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From Father God To Mother Earth: The Effect of Deconstructing Christian Faith on Sexuality by Berit Kjos * "I am the Goddess! We are the Goddess!"2 (About 700 women dancing around a totem pole in Mankato, Minnesota) "While women sleep the earth shall sleep. But listen! We are waking up and rising, and soon our sister will know her strength. The earth-moving day is here." 3 (Alla Bozareth-Campbell, Episcopal priest, 1974) "Religion and culture are ever changing, ever transforming … We are the transformer, maker and creator of our own religious and cultural traditions." 4 (Women, Religion, and Culture: seminar, Beijing Conference) "My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." (Jeremiah 2:13) She called me a few years later. she had begun to find herself, she said. her search had led her beyond the "pat answers" to her ways in which radical feminism is promoting neo- spiritual questions. The biblical God no longer seemed relevant or benevolent. A college teacher had been especially helpful in her journey toward self-discovery. This teacher-counselor called herself a witch – one who believes in the power of magic formulas and rituals to invoke power from spiritual forces. Some years passed. When she called again, she had left her husband and moved away. "I had to find me," she explained. "My spiritual journey has opened my eyes to a whole new paradigm...’ "A new paradigm?" "Yes. A brand new way of seeing God and myself-and everything else. It's like being born again." "Who is Jesus Christ to you now?" I asked. "He is a symbol of redemption," she answered. "But I haven't rejected the Bible. I'm only trying to make my spiritual experience my own. I have to hear my own voice and not let someone else choose for me. Meanwhile, I'm willing to live with confusion and mystery, and I feel like I'm in God's hands whether God is He, She, or It." "Do you have friends or relatives on similar journeys?" Like millions of other seekers, Peggy longs for practical spirituality, a sense of identity, a community of like-minded seekers, and a God she can feel. She remembers meaningful Bible verses, but they have lost their authority as guidelines. She wonders why God isn't more tolerant and broadminded. After all, He is the God of love, isn't He? Maybe a feminine deity would be more compassionate, understanding, and relevant to women. Perhaps it's time to move beyond the old boundaries of biblical truth into the boundless realms of dreams, visions, and self-discovery? Multitudes have. What used to be sparsely traveled side roads to New Age experiences have become cultural freeways to self-made spirituality. Masses of church women drift onto these mystical superhighways where they adapt their former beliefs to today's more "inclusive" views. After all, they are told, peace in a pluralistic world demands a more open-minded look at all religions and cultures. Those who agree are finding countless paths to self discovery and personal empowerment through books, magazines, and new kinds of women's group. They meet in traditional churches, at the YWCA, at retreat centers, living rooms ... anywhere. Here, strange new words and ideas such as "enneagrams," re-imagining, Sophia Circles, global consciousness, and "critical mass"-offer modem formulas for spiritual transformation. Therapists, spiritual directors, and others promise "safe places" where seekers can discover their own truth, learn new rituals, affirm each other's experiences, and free themselves from old rules and limitations. This new movement is transforming our churches as well as our culture. It touches every family that reads newspapers, watches television, and sends children to community schools. It is fast driving our society beyond Christianity, beyond humanism-even beyond relativism-toward new global beliefs and values. No one is immune to its subtle pressures and silent promptings. That it parallels other social changes and global movements only speeds the transformation. Yet, most Christians-like the proverbial frog-have barely noticed. This spiritual movement demands new deities or a rethinking of the old ones. The transformation starts with self, some say, and women can't re-invent themselves until they shed the old shackles. So the search for a "more relevant" religion requires new visions of God: images that trade holiness for tolerance, the heavenly for the earthly, and the God who is above us for a god who is us. The most seductive images are feminine. They may look like postcard angels, fairy godmothers, Greek earth goddesses, radiant New Age priestesses, or even a mythical Mary, but they all promise unconditional love, peace, power and personal transcendence. To many, they seem too good to refuse. The Masks of the Feminine Gods You probably wouldn't expect to find goddesses in a conservative farming community in North Dakota. I didn't. But one day when visiting my husband's rural hometown, a neighbor told us that a new bookstore had just opened in the parsonage of the old Lutheran Church. "You should go see it," she urged. I agreed, so I drove to a stately white church, walked to the parsonage next door, and rang the bell. The pastor's wife opened the door and led me into a large room she had changed into a bookstore, leaving me to browse. Scanning the shelves along the walls, I noticed familiar authors such as Lynn Andrews who freely blends witchcraft with Native American rituals, New Age self-empowerment, and other occult traditions to form her own spirituality. Among the multicultural books in the children's section, one caught my attention. Called Many Faces of the Great Goddess, it was a "coloring book for all ages." Page after page sported voluptuous drawings of famed goddesses. Nude, bare-breasted, pregnant, or draped in serpents, they would surely open the minds of young artists to the lure of "sacred" sex and ancient myths. Driving home, I pondered today's fast-spreading shift from Christianity to paganism. Apparently, myths and spiritualized sensuality sound good to those who seek new revelations and "higher" truths. Many of the modem myths picture deities that fit somewhere between a feminine version of God and the timeless goddesses pictured in earth-centered stories and cultures. Yet, each can be tailor made to fit the diverse tastes and demands of today's searching women:
Like most Neopagans, Diane believes that earth-centered spirituality brings peace and personal empowerment. A pretty young woman with long black hair and the slender look of a vegetarian, she is a local hairdresser. She is also married, looking forward to starting a family, and a member of the Bay Area Pagan Assemblies. While cutting my hair one day, she told me how she discovered the goddess. "I always liked to read," she said, "especially books about magic and witchcraft." "Which was your favorite?" I asked. "Margot Adler's book, Drawing Down the Moon." "That's almost an encyclopedia on witchcraft. How old were you?" "A senior in high school." "How did you find it?" "Browsing around in the library. But I had already read some other books, like Medicine Woman by Lynn Andrews. My thoughts drifted to another young woman who read Medicine Woman some years ago. Lori's high school teacher had encouraged her to explore various spiritual traditions-even create her own religion. Fascinated with Lynn Andrews' blend of Native American shamanism and goddess spirituality, Lori ordered a Native American tipi from a catalog, set it up in her backyard, and used it for candle-lit rituals inspired by Wiccan magic (witchcraft). Like most contemporary pagans, she had learned to mix various traditions into a personal expression that fit her own quest for power and "wisdom from within." Some months before Diane first cut my hair, I had met a charming Stanford University student who also called herself pagan. Beth, an education and philosophy major, had read my book about environmental spirituality and wanted to discuss it with me. While we ate lunch together at the college cafeteria, she shared her beliefs. "Who introduced you to witchcraft and lesbianism?" I asked after a while. "Two of my high school teachers," she answered. I wasn't surprised. By then I knew that an inordinate number of pagan women have chosen the classroom as their platform for spreading their faith and transforming our culture.' Like the rest of us, they want to build a better world -- one that reflects their beliefs and values. While Beth talked, I glanced at her jewelry. The golden pentagram and voluptuous little goddess dangling from a chain around her neck spoke volumes about her values. So did her earrings: two large pink triangles pointing down, an ancient symbol of the goddess as well as a modern symbol of lesbianism. "What about your jewelry?" I asked. "Do people know what the pentagram and triangles symbolize? Do they criticize you for wearing the little goddess?" She smiled. "No. Everybody here is supposed to be tolerant of each other's lifestyles. Nobody would dare say anything." I pondered her statement. What does it mean to be tolerant -- or intolerant-these days? If intolerance is the self-righteous attitude that despises people with "different" values, it would be wrong. Jesus always demonstrated love and compassion toward the excluded and hurting women of His times. Yet He never condoned destructive lifestyles or actions that harmed others. What would happen in a culture that tolerates everything? One result is obvious. The last three decades have produced an unprecedented openness to what used to be forbidden realms. Fortune telling, occult board games, and Native American rituals, along with countless other doorways to paganism, have spread from the hidden chambers of professional occultists and tribal shamans to our nation's classrooms, environmental programs, Girl Scout camps, and churches. Leading "Christian" theologians no longer hide their spiritual preference. "The deconstruction of patriarchal religion-in bland terms, the assisted suicide of God the Father-left many of us bereft of divinity," explains feminist theologian Mary Hunt. "But the human hunger for meaning and value ... finds new expression in goddess worship."' This human hunger for meaning was designed to draw people to God. He created us to need Him, not man-made counterfeits. As the 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, "There's a God-shaped vacuum in every heart." But, like Beth, Diane and Peggy, an astounding number of women try to fill that void with alluring counterfeits. In the process, they are shifting the foundations of our nation from biblical truth to pagan myths. The Paradigm Shift "I was raised in a no-you-don't world," sang Streisand, dramatizing her disdain for traditional values. But "you and I are changing our tune. We're learning new rhythms from that woman. I said, the woman in the moon.... 0 ye-ah, ye-ah!"' Women everywhere are learning follow the rhythms of that "Woman in the Moon," a song that helped Shawntell Smith win the 1995 Miss America contest. Despising God's standard for holiness, they create their own. To leading feminist theologian Mary Daly that "involves breaking taboos," being "wicked women," "riding the rhythms of... rage," and "seeking sister vibrations." For "sisterhood means revolution"-a rising revolt against biblical beliefs and values that is proving the timeless allure of pagan spirituality. As many of you know, that allure drew over 2000 women from mainline churches in 49 states and 27 countries to Minneapolis in 1993." They came together to re-imagine Jesus, themselves, their sexuality, and their world. Funded in part by their Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and Lutheran denominations," the four-day conference sent shock waves across our nation that arc still shaking the Church At this Re-Imagining conference, Cuban theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz called for "a new Pentecost -- a new way of seeing reality. "We need to develop ... a lens ... to understand that the way things are is not natural," she explained, "[so that] we can change them radically."" Ms. Isasi-Diaz was talking about a paradigm shift. Her "lens" is like a mental filter that narrows her vision of the world to fit her new convictions. Like the popular Native American fetish called a dream catcher, it permits only ideas that support the "right" beliefs to settle in the mind. It rules out all contrary ideas. This new view of "reality" looks something like this:
Kathleen Fischer summarizes the process in her book, Women at the Well: "We can!" say feminist leaders. Though most of the women at the Re-Imagining conference belonged to mainline churches, they had little resistance to the kinds of occult suggestions that beckoned them. Told to ignore the "inner voice" of their Bible-trained conscience, they embraced new "truths" designed to confirm feminist visions.
The new truths came with built-in values made to sound and feel good. Who wouldn't want love, peace, justice and unity? But in today's climate of politically correct tolerance, the loftiest values often fade in the light of earthier wants such as clothes, sex, fame, and power. It's easy to hide human lusts behind noble dreams and earth-centered spirituality. That's what psychotherapist Deena Metzger did in her article, "Re-Vamping the World: On the Return of the Holy Prostitute:" The original whore was a priestess, the conduit to the Divine, the one through whose body one entered the sacred arena and was restored.... It is no wonder that ... the prophets of Jehovah all condemned the Holy Prostitute and the worship of Asherah, Astarte, Anath and the other goddesses. Until the time of these priests the women were the one doorway to God. From Ms. Metzger's new-paradigm perspective, the sex rites of ancient Middle Eastern paganism sound great. To the Old Testament prophets, they looked bad. Ms. Metzger needed a story that would tell her side, so she used her imagination. It filtered out facts that clashed with her vision and embellished those that fit. She understood the process well: Whatever rites we imagine took place ... [depends on] whether we elevate them as do neopagans; or condemn them as do Judeo-Christians. Today, some link the ancient prostitutes to "orgies and debauchery." Others link them to cleansing and divinity. Most choose something in between. Some of Ms. Metzger's feminist sisters would probably disagree that the ancient practice of "sacred" and compulsory prostitution is good for the soul, but that doesn't matter. Women don't have to agree. Today, each woman may claim the right to stand unchallenged on her own truth and values, and Metzger's "truth" sounds good to those who prefer to cloak sex with spirituality. Janie Spahr, co-founder of CLOUT (Christian Lesbians Out Together), links sex to sacredness. "Sexuality and spirituality have come together, and Church, we're going to teach you!"" she announced at the Re-Imagining conference. Her theology, she explained, is first of all informed by "making love with Coni," her lesbian lover. Was she implying, as modem pagans do, that sex is a channel for spiritual energy? "Sexuality is a sacrament," writes Starhawk, a Wiccan author. "Religion is a matter of relinking, with the divine within and with her outer manifestation in all of the human and natural world."" "In a sacred universe," continued Ms. Metzger, "the prostitute is a holy woman, a priestess. In a secular universe, the prostitute is a whore.... The question is: how do we relate to this today, as women, as feminists? Is there a way we can resanctify society, become the priestesses again, put ourselves in the service of the gods and Eros? As we re-vision, can we re-vamp as well?" The answer is a resounding "yes." People have already revisioned sex. The "vamping" process is well under way. Just look at television and newspaper ads. Our Sunday morning papers as well as contemporary women's magazines parade the same titillating pictures once hidden in private pin-up calendars. That the feminist movement flows in the same direction as other pagan blends makes it all the more acceptable. Anything goes-except biblical intolerance-the refusal to accept what God forbids. Unholy Tolerance Life has changed at St. Olaf College since I was a student there. Years ago, Minnesota's venerable "college on the hill" seemed the ultimate in both Christian and Lutheran education. But multicultural education has replaced biblical integrity, and a new global emphasis has opened the door to professors who promote Hindu and other "mind-body" beliefs instead of biblical truth." The chapel, once a sacred sanctuary for worshipping God, has become a moral battleground. One spring morning in 1989, English teacher Rebecca Mark gave the chapel talk. She first introduced the point of her message: To speak the words, 'I am gay. I am proud to be gay,' at this place where silence has reigned too long, is not enough. I am not alone.... I am called upon to be the voice of many who have been silent.... As a gay woman I speak through the earth. The word gay comes from the goddess Gaia, the Greek earth mother goddess. I speak not as a sinner, but as the Mojave shaman. ... I speak from the voice of thousands of gay spirit leaders, healers and teachers in Indian culture.... I speak as. . . those who have known death and rebirth. And I too mourn. . Ms. Mark mourned the cruel slurs and spiteful rejection suffered by gay students, and she was right to do so. God calls us to love, not hate those who miss the mark. His love reaches out to all who hurt, including those who yield their bodies to promiscuous lifestyles, whether homosexual or heterosexual. But her call reached far beyond a condemnation of cruelty. It sent a vision of multicultural solidarity that demands a radical change in the very heart of Christianity. It summoned God's people to not only approve promiscuous and destructive lifestyles," but also embrace the pagan spirituality that sacrilizes sex. She ended her talk with a sensual poem by an American Indian women who blended lesbian love with a spiritualized earth mother. Then she invited the students and faculty-all who "can wear the pink triangle proudly" -to come forward as a "sign of community and liberation." Singing "We are gay and straight together," they streamed to the front of the church to claim the badge of their new identity. The enthusiastic response was no surprise, for our today's culture prefers tolerance to truth. So did ancient Israel. "Why do you tolerate wrong?" God asked the people He loved, knowing that their presumptuous tolerance would lead to violence and destruction. They didn't listen. Neither does our culture today. (Look up tolerance in your Bible concordance and see what God says about it.) Instead, we excuse what He calls sin and mock the peace He longs to give. The results are devastating. Read what He says about sex outside marriage. God shows us that sexual sins are especially damaging to us both physically and spiritually. Yet, neopagans tout the healing and cleansing effects of "sacred" promiscuity. Interesting twist isn't it? Those who tolerate sin become blind to its danger. Women cannot maintain utopian illusions unless they hide opposing truths. They can't trust their sacred self without rationalizing away its unholy bent. So they shift God's label for sin away from the things they want and attach it to the things they despise: Promiscuity? That comes from loss of self-esteem caused by the guilt feelings stirred up by Christians who criticize my lifestyle. Anger? Try the same reasoning. Do you see how easy it is to be "good" if you use the "right" reasoning? Just re-imagine the old values. Base your beliefs on your momentary feelings, not on God's time-tested Word. Look at the difference a paradigm shift makes.
Julian of Norwich. . . . claims that 'God showed me that sin need be no shame to man but can even be worthwhile.' She seems to mean by this that sins are disguised virtues, for 'in heaven what sin typifies is tumed into a thing of honour. "' ... In Julian's theology, we find the fullest expression of the concept of the femininity of God. 'God is as really our Mother as he is Father,' she says. 'Our precious Mother Jesus brings us to supernatural birth, nourishes and cherishes us by dying for us. "' Satan can only pervert God's good. Our Father invented delightful food, human affection, sexual pleasure, satisfying work, spiritual insights ... Everything good came from Him. Satan can only distort and imitate God's precious gifts, or tempt us to grasp too much or too little, or take it at the wrong time, or in the wrong place. You know the results: pain, confusion, anger, addiction, broken relationships, decaying culture and much more (see the rest in Galatians 5:19-25). The things God labels as sinful lust, the world now sees as normal behavior or psychological addiction or obsession for which a person is not responsible. " Decades of sex education promoting promiscuity and perversion in our schools have accomplished just what feminist leaders demanded: a cultural acceptance of their own radical values. Listen to the philosophy behind the sex education promoted by SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the United States): The purpose of sex education is not ... to control and suppress sex expression, as in the past . . . . The individual must be given sufficient understanding to incorporate sex most fruitfully and most responsibly into his present and future fife." SIECUS has been working with Planned Parenthood to bring social change. The behavior inspired by their irresponsible agenda has brought devastating results. Consider these statistics: The root problem isn't homosexuality or promiscuity or even paganism. It is the loss of truth as our moral standard. When school teachers blur the line between right and wrong, why should students say "no" to temptation? Why not try all the "new" sensations that beckon? Young people do-and face cravings they can't control. Unlike biblical love, lust will not wait; and obsessive lust has a way of displacing God's kind and patient love. Bondage can follow any repeated sin- "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts,"" warns Paul. But many feminist who claim control over their bodies have already yielded that control to a stronger force. It doesn't take long to see results. We have become a society obsessed with sex, food, looks, shopping, drugs, gambling, and coddling our feelings. But we feel no shame, because we dare not name sin. As a schoolgirl said when her 15-year-old classmate stabbed another student in the back. "What's the big deal? People die all the time. So what?"" From Tolerance to Truth Any sin is a big deal. Even the smallest ones will separate us from God if we don't follow His way back to peace. Neopagans may deny sin's power, Buddhism may offer noble alternatives, and the New Age movement may inspire a massive leap in consciousness, but they all miss the point. Humanity can never evolve beyond its need for the cross. The root problem is as old as history: rebellion against God. Human nature doesn't change, that's why history keeps repeating itself. In Old Testament days, it didn't take more than a generation for Israel to shift its loyalties from the Shepherd who protected the people to "other gods" who destroyed them. As faithful Samuel told Saul, the first king of ancient Israel, Romans 1: 18-32 shows what happens when we ignore God's protective boundaries and "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." First, when people hide the truth, they are left without a standard or reference point. Now they have no way of knowing whether they are taking the right or the wrong way. They become "unrighteous"-they don't do right-and they despise the standard that proves them wrong. All the more, they mock God's truth and vilify His way. Look what happens next:
The downward progression doesn't stop here. Three more devastating consequences follow, each starting with the words: "God gave them up (or over) to indicating that God pulled back His needed resources and left them-both individually and collectively-to face their capricious human nature: 1. Therefore GOD ALSO GAVE THEM UP to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.... (Romans 1:24-25) 2. GOD GAVE THEM UP to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men . . . burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. (Romans 1:26-27) 3. GOD GAVE THEM OVER to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.... They disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32) All kinds of personal struggles, obsessions, addictions, and misery can be explained simply by understanding what happens when people turn from God to the seductions of popular paganism. Unlike God who loves us, Satan loves no one, nor does he hesitate to inspire and energize the worst in human nature. When people reject God, He "gives them over" to who they really are. Left to their own resources and Satan's schemes, they face the driving force of their own desires. The more they feed their wants, the more cravings increase. Following that insatiable nature, they violate the natural order established by God. Deep inside, they know they are "unclean," but in their struggle to accept themselves, they blame others and run further away from the only source of lasting help. There is no freedom for those who follow the flesh and ignore God's truth. Those who have struggled with addictions to alcohol, to drugs, to food or even shopping can testify to our human resistance to doing right. No one described that struggle better than Paul. "What I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do …" (Romans 7:15) Everything changed when Paul surrender His life to Jesus Christ and joined his inadequate will to God's perfect will. His desire became Paul's desire, and God's strength became Paul's strength. Now he could exult with all God's followers who have discovered the freedom of the cross, the wonders of God's love, and the victory of the exchanged life: 1. Naomi R. Goldenberg, Changing of the Gods: Feminism & the End of Traditional Religions (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), 3. 2. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "Every witch way to the Goddess," The Sunday Telegraph, October 17, 1993. 3. Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey (North Carolina State Press, 1978), back cover. 4. Nancy Smith and Donna Maxfield, "Spiritual Quest in Beijing," Good News (November/December 1995); 34. 5. Re-Imagining Conference Tape 12- 1, Side B. 6. Mark Tooley, "Great Goddess Almighty," Heterodoxy (October 1995); 6. 7. In The Aquarian Conspiracy, New Age leader Marilyn Ferguson wrote: "Of the Aquarian Conspirators surveyed, more were involved in education than in any other single category of work. They were teachers, administrators, policymakers, educational psychologists. . . ." (page 280) My own observations confirm Ms. Ferguson's assertion. Since I wrote Under the Spell of Mother Earth, I have received reports from parents across the country documenting the use of Native American or Wiccan rituals by enthusiastic female teachers as part of environmental, global, or multicultural education. 8. Mary Hunt is co-director of WATER (Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual) in Silver Springs, MD. "Mary Hunt: Goddess Equals diversity, Pluralism," Religious News Service, July 16, 1993. 9. A Star is Born (Producer: Barbra Streisand), Warner Brothers, 1976. 10. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), XXV. 11. Ibid. 59. 12. Katherine Kersten, "God in Your Mirror?" The Lutheran Commentator (May/June 1994); 1. 13. All funders were listed in the Re-Imagining program booklet, p 66. The largest single contributor was the Presbyterian Church (USA) which gave $66,000 from their Bicentennial Fund. An additional $20,000 covered staff expenses to attend and scholarships for Presbyterians. Other contributors included the ELCA (Lutheran), Baptists, and United Methodist. 14. Ibid., Tape 5-1, Side A. 15. Kathleen Fischer, Women at the Well (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), 6. The words deleted in the first sentence were: "to any spiritual direction context." You can check the meaning in the glossary. 16. Re-Imagining Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 4-7, 1993. 17. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 23. 18. Among the books authored by St. Olaf College faculty and endorsed and reviewed on page 5 in St.Olaf (November/December 1994), were The Limits of Scripture: V1 Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas by Anantan and Rambachan, a religion faculty member, and Consciousness and the Mind of God by Charles Taliaferro, which offers "a holistic understanding of the dualist person-body relationship." Rambachan leads a weekly Hindu fellowship for Hindu students and others interested in Eastern spirituality. 19. Romans 1:32. 20. Habakkuk 1:3. See also Habakkuk 1: 13; Revelation 2:2, 2:20 (NIV) 2 1. Cited by class "hand-out" from Richard J. Foster, Renovare: Devotional Readings (Vol. 1, no. 43, 199 1), no page number shown. 22. Kenneth Leech, Soul Friend.- An Invitation to Spiritual Direction (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992), 146. Leech cites Julian's Revelations of Divine Love, 35, 37-39. These pages don't match the translations I have examined. The closest translation I could find was Julian of Norwich: Showings (New York: Pau!ist Press, 1978) translated by Edmund Colledge, page 154: "God also showed me that sin is no shame, but honour to man.... It is to them no shame that they have sinned-shame is not more in the bliss of heaven-for there the tokens of sin are turned into honours." These words are taken out of context; they do not reflect Julian's overall view of sin, However they do show how certain passages are being used to validate the feminist concept of sin. 23. Ibid., 147. Leech cites pages 59-61 in Divine Revelations, but again, these page numbers do not match the translations I found. Instead, I would like to cite a few similar quotes from Julian of Norwich: Showings (detailed above): "As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed that in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says, 'I am he ... the power and goodness of fatherhood; I am he, the wisdom and the lovingkindness of motherhood. . . I am he, the Trinity; I am he, the unity; I am he, the great supreme goodness of every kind of thing.... As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother. Our Father wills, our Mother works, our good Lord the Holy Spirit confirms." (pages 295-6) Julian also wrote, "T'he second person of the Trinity is our Mother in nature. . . in whom we are founded and rooted, and he is our Mother of mercy in taking our sensuality.... So our Mother works in mercy on all his beloved children who are docile and obedient to him." (page 294)"So our Lady is our mother, in whom we are all enclosed and bom of her in Christ, for she who is mother of our saviour is mother of all who are saved in our saviour, and our saviour is our true Mother, in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come." (p. 292) 24. Romans 6:11-23. 25. Lester Kirkendall, in his article included in Sexuality And Man, a collection of articles written and compiled by SIECUS board members. 26. Haven Bradford Gow,"Consequences of Sexual Revolution," Christian News, July 3, 1995. 27. Ibid. (Haven) 28. Associated Press,"Experts Say New Generation Is in Trouble Already," San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 1990. 29. Stanley K. Monteith, "Anticipated Worldwide Death Toll: I Billion People," HIV-Watch (Vol. 11, No. 1); 7. 30. Romans 6:12. 31. William K. Kilpatrick,
"Turning
Out Moral Illiterates," Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1993.
*Berit Kjos, a Presbyterian, is the author of several books including: Brave New Schools, Your Child and the New Age, Under the Spell of Mother Earth. Mrs. Kjos’ newest book from which this article is adapted is A Twist of Faith, published in 1997 by New Leaf Press. It is available at Christian Bookstores or by calling 1-800-643-9535 This article is reprinted with
the permission of Sue Cyre, Editor of Theology Matters
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