thou shalt not erect graven images

Feminism has been embattled in my classroom lately. Last week, one of my classes had to read a chapter from Judith Plaskow's book Standing Again at Sinai, a "classic" in Jewish feminist critique and another from Anne Baring's book The Myth of the Goddess, which is not a theological work but rather an attempt to trace the history of goddess worship in human religious history. Class ended on a note that can only be described as a shouting match. This hasn’t happened in my classroom in a long time. Some of the boys got all bent out of shape with the idea of a feminine divine image. I remarked that hostility to the suggestion that God be imaged in feminine ways may not in fact be a theological issue but a cultural, sociological (and I might add, misogynist) one, i.e., that this hostility doesn't say so much about how people think about God as how they think about women. It is unthinkable to some that the divine be imaged in ways that reflect the feminine. Why? Because in our society the feminine is not worthy. It is not a theological issue because they understand that the God of the Bible is eternal. They understand that in order to have a sex, something must have a body. And they understand that a thing that is infinite cannot have a body. Therefore, God does not have a sex. They do not become disturbed when I suggest that the Bible contains a plethora of images for God that are not male; e.g., “God is like a Mother Bear,” “God is like a Mother eagle,” “God is like a mountain…the ocean…a rock.” The Wisdom of God is Sophia (feminine), the Spirit of God that dwells among humanity is Shekinah (feminine). It is only when one suggests that God is like a Mother, or when one refers to God as “She” that the hostility emerges. I told them that there is a feminist theologian and Catholic nun (Sr. Elizabeth Johnson) who has written in her book She Who Is  that to insist upon only one image for God; to insist that God can only be imaged exclusively in male terms, is paramount to idolatry; it is comparable to creating a "graven image," an idol. That's when a few of the boys lost it. Towards the end of class one of them asked, “What is it that you (meaning, you feminists) want?” I began by saying that the feminist critique of religion and feminist theology were important to me because I am convinced that, “our theology shapes our humanity.” I am convinced that the ways in which we image God directly affect and influence our images of each other. What God becomes, becomes God. To quote Mary Daly, “God is man writ large, man is God writ small.” And as long as only men get to reflect the divine; as long as men are the symbolic representation of God; as long as men are the only human beings who are considered worthy enough to mediate between the divine and the human, then the feminine and women will be rendered inferior. Regarding his question as it related to the issue of women's lives I responded this way, “I would like it if a woman were not sexually assaulted every few minutes in this country. I would like it if a woman were not beaten every few seconds in this country. I would like it if the trafficking in women’s and girls’ bodies was not the third largest illegal trade in the world. If globally, women could be educated, could own property, inherit, sign contracts, witness in courts of law, vote, etc, etc. “ 

 

I received an email later from a young woman in the class who said that on the way out of class someone said to her that if she didn't "think of God as a man," she was going to hell. Just one more reason for going to hell. I am starting to count how many things I violate that condemn me.