"In the beginning, people prayed to the Creatress of Life ... At the very dawn of religion, God was a woman. Do you remember?" (Stone 1). Merlin Stone’s words echo upon whatever page they are written, commanding attention and challenging beliefs. And for women who have long been both immured and excluded in patriarchal religions, these words offer solace, hope and liberation. In Rebirth of the Goddess, Carol Christ explores the reemerging religion of the Goddess via facts and personal experience. Along the way she discusses many topics, but the core of the book is rooted in relating thealogy and experience, as well as the meaning of the Goddess.

According to Christ, thealogy, the study of Goddess, begins in experience. That is not to say that experience is the only thing upon which to base an ethos or mythos, but it certainly helps. I can easily relate to this, as it often takes a lapse of objectivity to begin a ‘mystic’ or religious journey. But as Christ points out, we should never lose that objectivity; nor should we allow it to rule us. In many cases, in the worlds of religious studies and academia, a completely dispassionate, objective approach is favored. Unfortunately, this leads to us discrediting the theories of others on the basis that they full of irrational passions. Yet, our culture has elevated objectivity to an almost sacred level. Why? Fear. A fear that "lurks beneath the ethos of [rational] objectivity … the myth that underlies it cannot be discussed, criticized or deconstructed" (Christ 32). However, the idea that we are somehow ‘protected’ from chaos by this rationality is not true. Take the case of Nazi Germany, for example. Ten million died in death/work camps simply because of excessive rationality.

So where does this leave us? With the need for a paradigm shift. We need to, as Mary Daly put it, ask "non-questions about non-data" (Daly 11). Already the Canon is being questioned and rewritten. Questions about value, authority and agency are being applied not only to literary sources, but liturgical works as well; even some anthropologists are beginning to voice similar sentiments.

However, it can’t stop with scholarship. Experience plays a large role in our education, and there are no limits as to what we can experience if we really want to. But what is experience? Simply, it is "embodied, relational, communal, social, and historical" (Christ 37). Experience includes everything you have ever thought, intuited, read, seen, heard, said, wished, tasted, touched or smelled. It comprises everyone you have met, everything you’ve done or suffered. Your culture is part of your experience, as is your heritage. Your sex, gender, social class, race, ethnicity, and religion – they, too, are included. It is the whole of your existence, it is part of who you are.

Experience, however, is flexible. In order to understand your experience, you must interpret it. And very often it takes a real effort to deal with "fundamental assumptions" (Christ 37), those assumptions that are culturally, and unconsciously, understood. Such beliefs are embedded in our language, our cultural symbols; they tell us what is real and what is not. These assumptions are reinforced by schools, and economic, legal, political, and religious structures.

People manage to see beyond, to break down these assumptions when they "fail to provide adequate interpretation of the experience of a group of people" (Christ 37). A wonderful example of this is the consciousness-raising groups that helped to fuel the women’s movement back in the sixties and seventies. A group of women came together and discussed impediments they faced in everyday life, and came to realize that what they were facing was based at the societal level. They realized that these assumptions would have to be tackled head-on, and that new frameworks were needed. They chose to continue, just as others chose to not to. Indeed, our interpretation of experience involves choice in one way or another. Christ is straightforward, yet simply eloquent, when she states that, "many women have had the experience of being excluded by the masculine language of God, but they have interpreted this experience differently. One woman perceives the experience of being excluded by male language and symbolism as threatening to her faith, so she tries to suppress it. Another decides to work from within her religion to create change. A third concludes that all religions are patriarchal plots against women and becomes an atheist. A fourth explores Buddhism. The last seeks the Goddess" (Christ 37).

Which brings us to the other large issue Christ points to: meaning. Who, or what, is the Goddess? Is She the same as the Judeo-Christian God? Or does She exist separate and independently? Is She one goddess with many aspects, or is She made up of many goddesses? Is She rooted in human nature? Is She a spirit, or the earth? Is transcendent, or immanent? And how does the Goddess relate to women in general, or to feminists? How do men perceive Her? The problem here is that almost any answer to the above questions could be correct – or not, depending on who you ask. Your experience, and nothing else, will determine how you answer these questions.

But these questions raise other issues. The reemergence of Goddess religions has far reaching implications. If the Goddess is the earth, then the female body and the earth itself, both of which have been dominated and devalued by the patriarchy for centuries, are "resacralized." Even if we consider the Goddess to be only a metaphor, She "still has the power to destroy long-standing cultural attitudes and prejudices [and practices] about both women and nature" (Christ 94). If anything, the Goddess, whether as deity or metaphor, has the ability help our culture begin to heal. And that healing will begin when we can reject the "hierarchical dualisms" that have shaped our notions of not only our world, but of the Sacred.

Christ details many other topics throughout her work that deserve consideration as well. To truly appreciate her story is to have a little background in Goddess readings, and/or feminist spirituality. Having read other works of feminist spirituality, and being a member of a Goddess religion myself, I found myself thoroughly enjoying Christ’s book. She weaves personal experience with anthropological/historical/liturgical facts to create a work that is both unbiased and focused, yet passionate. It is easy to see her devotion to the subject, and easy to get caught up in her passion. She does, however, pack a lot of information into her work. At times the material becomes dense, especially when she is writing about the differences between theology and thealogy, humanism and pantheism, transcendence and immanence. This is necessary background, however, especially for those who are new to religious studies publications. But of all the things Christ discusses, I think perhaps my favorite part, what struck a chord in me, came when she wrote what I have known, but been unable to fully articulate, for years. "We need ‘the Goddess’ as an affirmation of an intuition of the unity of being underlying the multiplicity of life. And we need a multiplicity of ‘Goddesses’ to fully reflect our differences, and to remind us of the limitations of any single image" (Christ 112). How perfectly elegant. How very true, especially now, when we are on the cusp of creating ‘borderlands’ for ourselves, places where two or more cultures converge and learn to live together in some kind of harmony.

Works Cited

Christ, Carol P. Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1997.

Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father. Boston: Beacon Press, 1973.

Stone, Merlin. When God Was A Woman. New York: Dial Press, 1976.