christian Goddess Spirituality" (CGS), the phenomenon of (mostly) women who combine Christianity and Goddess Spirituality, including Wicca/Witchcraft. Mary Ann Beavis’s study provides ethnographic data and analysis on the lived religious experience of CGS practitioners, drawing on interviews of over 100 women who self-identify as combining Christianity and Goddess spirituality. Although CGS also has implications for Goddess Spirituality and related traditions (e.g., Neopaganism, Wicca), here, CGS is considered primarily as a phenomenon within Christianity. However, the study also shows that the fusion of Christian and Goddess spiritualties has had an impact on non-Christian feminist spirituality, since Goddess-worshippers have often constructed Christianity as the diametrical opposite and enemy of the Goddess, to the point that some refuse to admit the possibility that CGS is a valid spiritual path, or that it is even possible. In addition, biblical, Jewish and Christian images of the divine such as Sophia, Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and even Mary Magdalene, have found their way into the "Pagan" Goddess pantheon. The main themes of the study include: overlaps and differences between Christian feminist theology and CGS; the routes to CGS for individual practitioners, and their beliefs, practices and experiences; proto-denominational classifications ("spiritual paths") within CGS; CGS thealogy (Christian discourse about the female divine); and the future of CGS in social scientific and ecclesiological context. Christian Goddess Spirituality will be of interest to scholars of religion, especially those with interests in women and religion, feminist spiritualities, feminist theology/thealogy, alternative spiritualities, New Religious Movements, and emergent Christianities.

Christian Goddess Spirituality

Christian Goddess Spirituality PDF Author: Mary Ann Beavis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317385551
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book

Book Description
This monograph focuses on "Christian Goddess Spirituality" (CGS), the phenomenon of (mostly) women who combine Christianity and Goddess Spirituality, including Wicca/Witchcraft. Mary Ann Beavis’s study provides ethnographic data and analysis on the lived religious experience of CGS practitioners, drawing on interviews of over 100 women who self-identify as combining Christianity and Goddess spirituality. Although CGS also has implications for Goddess Spirituality and related traditions (e.g., Neopaganism, Wicca), here, CGS is considered primarily as a phenomenon within Christianity. However, the study also shows that the fusion of Christian and Goddess spiritualties has had an impact on non-Christian feminist spirituality, since Goddess-worshippers have often constructed Christianity as the diametrical opposite and enemy of the Goddess, to the point that some refuse to admit the possibility that CGS is a valid spiritual path, or that it is even possible. In addition, biblical, Jewish and Christian images of the divine such as Sophia, Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and even Mary Magdalene, have found their way into the "Pagan" Goddess pantheon. The main themes of the study include: overlaps and differences between Christian feminist theology and CGS; the routes to CGS for individual practitioners, and their beliefs, practices and experiences; proto-denominational classifications ("spiritual paths") within CGS; CGS thealogy (Christian discourse about the female divine); and the future of CGS in social scientific and ecclesiological context. Christian Goddess Spirituality will be of interest to scholars of religion, especially those with interests in women and religion, feminist spiritualities, feminist theology/thealogy, alternative spiritualities, New Religious Movements, and emergent Christianities.

Rebirth of the Goddess

Rebirth of the Goddess PDF Author: Carol P. Christ
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136763848
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Christian Goddess Spirituality

Christian Goddess Spirituality PDF Author: Mary Ann Beavis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317385543
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This monograph focuses on "Christian Goddess Spirituality" (CGS), the phenomenon of (mostly) women who combine Christianity and Goddess Spirituality, including Wicca/Witchcraft. Mary Ann Beavis’s study provides ethnographic data and analysis on the lived religious experience of CGS practitioners, drawing on interviews of over 100 women who self-identify as combining Christianity and Goddess spirituality. Although CGS also has implications for Goddess Spirituality and related traditions (e.g., Neopaganism, Wicca), here, CGS is considered primarily as a phenomenon within Christianity. However, the study also shows that the fusion of Christian and Goddess spiritualties has had an impact on non-Christian feminist spirituality, since Goddess-worshippers have often constructed Christianity as the diametrical opposite and enemy of the Goddess, to the point that some refuse to admit the possibility that CGS is a valid spiritual path, or that it is even possible. In addition, biblical, Jewish and Christian images of the divine such as Sophia, Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and even Mary Magdalene, have found their way into the "Pagan" Goddess pantheon. The main themes of the study include: overlaps and differences between Christian feminist theology and CGS; the routes to CGS for individual practitioners, and their beliefs, practices and experiences; proto-denominational classifications ("spiritual paths") within CGS; CGS thealogy (Christian discourse about the female divine); and the future of CGS in social scientific and ecclesiological context. Christian Goddess Spirituality will be of interest to scholars of religion, especially those with interests in women and religion, feminist spiritualities, feminist theology/thealogy, alternative spiritualities, New Religious Movements, and emergent Christianities.

The Christian Goddess

The Christian Goddess PDF Author: Bonnie Gaarden
Publisher: Government Institutes
ISBN: 1611470099
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The Christian Goddess: Archetype and Theology in the Fantasies of George MacDonald, examines this British Victorian writer's employment of female figures to represent Deity. Such symbolism is extremely unusual for a Christian author of this period and anticipates the efforts of many modern theologians to develop an image of God as Mother. Bonnie Gaarden reads the goddess-figures in MacDonald's fantasies as both archetypes of the collective unconscious and as emblems articulating MacDonald's unique Christian theology, which is Trinitarian, Neo-Platonic, mystical and universalist. The goddesses become the central figures around which the author develops her interpretations of MacDonald's adult fantasy-novels, his children's books and some of his fairy tales. These readings discover MacDonald's ideas about God and the nature of good and evil, models of spiritual and psychological development that foreshadow the theories of Carl Jung and Eric Neumann, and acerbic commentary on the values and customs of Victorian society and religion. According to The Christian Goddess, MacDonald's Romantic belief in God's self-revelation in Nature led him to create Nature-mothers (such as the Green Lady in 'The Golden Key' and Lilith's Eve) which evoke both the Great Mother archetype described by Eric Neumann, and the modern neopagan Great Mother as developed in the works of James Frazer, Robert Graves, and Marija Gimutas. MacDonald dramatized his view of evil and its cure in the title character of Lilith, a Terrible Mother archetype historically embodied in the Hindu goddess Kali. MacDonald's notion of the world as Keat's 'vale of Soulmaking,' also elaborated by religious philosopher John Hick, is conveyed by Magic Cauldron archetypes in The Wise Woman, 'The Gray Wolf,' and Lilith. Muse-figures in Phantastes and At the Back of the North Wind express MacDonald's conviction that a 'right imagination' is the voice of God, while Divine Children in The Wise Woman and 'The Golden Key' communicate his belief that 'true childhood' is the Divine nature. The great-grandmother in the Princess books, a personification of the multi-dimensional activity of Divine Wisdom, springs from the Judeo-Christian Sophia and the classical Athena, while Kore figures in The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, and Phantastes re-present the transforming descents of Persephone and Christ. This book shows MacDonald's fantasies as a chronological bridge, anchored in the traditions of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, incorporating the teachings of Christian mysticism and theistic Romanticism, and linking to the contemporary concerns in Western society that have given birth to the New Age. The Christian goddess portrayed in these fantasies may strike the reader as a Deity whose time has come.

Goddess and God

Goddess and God PDF Author: Valerie Ann Abrahamsen
Publisher: Marco Polo Monographs
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Vestiges of prehistoric Nature goddess, worshipped by Neolithic and other peoples for millennia, survived into Graeco-Roman period and influenced development of Christianity. While a male-dominated religious ethos supplanted goddess religion in the West starting in the Bronze Age, goddess beliefs and practices persisted underground. Evidence is drawn from the existence of goddess symbols in catacombs, other early church art, and basilica art from the early Byzantine era; extant folklore and folk traditions; magic and other quasi-religious practices evident in early Christian traditions; and rituals preserved by the church.

Embracing Jesus and the Goddess

Embracing Jesus and the Goddess PDF Author: Carl McColman
Publisher: Fair Winds Press (MA)
ISBN: 9781931412780
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Embracing Jesus and the Goddess is an impassioned, iconoclastic, and inspiring call for synthesizing two traditions that have often been viewed as antithetical. McColman, who is both a practicing Wicca and practicing Episcopalian, offers seekers a radical new way of being; a spirituality that equally celebrates body and soul, Jesus and the Goddess, Christian spirituality and Wicca practice. Rooted in both experience and experience, McColman demonstrates how the Pagan path and the Christian path can converge. He explores the gifts that Jesus brings the Goddess, as well as those gifts that the Goddess brings Jesus. He asserts that a religious practice, which celebrates both the female and male energies, the heavens and the earth, is necessary for spiritual health. This is a provocative, yet common sense call for Christians and Pagans alike to embrace a truly radical spirituality ready to transform individuals and society.

Living In The Lap of Goddess

Living In The Lap of Goddess PDF Author: Cynthia Eller
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807065075
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
A fascinating introduction to one of the fastest-growing religious movements in the United States today. Through interviews, participant-observation, and analysis of movement literature, Cynthia Eller explores what women who worship the goddess believe; how they express those beliefs in private, in public, and in the political realm; and the place of feminist spirituality in the history of American religion.

The Goddess Revival

The Goddess Revival PDF Author: Aída Besançon Spencer
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725228904
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The Goddess Revival is a Christianity Today Book Award Winner, 1996. "All of the authors are clearly sympathetic to the problems women have faced in the church throughout its history. They empathize with women who shun the patriarchal oppression of their churches to turn to goddess spirituality. They are also solidly grounded in the Scriptures, Christian theology and church history. They recognize the bondage imposed by goddess worship. This book presents a scholarly and clear consideration of the issues involved and builds a strong case for Christianity as the most woman-friendly alternative. While providing a comprehensive study of goddess spirituality and examining the roots of the movement, the authors focus primarily on God and the way people have understood God through the centuries--in both paganism and the Judeo-Christian tradition--as both male and female. They demonstrate how the uniqueness of God contrasts with the multiplicity of gods and goddesses in pagan spiritualities, while comparing the values in both traditions that are similar (that is, a search for what is good, inner empowerment, unity, positive social change). In the process of building a clear Christian theology, they gently counter the arguments of their pagan opponents. In the end, the reader is left with a glorious picture of the one true God and a clear apologetic for those in nursing who insist that the Christian God is too oppressive and patriarchal to merit our allegience. The appendixes provide a powerful case study of a young woman drawn into witchcraft. She explains why it appealed to her, then how it enslaved her and destroyed her marriage and other relationships. . . The two final appendixes offer some excellent biblical studies on the issues raised in the book. The total package provides an outstanding resource" -- Journal of Christian Nursing

The Goddess in the Gospels

The Goddess in the Gospels PDF Author: Margaret Starbird
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 159143811X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In an era that has reclaimed many aspects of the feminine, Margaret Starbird’s The Woman with the Alabaster Jar stands out as a courageous exploration of the scorned feminine in the Western religious tradition. But espousing the marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene created a personal crisis for this Catholic scholar. In The Goddess in the Gospels the author tells how she was guided in her ever-deepening study of the New Testament and the gematria--number coding of the Greek alphabet--by an incredible series of synchronicities that mirror the inner and outer worlds and which reveal the Sacred Marriage of male and female--the hieros gamous--leading to her own personal redemption.

Pistis Sophia

Pistis Sophia PDF Author: Amélineau
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781015908994
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.