Testing the Boundaries

Testing the Boundaries:

Self, Faith, Interpretation
and Changing Trends in Religious Studies

Edited by

Patricia ‘Iolana and Samuel Tongue

 Testing the Boundaries:
Self, Faith, Interpretation and Changing Trends in Religious Studies,
Edited by Patricia ‘Iolana and Samuel Tongue

This book first published 2011

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2011 by Patricia ‘Iolana and Samuel Tongue and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-2669-3, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2669-3

 To all those who test the boundaries,
keep up the struggle to communicate and
have the courage to tread in the liminal space,
we dedicate this work.
Your current safe boundaries
were once unknown frontiers.

~Unknown~
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations .................................................................................... ix

Preface ....................................................................................................... xi
Professor David Jasper

Acknowledgements ................................................................................. xiii

Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
Patricia ‘Iolana

PART I

Self Image: Re-imaging the Self and the Divine

Patricia ‘Iolana............................................................................................ 9

Radical Images of the Feminine Divine: Women’s Spiritual Memoirs

Reveal a Thealogical Shift
Patricia ‘Iolana.......................................................................................... 13

The Myth of Mary as a Space for an Individual Connection

to the Divine (Self)
Rasa Lutyze .............................................................................................. 31

PART II

Faith, Hope and Religious “Otherness”

Samuel Tongue ......................................................................................... 51

Hope and Otherness: Christian Eschatology in an Interreligious

Horizon
Jakob Wirén.............................................................................................. 57

Citizenship in Muslim Communities of Europe: A Conceptual

Investigation
Erol Firtin ................................................................................................. 71
viii Table of Contents

PART III

Interpretation: Struggles to Communicate

Samuel Tongue ......................................................................................... 91

The Term Question in China: The Theological Factors behind the

Translation of Shangti as the Term for “God” in the Chinese Bible in the
Nineteenth Century
Daniel Sungho Ahn .................................................................................. 95

Sacred River’s Pure Pollution: Clarifying Communication

in the Debate Over the Status of the Ganges
Wynter Miller ........................................................................................ 115

Dancing Between the Disciplines: The Mobile Bible

Samuel Tongue ....................................................................................... 127

PART IV

Changing Trends: Moving Beyond Traditional Boundaries

Patricia ‘Iolana........................................................................................ 149

Spiritual Education: The Case of Student Nurses’ Experiences

of Learning about Spirituality and Spiritual Care
Dr. Beth Seymour ................................................................................... 153

Nomadic Theology: Crossing the Lines of Traditions in Theology

Elizabeth Chloe Erdmann ....................................................................... 177

Inter-religious Dialogue: Changing How We Communicate

Dr. Maureen Sier .................................................................................... 195

Endnote
Dr. Maureen Sier .................................................................................... 207

List of Contributors ................................................................................ 209

Index....................................................................................................... 213
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
1.1. A greeting poster in the entrance hall of the Jáki Kápolna Church in
Budapest

Tables
4.1 Nominal Group Technique: Year 3 pre-registration students (38)
4.2 Nominal Group Technique: Year 4 undergraduates (6)
4.3 Nominal Group Technique: In-service students (5)
4.4 Themes identified from the analytical and interpretive processes
4.5 Extracts from the SEQ
 PREFACE

The essays collected in this volume began as papers read at the 2009
annual conference of the Graduate School for Arts and Humanities in the
University of Glasgow, Scotland. Diverse though they are in subject,
together they develop a common theme which expresses the universal
question of the future of spiritual consciousness and articulation at a time
when old theological certainties and their guardian institutions in the West
are almost all declining or even irrevocably past, and when we all live in
multicultural societies which present us with broad perspectives and
challenges, not least in questions of religious faith and commitment, that
are entirely new in human experience. As never before we have come to
realize that we are all members of one human family, and are thus called
to be united in our humanity despite ancient cultural barriers and
prejudices. In the biblical tradition theological articulation begins close to
the dawn of human time within nomadic societies who were called to
wander far from their homes and places of origin. One of the earliest
creedal statements known to us begins with the admission that “a
wandering Aramean was my father.” Perhaps only now, as Chloe Erdmann
suggests, we are relearning that theology itself is not fixed and prescriptive
but of its very nature nomadic and restless, complex in its affiliations with
and freedoms from established traditions of faith and belief. Only when we
have begun to absorb this lesson can we start again to take fully seriously
the complexity of theology’s languages in exchange and translation, and
thus to own it as both and at once particular and specific, and global and
universal. Only then will we begin to appreciate the mystery of divine
residence within language and the different yet ultimately familiar
resonances of diverse linguistic families. As we grow closer in this
realization we can begin to become more responsible towards the claims
of different communities of faith that exist within our society, as well as
dare to imagine the divine within diverse families of metaphors once
separated by seemingly unbridgeable barriers of gender, race and creed.
The new demands of interdisciplinarity invite us to inhabit the symbolic
universe through fresh forms of discourse drawn from psychoanalysis,
studies of myth and ritual, sociology – the list continues to grow - enabling
us to re-imagine that which was once constrained by rigid systems of faith
and order, making new connections and releasing for us different forms of
xii Preface

spirituality and thus new pathways to the divine. Such acts of re-imagining,
these essays suggest, can offer us new ways of perceiving and inhabiting
the fragile world which is our home and for which we have the responsibility
of care. We may also begin once again to appreciate the realm of the
spiritual as central to the support given to us through the caring professions,
not as peripheral and optional but utterly crucial to our understanding of
health, integrity and human well-being.
Samuel Tongue’s image of dancing between the disciplines is
delightful and liberating, opening up spaces where before there has too
often only been repression and the imposition of authority. Nowhere is this
more the case for many of us than in the reception and reading of the
Bible, a collection of ancient texts with enormous traditional authority,
now waning, but which may yet offer genuine and freely humane ways
forward, without the heavy hand of conclusion and definition, in the crises
which beset our culture on every side. One common theme which runs
through all these essays, overtly or covertly, is the promise of hope. We
can share the hope that it is precisely in otherness and religious complexity
that the human future may be celebrated without violence or suspicion. In
such a hope we may rejoice that the other remains different from
ourselves, but is not therefore excluded from our most profound concerns
and affiliations. Indeed, quite to the contrary.
We have much to learn from these essays, offered to the reader by a
new generation of scholars of religious studies who are at once deeply
committed to the spirituality and faith of the past, but embedded in a
wholly realistic sense of the present, and daring to anticipate imaginatively
a shared future for self and the other in our global societies. There words
are on the boundaries and yet at the very heart of life lived humanely in
the presence of the Divine.

—Professor David Jasper

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Honoured by the task of editing an interdisciplinary anthology that tests

the boundaries of traditional theological discourse and religious reflection,
the editors would like to acknowledge our deepest gratitude for the
generous assistance of a number of significant individuals. Their
contributions were integral to the creation and subsequent publication of
this work, and we are sincerely indebted to: Dr. Fiona Darroch and
Professor David Jasper, both of the University of Glasgow, who were
instrumental in every phase of the conference; the University of Glasgow
Graduate School of Arts & Humanities for funding the three day event;
Professor Jasper for generously writing the “Preface” to this text; the
conference planning committee and our outstanding guest speakers Carol
P. Christ, Dr. Maureen Sier and Dr. Julia Sallabank who graciously joined
us in Glasgow and not only sparked but also engaged in provocative
dialogues throughout the weekend; the international scholars and faculty
in attendance of the 7th Annual Conference of the Graduate School of Arts
and Humanities entitled “Communicating Change: Weaving the Web into
the Future” for their participation, thought-provoking questions, and
contributions which not only made the conference a great success but also
provided the impetus for this text; our colleagues Rasa Lutyze, Jakob
Wirén, Erol Firtin, Daniel Sungho Ahn, Wynter Miller, Dr. Beth Seymour,
Elizabeth Chloe Erdmann, and Dr. Maureen Sier for their brilliant work,
patience and diligence over the past eighteen months; Dr. Heather Walton,
Professor Yvonne Sherwood, and Professor Werner Jeanrond (from
Theology and Religious Studies) for providing us with a supportive
academic environment in which to work; e-Sharp Editor Dorian Grieve
and his peer review team who provided critical assistance during the initial
phase of double-blind review, Laura Jeacock for her fabulous painting
“Light Creates Shadow” the centre of which generously graces our cover,
and, finally, Amanda Millar and Carol Koulikourdi of Cambridge Scholars
Publishing for their advice, patience and the opportunity to publish this
important collection of works.
On a more personal note, I am eternally grateful to my co-editor
Samuel Tongue not only for collaborating with me on this text, but also on
the e-Sharp Special Edition Communicating Change: Representing Self
and Community in a Technological World – the first product of this
xiv Acknowledgements

conference. He has been a joy to work with and has proved himself an
admirable academic partner. These publications would not exist without
him.
—Patricia ‘Iolana
University of Glasgow
11 August 2010
 INTRODUCTION

PATRICIA ‘IOLANA

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change

that is the dominant factor in society today.
No sensible decision can be made any longer
without taking into account not only the world as it is,
but the world as it will be.
—Isaac Asimov

For millennia, human beings have been contemplating the cosmogony

of the known world. Where did life come from? What is our place in this
world? Do we have a purpose on this small blue planet? Is there a God? If
so, what is our relationship with the Great Creator? Moreover, where is
God? Is God transcendent and separate from humanity, or is God
immanent and part of humanity and of the earth? Can God be both?
These questions have been postulated philosophically, theologically,
artistically and scientifically. Yet, despite a transitory Western culture that
is witnessing the rise of secular societies and neo-atheist writers, a
decrease in church attendance, and an increase in multi-religious identities
we continue to ponder these age-old and deeply-personal questions which
come from the very core of our being. We may struggle with belief
especially in times that test our strength, and in some instances, we can
lose our faith completely or, conversely, (re)discover it suddenly through
an unexpected Divine experience. As humans we have a long, well-
documented history filled with Asimov’s “inevitable change”, and the
various ways societies have imaged God or the Divine changes as well
over time.
The human process of learning and growing is, after all, grounded in
the ability to test the boundaries which contain us. Moreover, the best way
to challenge an idea, paradigm, belief, or understanding is to examine it
with an open mind from a new perspective—an unconventional view
through an alternate lens. As individuals, we use a variety of lenses in our
daily life. These lenses (or paradigms) establish and control how we
perceive and manage ideas, events, simple and complex groups, processes,
etc. They are, in essence, the way we see the world, others, and ourselves.
2 Introduction

It is important to remember that lenses have limitations although these

limitations vary from lens to lens. They also vary from individual to
individual. To further complicate matters, individuality manipulates and
transforms those lenses with personal conceptions and borders. Lenses
that are exclusive to other perspectives pose a particular threat to the
potential of change in what Thomas Kuhn refers to as a paradigm shift or
a radical amendment in the world view. Elizabeth Johnson applies Kuhn’s
scientific model to theology when she calls for “…not simply the solution
to one problem, but an entire shift of world view away from patterns of
dominance toward mutually enhancing relationships.” (1993, 28) As
such, our visions of the Divine, God, the Ultimate Reality, Allah, Goddess,
the Creator, must shift and change as well. As individual members of
various faith traditions within contemporary society we have the ability
(although not always the opportunity) to create our own paradigmatic
image of the Divine. As a society we can alter, transform, or even replace
those paradigms. Progressive movements exist in nearly every faith
tradition—moving towards the future of our world and our belief systems;
these movements include both radical and reformist thinkers, and they are
challenging the lenses that we employ to image, worship, connect with and
understand the Divine.
Growth and change are a necessity in the academy as well. Current
events such as the Islamophobia and violence rampant in the States
sparked by the plans to build Park51 (an Islamic Interfaith Centre near the
site of the World Trade Centre attack); the tragedy and violence between
Israeli and Palestinian over territory, resources and human rights; or the
wars between religious factions in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey
indicate the need for alternate perspectives about the world and our Selves.
Consequently, there is a need for the academy to embrace and pursue
progressive lenses in our quest for knowledge and understanding. The ten
scholars who contributed to this text all provide an alternate, innovative
lens for examining pertinent individual or societal issues within their
greater social paradigm. They explore the praxis of faith including our
image of Self in relation to the Divine, our relation to the Other, our
struggle for identity in new locales, the limitations and challenges of
language and translations, our responsibility to nature, our nomadic and
transitory tendencies, traditions in academy, and our interreligious
relationships. These scholars are testing the boundaries of traditional
theology and their interdisciplinary fields—many dancing in the liminal
space where possibilities gather. They add an important dimension to the
present conversations and provide rich alternatives to our contemporary
paradigms.
 Patricia ‘Iolana 3

The task of editing a volume such as this includes, amongst the

various other duties, sorting through contributions in search of common
themes; fortunately this was not necessary with the essays in this text.
Natural and significant themes appeared from the conference at which
these ideas were first presented. The overall themes, or lenses, in which
their focused ideas are presented allow the reader to explore various
alternate paradigms as they examine the relationship between Self and the
Divine.
The text begins with the foundation of all these queries—the Self. In
Part I, Self-Image: Reimaging the Self and the Divine, two thealogians
invite the reader to consider the relationship between the Self and the
Divine. This relationship is crucial as the foundation to belief and both
authors echo Johnson’s “...loss of self-identity is also a loss of the
experience of God.” (1993, 65) Moreover, both contemplate an alternate
perspective on how that relationship is established, defined, and changed
over time. By questioning the ways in which one’s relationship with the
Divine helps one to define oneself and one’s Self-image provides the
reader with an opportunity to examine her or his own relationship with the
Divine and the Self. Both authors also ask what happens when women
image God. What shift in Self-image occurs when the Divine is seen as
not only feminine, but also immanent? These questions are explored in
Part I, and the essays consider radical lenses with which to see the
feminine Self and the Divine.
Part II, Faith Hope and Religious “Otherness” explores another
important series of questions about the Self. The authors, each from a
different Abrahamic tradition – one Christian and one Muslim, examine
the Self in relation to the “Religious Other”. These authors challenge the
way we perceive, communicate and interact with the Religious Other in
our communities. They ask vital questions about how one maintains a
sense of religious Self when outside home communities or within a single,
but divisive, faith tradition. Is it possible to live in today’s electronic,
constantly changing, secular and multi-cultural society and still maintain a
grounded faith or spirituality, sense of Self, and have a relationship with
the Divine on one’s own terms? These may be questions that many of us
have asked as of late; there is no one particular answer to these questions
as faith and adhering to a faith tradition is a deeply individual and personal
matter—one in which broad generalised statements cannot be made. They
pose questions that offer the reader a chance to ponder these issues and
decide for oneself about their paradigmatic validity and application to life
– in essence an opportunity to shift or alter her or his view of Self, Other,
and the greater society in which they both exist.
4 Introduction

Communicating one’s paradigm of Self or Other in relation to the

Divine is often both complex and precarious, and in Part III, Interpretation:
Struggles to Communicate three authors examine the various struggles we
encounter when attempting to communicate the Divine to Other cultures
and societies through Sacred texts, the Divine in Nature and our
responsibility to care and protect it, and the struggle to preserve the Bible
as a relative and authoritative text in today’s ever-changing society. They
ask us to consider how we attempt to interpret a new ideology and
language for a culture vastly different than our own. What difficulties
arise and are lost in translation? How do we envision our responsibility to
or our dominion over the earth? Fundamentally, we are asked in this part
to consider the broader relationship between Self and Nature as well as our
level of responsibility, contribution, and care. Or how do we give
contemporary interpretation to sacred text? More particularly, can the
Bible retain a sense of authority in our society? Are multiple readings
possible? What happens if we examine these issues with an alternate lens?
Imagine the possibilities if paradigms were shifted. What potentials
await if we step out of our seemingly safe and traditional paradigms of
Self, the Other, and of the Divine? Part IV, Changing Trends: Moving
Beyond Traditional Boundaries attempts to engage in the potentials of
change. Johnson once stated that

…the goal is the flourishing of all beings in their uniqueness and

interrelation—both sexes, all races and social groups, all creatures in the
universe. This calls for a new model of relationship, neither a hierarchical
one that requires an over-under structure, nor a univocal one that reduces
all to a given norm. (1993, 32)

Three authors ask us to contemplate issues outside the traditional

boundaries. Readers are encouraged, as is the academy, to seriously
consider how the Self can work with the Other in relation to the spirit (or
soul). Moreover, these essays propose alternate ways of identifying Self
as Self and in relation to the Other. In today’s multi-religious, multi-
cultural, yet increasingly secular society how do we function as Self in
relation to the Divine and the Religious Other? What possibilities are
there in new lenses and perhaps paradigms for those identities and
relations?
It is therefore important to employ as many various lenses as possible
when examining the issues of Self, the Other and the Divine. With so
many possible interpretations and paradigms competing for social
acceptance and support, the choice must be made carefully and wisely
bearing in mind the inevitability of change whilst remaining open to
 Patricia ‘Iolana 5

pluralities of thought and practice. This is especially important when it

comes to the future of theology and religious studies—in particular to the
relations between the various global faith traditions. Interfaith dialogue
and relations are a significant way forward towards that potential –
towards the potential that awaits in that liminal space outside traditional
boundaries—towards Asimov’s “inevitable change”.

Reference
Johnson, Elizabeth A. 1993. She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist
Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad.
 PART I

SELF-IMAGE:
RE-IMAGING THE SELF
AND THE DIVINE

SELF-IMAGE:
RE-IMAGING THE SELF AND THE DIVINE

PATRICIA ‘IOLANA

One of the most intriguing things about the changing face of theology,
thealogy, and religious studies can be found in the variety of ways in
which scholars and practitioners image the Divine and define (or redefine)
their relation to the Divine. In our ever-changing, highly technological
world which seems to grow smaller with each passing day, we have the
opportunity to learn about other faith traditions and to share our own with,
quite literally, the entire world. Progressive movements are apparent in all
of the major world religions, and we eagerly experiment and appraise the
rigidity of existing boundaries by pushing, prodding, or leaping right over
them. For some, these boundaries are scrutinised from within one’s own
faith tradition (reformers), but for others, these boundaries are tested and
stretched from outside an original faith tradition (radicals) and, in some
cases, outside accepted ideas and norms which stretch existing boundaries
to new limits and new heights. The following essays may test the reader’s
own theological boundaries, and, perhaps provide the reader with alternate
perspectives to traditional images of the Divine and the Self.
In “Radical Images of the Feminine Divine: Women’s Spiritual
Memoirs Disclose a Thealogical Shift” I seek to briefly examine an
intriguing trend in contemporary literature (women’s spiritual memoirs).
These texts individually chronicle the author’s path away from a faith or
logic tradition she feels has on some level let her down spiritually or
personally and toward one of the various forms of Goddess Spirituality
that are gaining popularity and practitioners in the West. What is
fascinating is that, collectively, these memoirs are espousing an innovative
thealogical discourse, praxis, and spirituality based on the Feminine
Divine. Changing the way women image God isn’t necessarily a novel
idea; feminist theologians Carol P Christ, Rosemary Radford Reuther,
Naomi R Goldenberg, and the late Mary Daly and Valerie Saiving (among
others) have been challenging patriarchal and androcentric images of the
Divine for decades now. What is truly captivating and innovative about
10 Self Image: Re-imaging the Self and the Divine

these spiritual memoirs is that these women are documenting shared

experiences, and communal thealogies, and their words and stories are
reaching and affecting readers worldwide. These women are giving voice
not only to how they image their selves and their personal relationship
with the Divine and by extension their connection to nature and the web of
life, but also espousing a way for others to seek their true self in what Carl
Gustav Jung would called the path of Individuation. Through these works,
authors and readers alike are creating new images of the Self and of the
Divine. Consequently these works of literature are having a tremendous
impact on theological reflection, belief, and praxis, and, the Goddess
Spirituality movement (in all its various and multitudinous forms) is
perhaps the fastest growing faith tradition in the West. Therefore I briefly
ponder what impact these experiences with an immanent Feminine Divine
might have on traditional theological enquiry and praxis. How do they
disrupt the existing Western Abrahamic image of God the Father and
therefore women’s image of Self within those faith traditions?
Rasa Luzyte also challenges traditional images of the sacred when she
examines alternate possibilities of Mary in her essay “The myth of Mary
as a space for an individual connection to the divine (Self).” Also utilising
the theories of Carl Jung, Rasa Luzyte challenges the patriarchal and
Abrahamic vision of God echoing the complaint eloquently voiced by
Mary Daly, “If God is male, then male is God.” In this article Rasa
questions the theologically-static Catholic symbol of the Virgin Mary as
pure, motherly, and sacred (although not necessarily Divine). She
contemplates how this half image, half understanding of a lesser Mary
skews women’s sense of self and personal connection to the Mother of
God. In calling for imaging Mary as whole, with a shadow/dark side that
mirrors the whole woman (and as seen in the Black Madonna as
complementary to the White Madonna), she envisions a Divine that all
women can connect to and relate with outside of the Christian tradition.
She also takes her re-imaging a step further: for what if Mary’s holy child
was a daughter and not a son? How would this new, radical image of the
Mother of God alter religious traditions and our sense of self? What if the
traditionally male trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit were replaced with
Mother, Daughter, and Holy Spirit? By taking Mary out of the static role
dependent and forced between the male God and the male Son, Mary
becomes the Divinity herself that is liberated to bear forth divine in her
own sex which ultimately leads to the question: how will these new
images not only change a faith tradition but also how women view
themselves and their relationship to the Divine?
 Patricia ‘Iolana 11

Both articles challenge the way one might image the Divine, and
emphasise how testing those pre-existing, androcentric images of God
might offer not only liberating possibilities of the Divine but also alternate
images of women for both men and women to consider and emulate.
Perhaps, more important, these essays speak about how this active, radical
re-imaging can provide compelling personal myths and symbols through
which women may re-image their Self, the Divine, and their relation to the
God.

RADICAL IMAGES OF THE FEMININE DIVINE:
WOMEN’S SPIRITUAL MEMOIRS DISCLOSE A
THEALOGICAL SHIFT

PATRICIA ‘IOLANA

Mighty, majestic, and radiant

You shine brilliantly in the evening,
You brighten the day at dawn,
You stand in the heavens like the sun and the moon,
Your wonders are known both above and below,
To the greatness of the holy priestess of heaven,
To you, Inanna, I sing! (2000 BCE)1

In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word

Documented Experience
As the Ancient Sumerian stone tablets containing the myth cycle of
Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth demonstrate, women and men have
been writing about their experiences with and impressions of the Divine
for millennia. These spiritual narratives are significant to the culture
within which they were written as they contain the ability to define a
culture; they can also delineate a group, or groups, within a culture.
Therefore it is crucial to understand that these stories have enormous
cultural and social power; they can confirm and maintain personal and
cultural paradigms; they can shift and alter existing traditions, beliefs,
schemas and paradigms. Moreover, as a genre within these divine
narratives, spiritual memoirs have a theological significance because they
possess the ability to offer readers a sense of spiritual community, shared
faith, ritual and tradition by creating, sustaining or shifting theological and
cosmogonical paradigms. These stories can also convey an important

1
Wolkstein, Diane and Samuel Noah Kramer. 1983. The Holy Priestess of
Heaven. In Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from
Sumer. New York: Harper & Row, Lines 10-16, 93.
14 Radical Images of the Feminine Divine

psychological means for both the author and the reader to understand her
or his experiential sense of Self, her or his place in the world, and
ultimately her or his personal relationship with a Divine Creatrix. Thus,
this genre carries with it remarkable social, theological and psychological
significance for the individuals and cultures from within which it was
written.
A considerable number of contemporary spiritual memoirs, however,
are radically different from those of their peers or recent generations.
There is some academic debate on whether this particular contemporary
trend is autobiographical non-fiction or a derivative of fiction. Perhaps the
most accurate description would, in fact, be fictive narrative; this term
best describes the author’s selective use of events and experiences,
perhaps with embellishment, to tell, traditionally, non-fictional stories of
personal pilgrimage or Divine revelation. Furthermore, the individual,
spiritual journey shared in these memoirs portray the author’s numinous or
spiritual experience2 with the Divine which aligns the focus of this work
on the experiences contained in these memoirs and the social, theological
and psychological implications of this content. My research centres on the
significant and remarkable fact that a considerable amount of Western
women are writing their spiritual memoirs, documenting their personal
encounters with the Divine and revealing collective experiential
similarities.
Interestingly, this specific genre also documents a trend of dissatisfaction
with existing patriarchal or humanistic traditions and an attraction towards
a Goddess-based religious tradition. What is perhaps far more vital to the
theological significance of this genre is that these women are detailing
experiences with an immanent Feminine Divine3 (an inherent God with a
feminine face and voice) and documenting a thealogy thus creating a new
and influential kind of contemporary women’s spiritual memoir. These
memoirs are the centre of my enquiries.
Upon close evaluation, these exemplary works reveal important
experiential, thealogical and psychoanalytic similarities and define syncretistic
religious traditions — espousing a thealogy for the future of humanity and
our Mother Earth; they contain the potential for interreligious “correlational
dialogue” (Knitter) and espouse the “reclamation” of a holistic spirituality
that transcends contemporary monotheistic constructs. These works are

2
By experience I am referring to the direct personal contact with, awareness of or
knowledge of the Divine as recorded in the works in my case study.
3
The term Feminine Divine is interchangeable with Sacred Feminine, Goddess,
Great Mother, or Creatrix. My use of this term is merely for consistency and does
not imply a preference of one term over the other.
 Patricia ‘Iolana 15

theologically significant for four key reasons: 1) the similar journeys

shared by the women/authors in experiencing the Goddess, 2) the
Thealogy and the various Goddess personifications present in these works,
3) the disruption to traditional theological categories, and 4) the possibility
for interfaith interaction and exchange inherent in the pluralistic and
syncretistic nature of these religious traditions.
In my current research, I am examining the similarities and differences
in the experiences contained in the spiritual memoirs of five different
women: Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen, Phyllis Curott, Christine Downing, Sue
Monk Kidd, and Margaret Starbird. For the purposes of brevity in this
current context, however, I will limit my examination to two: Sue Monk
Kidd’s Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from
Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine (2002) and Phyllis Curott’s
Book of Shadows: A Modern Woman’s Journey into the Wisdom of
Witchcraft and the Magic of the Goddess (1998). This paper will focus on
two important questions: How is the Feminine Divine imaged in each text?
And in what ways does reimaging the Divine as Sacred Feminine disrupt
traditional masculine, Abrahamic theological categories?

What is Thealogy? – A Brief Definition

The origin of the term thealogy is open to debate. According to my
research Thealogy or Thealogian was first used in publications by both
Isaac Bonewits (“The Druid Chronicles – Evolved”) and Valerie Saiving
(“Androcentrism in Religious Studies”) in 1976. Naomi Goldenberg
continued this new thread by using the term in The Changing of the Gods
(Goldenberg 1979b, 96). Since then, many have attempted to define
“thealogy”. Carol Christ, a self-professed Thealogian, first used the term
in her Laughter of Aphrodite in 1987, and years later succinctly defined it
as “the reflection on the meaning of the Goddess” (2002, 79). Rita
Nakashima Brock, in her 1989 article “On Mirrors, Mists, and Murmurs:
Toward an Asian American Thealogy” specifies her understanding of the
term thealogy: “I use the word thealogy to describe the work of women
reflecting on their experiences of and beliefs about divine reality” (Brock
1989, 236).
Strictly adhering to the definition, the word breaks down into two
parts: Thea (Goddess) + logos (word, discourse, reason) although I doubt
if this properly encapsulates the entire meaning of this term. Angela
Hope, Founder of the Institute for Thealogy and Deasophy provides a
much more provocative and elucidating definition of the term and field of
16 Radical Images of the Feminine Divine

thealogy (and by extension deasophy) and shall serve to set the context
within which my research and theories are placed:

Goddess thealogy and deasophy can be considered fields that are

concerned with the past and contemporary Goddess community's beliefs,
wisdom, embodied practices, questions, and values. Both thealogy and
deasophy, or more accurately thealogies and deasophies, constitute newly
burgeoning mediums of feminist praxis within the Goddess spirituality and
feminist spirituality movements in recent decades. [...]Thealogy and
deasophy should not be defined in reference or opposition to another
discourse, but the aim of this Institute is to name thealogy and deasophy
rooted in a priori experience and thought or to name them on their own
terms. [...]Thealogy can be defined as follows: Within the context of
various past and contemporary spiritual/religious traditions, thealogy
concerns the inquiry into the meaning and nature of the Goddess(es) or
Sacred Feminine; the meaning and nature of life forms and the universe in
relation to the Divine/Divinities; and/or feminist understandings of the
Divine that are post-kyriarchal. Thealogies encompass all orientations
including polytheism, monotheism, metatheism, ditheism, pantheism and
so on. Thealogy draws attention to various questions including but not
limited to the following: What is the nature or essence of Goddess(es)?
How do life-forms exist in relationship with the Goddess(es)? Who are we
or who are we to become, and where are we going? What is the purpose of
my life and how should I live my life? (Hope, 2010)

Differing Perspectives: Sue Monk Kidd and Phyllis Curott

Before considering how the Feminine Divine is imaged in each text,
(and I use the term imaged specifically to denote a mental or psychic
image or symbol as opposed to an imaginary creation), it is important to
understand the women who are imaging. Therefore, I shall begin with
brief background information on each author. Sue Monk Kidd, by her
own accounts, grew up deep within the Christian tradition. The wife of a
Baptist minister and theologian at a Baptist college, Kidd led a Church-
centred family life with contemplation as the cornerstone of her world:

I had always been very spiritual and very religious, too... I’d pursued a
spiritual journey of depth and meaning...within the circle of Christian
orthodoxy....I had been raised in the Southern Baptist Church, and I was
still a rather exemplary member of one, but beginning in my early thirties
I’d become immersed in a journey that was rooted in contemplative
spirituality...I was influence by Meister Eckhart and Julian of Norwich.
(Kidd 2002, 14)