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From: jan@orc.olivetti.com
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Women and Religion
Message-ID: <1990Oct15.211035.8072@ora.com>
Date: 15 Oct 90 21:10:35 GMT
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In article <1990Oct12.214229.23575@nntp-server.caltech.edu> morphy@truebalt.cco.caltech.EDU (Jones Maxime Murphy) writes:
>First of all, god is consistently referred to as male, unlike the
>supreme deities of many other religions. 

In _The_ _Gnostic_ _Gospels_, by Elaine Pagels, she points out that
some early Christian groups looked at the fact that the Hebrew word
for "Holy Spirit" (breath) was feminine in the Old Testament, and
neuter in Greek, and concluded that Joseph and Mary were His earthly
parents, and the Father and the Holy Spirit were Jesus's heavenly
parents.

These groups passed the duties of celebrant among their congregants,
including women.  She asserts that the line '[the holy spirit]
proceeds from the Father and the Son' in the Nicene creed, which split
the Orthodox Churches from the Roman, was put in to put an end to this
practice and those beliefs.  I read a couple of years ago that the
Episcopal Church now officially no longer supports that line of the
creed, but unfortunately the prayer book was only a few years old when
the decision was made (they come out only about every 40 years due to
the expense of replacing them), so it'll be awhile before we see this
change.

Also, some feminist theologians point out that Jesus told several
pairs of parables, where one each of the pair portrayed God as "like "
a woman, and the other as like a man.  One theologian points out it is
the Church's fault, not the Bible's, that preachers tend to say "God
IS the good shepherd," but "God is LIKE the householder," when the
originals are parallel.

Nevertheless, I see the original poster's point and agree with it in
that I fear Christianity may not be able to make the transition to
equality.  It depends on how present the Spirit is to Her
congregations.

>Most damning, however, is that god consistently prefers to talk to
>men. All prophets are male, as is Christ. Women are purely auxiliary,
>as far as god is concerned.

If the church is willing to admit that this is partly caused by
editing, (ex: Miriam and Mary got left in), there might be hope.

>The results of this are obvious. While women are welcome to perform,
>say, fundraising duties or other auxiliary functions, they are almost
>universally excluded from the power structure of organized
>Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions.

When I told my priest I wanted to be a priest, he said "You realize,
don't you, that that raises the question of the gender of God."  I got
mad and said if women could carry boy babies, we could carry a male
God-presence.

He repeated his assertion, and, since I knew he was supporting two
other women's bids to the priesthood, I decided to look into it
further.  I took Carol Christ's class on Women and Religion at San
Jose State (in the women's studies department in association with
sociology, I think), and majorly got my consciousness raised.  I
recommend a book she wrote together with Judith Plaskow,
_Woman_Spirit_ Rising_ (not sure about the spaces.)  Currently,
_Laughter_ of _Aphrodite_ by Dr. Christ is available in bookstores,
it's been a few years since I saw the other one.

It's certainly an interesting problem.  I also recommend _The_
_Changing_ of the _Gods_ by Naomi Goldenberg, for the very feminist,
or anything by Dr. Sondra Marie Schneiders for the religious.
(_Women_ and the _Word_, I think, comes to mind.)  Dr. Schneiders is
or was a professor of Biblical Studies at the Jesuit school in the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.  If you ever get a chance to
hear her speak, do it! She's VERY interesting.

BTW, she was the one that pointed out the pairs of parables.

Also BTW, after looking at our priest's pay in the Parish budget, I
decided to stay in Engineering until my kids are through college, at
least :-`

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ jan@orc.olivetti.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We must worship Universal Consciousness as each of the 5 genders in turn
if we wish to be fully open to Yr glory.
						-- St. Xyphlb of Alpha III