Customer Reviews

Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality

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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.

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.

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.

Carol Christ, who is trained in theology, has written a serious book, using traditional methodology, to explicate Goddess spirituality. This is a thought-provoking work that is essential to the library of every woman who is on this spiritual path.

I am just beginning to explore the world of the Goddess, and Goddess-centered spirituality. This book is excellent for someone who wants to delve into the realm of thealogy but doesn't want a thin, poorly researched book packed with new age jargon and the author's personal experience in place of fact-based theories. If you feel more comfortable approaching the Goddess intellectually at first, and then spiritually, this is the book for you. Christ does include plenty of subjective, personal experiences in the book which make the work more accessible. When she proposes a new theory on what exactly happened to the Goddess mythos from the neolithic period to the present, she supports it with research. Of course, we can only guess what exactly happened - but Christ's guesses are all educated and logical. After all, she holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale; her intellectual and yet deeply personal approach made me understand the Goddess with my head, so that now I feel ready to try with my heart.

I read this over the summer in preparation for my master's thesis. If I had been in my 20s, or hadn't spent three years in divinity school, I probably would have been enthralled.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm not in my 20s anymore, and this sort of undocumented, personalized screed is not at all what feminist theology and the goddess movement need to become more than a fringe phenomenon. Christ seems determined that personal belief replace verifiable fact; that discredited and/or minority views be accepted without checking simply because they were promulgated by women; that any attempt at objectivity is "male scholarship" and thus has no place in goddess religion.

To say that this book was a profound disappointment is putting it mildly. This is everything that feminist scholarship is accused of: shrill, hysterical, badly argued, confessional, personalized, and very, very slanted. I was extremely upset by its contents, and even more that so many women who are trying to bring a female perspective to religious scholarship while still maintaining some semblance of academic training will be equated with Carol Christ.

I would strongly recommend Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Rosemary Radford Ruether, or even Starhawk over this. This book does nothing to advance the cause of feminist, female-oriented religion, goddess worship, or religious scholarship.