Abstract
Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow are pioneers in the field of Feminist Theology. They co-edited the groundbreaking Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion in 1979, and Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality in 1989. In the ensuing years, they continued writing individually, publishing ten books between them.
Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology is their first book collaboration in over two decades. It is innovative, challenging, surprising, and stimulating. In this work, they use the tapestries of their lives to tease out how two friends who agree on so much could end up with such different concepts of divinity. ‘Judith views God as an impersonal power of creativity that is the ground of all being and becoming, including all good and evil. Carol understands Goddess as the intelligent embodied love that is in all being, a personal presence who cares about the world’ (Christ and Plaskow: xiv). After years of trying to convince the other of their view, they came to realize that philosophical, theological, and moral reasoning did not tell the whole story, and that personal histories were involved. The authors wrote this book to show how their debate and dialogue evolved into an articulation of embodied theology, and to provide a methodology for embodied theology that others could use as well.
The book is organized in two parts. Part I includes three chapters by each author as they share particular life experiences from growing up, early adulthood, and later adulthood. These autobiographical chapters are intriguing because they interweave narrative with the theological process and stimulate readers to do the same, even as they are learning about someone else’s journey. There are also two co-written chapters. In Chapter Three, ‘God in the History of Theology’, the authors provide a context for how God and theology have been historically understood. In Chapter 6, ‘Feminist Theology at the Center’, they assert that Feminist Theology is not an addendum but at the centre of theology because it critiques the central assumption about the image and idea of God. ‘The interrelated set of ideas associated with the traditional image of God [as an old white man outside the world] not only fails to make sense of the world as we know it, but also has been harmful and destructive to individuals, communities, and the whole web of life’ (Christ and Plaskow: 145). In Part II, each scholar responds to the other’s individual chapters from Part I, along with a co-written concluding chapter, ‘Embodied Theology and the Flourishing of Life’.
The book works on multiple levels to create an embodied theology. At the level of autobiography, Christ and Plaskow provide personal details about living through and contributing to the formation of Feminist Theology as a field. It is important for these histories to be documented and known because it answers the question of why Feminist Theology began. It also helps a younger generation to notice similar treatment in their own lives, even when carried out in less overt ways today. Both authors have previously written about some of these personal experiences before, particularly Christ’s journey from Christianity to Goddess worship, and Plaskow’s struggle and recommitment to Judaism. It is interesting to see how they write about these times now, often with decades of additional reflection and perspective. The book ends with a list of published works by the authors, organized by decade, for those interested in what they were writing during those times. This addition adds gravitas to the current work.
The book is also successful in providing a method for theological development. The authors demonstrate how to interrogate our first-person narratives with philosophical, theological and ethical lenses. They also show how to articulate truths that we consciously or unconsciously embed in our worldview as life moves forward. For Christ and Plaskow, the lived experience is most fruitfully engaged when it is thoughtfully reflected upon as embodied theology. The authors hope this book will encourage theological reflection, and they provide a set of questions to facilitate the process.
As a final note, I appreciate how the authors show the value and power of theory and ideas in an embodied practice. They acknowledge the works of others including Salving, Ruether, and Daly not just as scholarly treatises, but as active agents in their own personal journeys. I believe Goddess and God will do that for many others. It did for me.