Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality [Paperback]

Carol P. Christ (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0415921864 | ISBN-13: 978-0415921862 | Edition: 1

Carol P. Christ brings together her personal experience and expertise to provide a comprehensive guide to the principles, practices and beliefs that have shaped feminist spirituality. Drawing from the fields of history, art, literature and philosophy, among others, she demonstrates the effects of worshipping the goddess, and how it challenges our most basic assumptions. The book is both a historical essay and a testament of the possibilities for change and self-fulfilment.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Christ (Odyssey with the Goddess, LJ 3/1/95) manages to combine heart and intellect in her latest work, melding personal experience with goddess studies and her scholarship. She discusses who the goddess is, what her history is, why there is resistance to her, and what she means. Christ is sensitive to different meanings of the goddess?e.g., transcendent, immanent, nature personified, and indwelling presence?and shares her own perceptions, informed and changed by recent experiences living in Greece. Christ finds the goddess especially in life-giving and life-affirming processes integral to existence. The final chapter of her work articulates an ethos focused on affirmation of beauty, life, and love rather than on patriarchal domination, power, and violence. Highly recommended both for those who do not know goddess religion and for those who do.?Carolyn M. Craft, Longwood Coll., Farmville, Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

One of feminist spirituality's founding mothers here offers a thealogy--a way of understanding the diverse, often divergent ways in which modern women use the image of the goddess. Feminist thealogy, Christ argues, typically begins from experience, rather than moving from theory to practice. It is connected with an awareness of life's complex interconnectedness; thus, feminist spirituality is typically ecologically centered. It encounters resistance from patriarchal systems that discourage heterodox religious visions. This could be a dry summary of the tenets of an important emerging faith, but in Christ's hands, it is a charged testimonial to the power of the feminine divine in her own life. Like most of Christ's work, it weaves autobiography, anthropology, comparative religion, and history into a seamless garment of impassioned thought. Patricia Monaghan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415921864
• ISBN-13: 978-0415921862
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #529,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loving Goddess with mind as well as magic, August 22, 2002

By 

Peter M. Schogol (Lexington, KY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality (Paperback)

One wonders just what book it is that the reader from Massachusetts read. I've read REBIRTH OF THE GODDESS twice and I wouldn't have recognized it from the review.

The chief value of the book for me is its thealogy. Many of us who engage and are engaged by the Sacred as female have come to Her from Christianity and Judaism rather than through New Age or neo-pagan movements. We have been seeking a way of understanding our affectional experience of Goddess in ways that are logically honest and intellectually defensible. We are not all given to the practice of magic, nor unequivocally believe in reincarnation, nor require the presence of a male god. Carol Christ clearly has come up through the mainstream of Western theology, is conversant with its contemporary developments (process thought particularly) and applies them coherently and effectively, and she has left this reader with a way of understanding Goddess that is empowering, uplifting, and above all sane.

Perhaps as a male I come to REBIRTH OF THE GODDESS with different needs and expectations than the reader from Massachusetts. But I'm gambling that there are other readers, women as well as men, who will find in this book the approach they need to enjoy and discuss their spirituality and bring it into the open marketplace of contemporary ideas.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recreate., November 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality (Paperback)

This book was both a fun and provocative read. Christ's prose is moving, and the underlying message is a move for social change. I second the motion. In my theological studies, accounts written by church fathers are dry and uninspiring. This book calls to attention many often overlooked perspectives. One, is the oppression of religions that follow the patriarchal code. Two, is the influence patriarchy has had on all academically accepted accounts of history. Three, Christ challenges the prevailing paradigm of dualism, or thinking in unequal opposition (Black, bad; White, good. Subjective, bad; objective, good.), and favors a kind of continuum (something doesn't have to be all or nothing, one or the other). Objectivity is not sacrificed, but rather enriched by the author's personal experiences. Read this book if you'd like to see a new perspective. Even if you've seen the perspective, read it for further enlightenment.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A mind-opening book, November 26, 2000

By 

Laura Gilkey "Fox in the Stars" (from USA with LOVE) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality (Paperback)

I encountered this book while exploring neopaganism/Goddess religion, but I would heartily reccommend it even to someone with no interest in such things. The book challenges points of view such as objectivity, dualism, and social structures that I had taken for granted and never thought of questioning, and does so in a constructive way. The writing is warm and personal, but I find this suited to the subject. Can an impersonal "scientific" view really do justice to something as personal and human as religion? I reccommend this book to anyone wanting to broaden their point of view about religion, social structure, or life in general.