Goddess Spirituality

The Art Gallery of New South Wales is staging an exhibition entitled, “Goddess: Divine Energy” from 13 October 06 to 27 January 07.

This is no dry exhibition of religion past. Just a cursory tour though the official website reveals this as a journey into the emerging currents of goddess spirituality within post-modern Australia.

You’ll be introduced to Dakini, Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Radha, Tara and other Buddhist and Hindu goddesses. You’ll have opportunities to ‘send a goddess message’ and win an Aveda spa treatment and Goddess private tour. You’ll be educated on tantra, chakras, yantras, mantras and mandallas. There’s even after hours celebrity talks, one of which invites men to get in touch with their goddess side.

It’s clearly designed to be interactive.

“Goddess: Divine Energy is the first major exhibition in Australia to explore the many manifestations of the divine female in Hindu and Buddhist art. Created as a focus for veneration and meditation, these beautiful works of art are rich with symbols that convey the many lessons and insights the Goddess provides as she guides towards attainment and ultimate bliss. The power (shakti) and wisdom (prajna) of the Goddess resides within each one of us waiting to be awakened.”

This looks to be a fascinating exhibition, as much for what it suggests about the spiritual currents within post-modernity as the artwork itself. Once again it draws me to meditate on how the resurrection event speaks into this context.

Thanks to John Forth for the tip.

10 responses to “Goddess Spirituality”

sally

2006-11-08

Interesting stuff Matt.. I am interested in how you connect this to the ressurection, care to comment?

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Matt Stone

2006-11-08

Sally
Well, I am still meditating on this so don’t take it as the last word, but I am drawn to consider a few things.
Firstly, I am drawn to reflect on how our own (Christian) understandings of deity are grounded in a climatic historical event, the resurrection (bodily transmutation) of Jesus of Nazareth. If the resurrection really happened then it relativizes these alternate mythological understandings of deity. That’s not to deny that the resurrection of Jesus has mythological dimensions, but if I may take a leaf out of the books of C S Lewis, in Jesus myth and history became one. No one says the same for the Goddess. Where there are critiques they all go in the other direction. So the question of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus is an essential dialogue issue here.
Secondly, that even though I affirm the resurrection of Jesus, and thereby Christian conceptions of divinity over Goddess inspired ones, I am still left with a lot of thorny questions about the gender of God. Was the gender of Jesus an essential aspect of his divinity? Was it essential he be incarnated with a penis? I am inclined to say no. Yet we have all this masculine language in the scriptures and Jesus himself called God, Abba, which means Father. These goddesses highlight for me the limitations of language and symbol and cast a critical spotlight back on our own overly-literalistic evangelical traditions. So I think there are things to be learnt in both directions.
Lastly, I cannot help but recall the story of Mary Magdalene encountering Jesus outside the empty tomb. The three Marys (of Nazareth, of Magdala and of Bethany) are interpreted by some as hints of the Goddess within Christianity. Whilst I am still working through what to do with that I am nevertheless struck with how Mary, a woman, was the first witness to the resurrection. She was the first evangelist. Even if I wont go far as to divinize femininity (or masculinity) I certainly affirm the sacredness of this woman.
Does that help?
Matt

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vynette

2006-11-09

Matt,
I suggest that the resurrection of Jesus does not postulate the ‘divinity’ of Jesus.
In fact, this is the essential difference between Hebrew Christianity and pagan mythologies where most of their human heroes where of ‘divine’ parentage and many born of ‘virgins’.
It is the ignorance of the Graeco-Roman church fathers we have to thank for this situation. Not understanding the Hebrew mindset and methods of expression, they imposed their own pagan mindsets upon the New Testament. This is demonstrable.
The New Testament plainly states the following:
That he was God’s ‘anointed’ who would one day sit on the throne of David and rule over the Kingdom of God on earth.
That he was ‘anointed’ with full power and authority to speak and act in the name of the Father and to perform the specific tasks spoken of by Isaiah the prophet (Is.61).
That he was the ‘son’ of God by human parentage (John 1:34, 45, 49) though not the son of Joseph as commonly supposed at the time (Matt. 1:25).
That he was a ‘god’ in the sense in which he used it himself, that is, a man “unto whom the word of God came.” (John 10:34) On his reasoning, Moses and the prophets were also ‘gods’.
That he was the ‘only-begotten’ of God because he was the only-resurrected, not because he was born to a virgin.
That his ‘sonship’ of God refers to a purely ‘ethical’ relationship.
Cheers

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Matt Stone

2006-11-10

Vynette
I would suggest that there is a deeper level to this.
You are correct to point out that the titles ‘Son of God’ and ‘Messiah’ did not automatically confer divinity from a Hebrew perspective. The Old Testament is full of references to anointed ones who were less than divine. In fact, sometime around 700 BC, God inspired the prophet Isaiah to write a ‘messianic’ prophecy concerning king Cyrus of Persia, a pagan! Isaiah predicted he would act for God upon earth, conquering kingdoms and rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple. He calling God’s ‘anointed’ even though he did not even worship God exclusively. So, yes, I agree with you that a Hebrew could call Jesus ‘anointed one’ without meaning he was divine.
But have we really so misunderstood his Hebrew disciples? Is our assertion of Jesus’ divinity just a cultural misunderstanding flowing out of inept translation? No, I must disagree with you on that. If you care to look at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, that most Jewish of gospels, and read the resurrection story you will come across this statement:
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
Yet in Acts 14 we read this:
In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
As the second story illustrates, worship of anyone but God was abhorrent to Hebrew people and this did not change with the coming of Jesus. When the Pagans they encountered tried to worship them these disciples ripped their clothes, such was their anguish. Yet, these some of these same disciples had felt compelled to worship Jesus after his resurrection. How do you explain this other than accepting the ancient witness of Christians that they worshipped Jesus as God from the beginning? The simplest explanation is that, after the resurrection, they saw the titles of ‘annointed one’ and ‘Son of God’ as infused with new and deeper meaning. They began to use the phrases in new expanded ways when associated with Jesus.
Matt

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vynette

2006-11-10

Matt,
The Greek word usually translated as ‘worship’ in the New Testament denoted an act of reverence whether paid to the creature or the creator.
So when the disciples ‘worshipped’ Jesus, or when John ‘worshipped’ the angel (Rev 19:10), it was not an indication that either were regarded as other than creatures.
KUNEW means “to kiss,” and reflects the Eastern custom of prostrating oneself before a person and kissing his feet.
The use of PROSKUNEW in the LXX shows that this term was frequently used to describe varying degrees of homage including ‘worship’.
In view of its application in the LXX, to use the word PROSKUNEW as proof of ‘worship’ is not possible because its semantic range encompasses much more than ‘worship’.
The New Testament authors were no doubt aware of this semantic range and used it in varying degrees, in different contexts, for humans as well as God.

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Matt Stone

2006-11-10

Vynette
The thing is though, when John worshipped the angel in the passage you cite, the angel said, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
This would only seem to enhance my point.

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John W. Morehead

2006-11-10

Vynette, I appreciate your comments and interaction with Matt. Perhaps I can provide a response of my own.
I agree with you that the Resurrection does not necessarily demonstrate the deity of Christ. Although Christian apologists have at times been quick to use this as an example of Christ’s deity we find the New Testament arguing that the Resurrection was a public declaration and vindication by God of Jesus as Messiah.
I would also state that in my view American evangelicals in particular tend to emphasize the deity of Christ while downplaying his humanity, almost to the point where Jesus becomes God in a human suit with a large “G” on his chest in Superman-type fashion. This is surely not the best understanding of New Testament theology.
However, it is a mistake to state that the New Testament does not teach both the humanity and unique diety Christ. This teaching cannot rightly be attributed to the allegedly Pagan influences of the Church Fathers. Although there are parallels between the gospel narratives related to Jesus’ conception and Resurrection, there is a sound body of scholarship which demonstrates significant differences between the gospels and Paganism on these points. In addition, as Matt mentioned, C. S. Lewis argued that what Paganism yearn for in its myths can be understood as a mythic desire which has become historical fact in the person of Jesus.
There are a number of biblical passages in the New and Old Testaments which refer to the humanity of Messiah. On this we are agreed. But the experience of the apostles and earliest Christians with Jesus and his claims resulted in their recognition of him as a man but also as something more than man. In your comments above you reference John 1 and I’m sure you’re aware of the opening verses of John’s Gospel where he refers to the eternal existence and divine nature of the Logos become flesh in Jesus Christ (John 1:1, 14). You also cite John 10 and note Jesus’ argument with the Jewish religious leaders denying their charges of blasphemy by claiming to be one with God (in a context of identity of nature, John 10:30). Jesus’ claim to deity in this chapter is not vitiated by his argument in the verses that follow. Jesus rebutted claims to blasphemy by pointing out that if the judges, the mighty ones to whom the Word of God came in the Old Testament could be called “gods” in Psalm 82 (in a context of apparent mockery as they are reminded of their mortality and humanity) then the one who came from heaven cannot be guilty of blasphemy by claiming oneness with God.
I would encourage a holistic reconsideration of the New Testament data, as well as the subsequent debates and creedal developments of the early church. With these in mind I don’t believe your position can be substantiated.

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sally

2006-11-10

Matt thank you for this- the question of the gender of God is certainly something we need to grapple with – even if it is to come to the conclusion that actually God is outside of all that! As for Jesus manhood- there is some thought that he displayed many goddess characteristics… as for his humanity I agree with John that there is a deep need to get back to/ move towards a more holistic Christology- we live with too many either ors!
You have certainly got me thinking!

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vynette

2006-11-10

Matt,
So the issue for you is that the ‘angel’ rebuked John and Peter rebuked Cornelius (Acts 10:25) for the act of PROSKUNEW
whereas Jesus did not rebuke the blind man (John 9:38) or the disciples (Matthew 28: 17).
Those writing the gospels and the persons who did PROSKUNEW to Jesus had the Hebrew HAWA as a part of their presupposition pool.
The LXX translates HAWA as PROSKUNEW in 148 instances, and there is no doubt that PROSKUNEW in the LXX simply means to prostrate
oneself. The context is all important. If we look at the very next verse of Matthew, we will see that ‘authority’ is the key.
Neither Peter nor the angel had the authority or rank within themselves to receive PROSKUNEW whereas the proposition of the New Testament is that Jesus had authority within himself.
The only way one can infer ‘worship’ from PROSKUNEW is to begin with a proposition that Jesus is God.
To me, beginning with the proposition that Jesus is not God, then PROSKUNEW means simply an act of obeisance to one of superior rank or authority.
So, Matt, our different starting points means that we can never come to an agreement on this issue.
Cheers

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vynette

2006-11-10

John, thank you for your response.
You said: “Although there are parallels between the gospel narratives related to Jesus’ conception and Resurrection, there is a sound body of scholarship which demonstrates significant differences between the gospels and Paganism on these points.”
I think you misunderstand my position. Of course there are significant differences between the gospels and paganism – this is my point. It is not the New Testament that teaches these ideas but the Graeco-Roman church fathers.
I agree we should take a ‘holistic’ view of the New Testament but I do not agree that the teachings of the afore-mentioned fathers or the weight of tradition should be preferred where they are in conflict with the scriptures.
My previous arguments about ‘divinity’ and ‘virginity’ can be demonstrated from scripture.
For instance, aside from the long-standing scholarly debates about whether the text should read ‘the Word was God’ or ‘the Word was divine’, to use John 1:1 as a proof of the ‘divinity’ of Jesus is to overlook the similar words in 1 John 1:1 where the ‘Word’ is identified as the Word of Eternal Life. The implications are self-evident. It is God’s word of Eternal Life that existed from the beginning, not Jesus. John presents Jesus as the personification of this Word of Eternal Life. Just as the Wisdom of Solomon was pre-existent (Proverbs 8), so too was the Word of Eternal Life. Solomon himself was not pre-existent, neither was Jesus.
If we look at the entirety of John’s gospel, we can see that he gives the ‘spiritual’ presentation of Jesus that the other gospels lack. Unfortunately, it is from a banal interpretation of his ‘spiritual’ words that teachings such as pre-existence came into being.

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