God Has Been and Always

¶ … God has been and always will be male.

In Imaging God, the authors discuss how people conceive of God and how that image, for most Westerners, is that of a white male. However, the authors suggest that even contemporary people may conceive of God as female. Moreover, there is significant historical evidence of goddess worship in a wide variety of societies, with the majority of that worship focusing on the image of the Earth or the heavens conceived as a goddess or multiple goddesses. "Archeologists have discovered relics of worship to her among the cultural remains of people as disparate as the ancient Babylonians and pre-Christian Celts, at sites as distant northern Iraq and southern France, and dating as far back as 25,000 BCE (Renzetti et al., 2012, p.338). Therefore, the suggestion that God has always been and always will be male ignores what is known about the historical worship of goddesses. Moreover, while some people might dismiss the worship of female deities as archaic, polytheistic religions with deities of both genders flourished even during the same time that the world's current major monotheistic religions began to spread across the globe.

2. Compare and contrast the religious traditions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity with regard to the issues of women's roles in each religion.

Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are all Abrahamic religions, and, as such, share some significant cultural and traditional values. Unfortunately, in many circumstances, these cultural and traditional values have been very unfavorable to women. In modern times, this is not always the case, as less orthodox branches of all three major world religions can be very inclusive of women. However, traditional and orthodox denominations in those religious groups are still restrictive of women. Orthodox Jewish women are still prohibited from reading the Torah during a religious service, being religious leaders, sing in the synagogue, and men and women have to remain segregated during religious services. Likewise, many Christian churches take a very dim view of women and their appropriate role in the church. St. Paul, an early founder of the traditional Christian church had some very misogynistic takes on women, dictating a subservient role for women, not only in the church, but in their personal relationships outside of the church. However, some Christian denominations are very supportive of women's rights, particularly some modern protestant denominations. Islam has gotten a reputation as a very misogynistic religion, but that reputation is more linked to cultural practices than religious dictates. For example, "Muhammad declared that a woman's consent had to be obtained before a marriage and that she be paid the brideprice instead of her father" (Renzetti et al., 2012, p.353).

3. What is "feminist spirituality" and why is it important?