Peggy's search for her own spirituality led her away from her church, her ministry, her husband, and the God who loved her.
She returned to college. There a teacher who called herself a witch encouraged her to try mythical paths to self-empowerment.
"I had to find me," she explained later. "My journey has opened my eyes to a whole new way of seeing God and myself."
"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 feel like I'm in Gods hands whether God is He, She, or It."
Can you identify with Peggy? Do you have friends on similar journeys?
Ignoring the
danger signs, millions of girls and women are traveling down cultural
freeways to self-made spirituality. Basing their beliefs on feelings,
imagination, and mystical experiences, they are shaping a new
consciousness that:
Why have feminist myths and goddesses become so believable to contemporary women? Where do their mystical experiences eventually lead? What happens to Christians in a world that follows "other gods"? How can we best prepare for the coming conflict?
These and other questions will be explored in A Twist of Faith. You will also meet precious women who sought spiritual insight but were caught in a web of deception. Some are still trapped in a downward spiral they can't escape. Others have returned to the only God who loves them as they are, offers His strength in every struggle, and promises peace for all eternity.
You can order
this book directly from New Leaf Press at: 800-643-9535.
"God is going to change. We women... will change the world so much that He won't fit anymore." [1] Naomi Goldenberg in Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions
"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." Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Episcopal priest, 1974 [3]
"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
Peggy's struggles seemed
endless. She wanted to be close to God, but she rarely felt His
presence. She wanted her teenage son to love Him, but the occult
posters in his room became daily reminders of unanswered prayer.
She joined a Christian ministry, but satisfying fellowship with
God kept eluding her. Eventually she left the ministry to return
to college.
She called me a few years
later. She had begun to find herself, she said. Her search had
led her beyond the familiar voices that had provided "pat
answers" to her 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 broad-minded. 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 sideroads 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 groups. 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 modern 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 re-thinking 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 modern
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:
* Angels. Terry wears an
angel pin on her jacket. She believes that today's popular angels
offer all kinds of personal help, guidance and encouragement.
While God seems distant and impersonal to her, she counts on her
personal angel to help and love her. She showed me a set of angel
cards on a rack in her gift store. "May this Guardian Angel...
give you hope and strength to meet each new tomorrow," suggested
a sympathy card, complete with a tiny golden angel pin.
* Sophia. "Sophia,
Creator God, let your milk and honey flow. . . . Shower us with
your love . . . ." chanted more than 2000 women gathered
at the 1993 Re-Imagining Conference in Minnesota.
"We celebrate sensual life you give us. . . . We celebrate
our bodiliness. . . . the sensations of pleasure, our oneness
with earth and water,"[5] continued one of the leaders. Representing
main-line denomination, the women had come from the Presbyterian
Church USA (about 400), the United Methodist Church (about 400),
the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (313), the United Church
of Christ (144), and Baptist, Episcopal, Church of the Brethren
churches about (150). About 230 were Roman Catholics. To most
of these worshippers, Sophia symbolized inner wisdom and "the
feminine image of the Divine." Playful, permissive, and sensuous,
she has "become the latest rage among progressive church
women."[6]
* Mother Earth. Tracy is
a regional Girl Scout leader in Santa Clara County, California.
To prepare young girls for an "Initiation into adulthood"
ceremony, she uses guided imagery to alter their consciousness
and help them visualize a "beautiful woman" -- a personalized
expression of Mother Earth -- who will be their spirit guide for
life. Each girl is free to imagine the spiritual manifestation
of her choice or to welcome whichever spirit appears.
* A goddess. Sharon grew
up in a Christian home. Disappointed with her church's chilly
response to her environmental concerns, she turned to witchcraft.
Since her coven accepts any pantheistic expression, Sharon simply
transferred what she liked about God to her self-made image of
the goddess. She describes her feminine substitute for God as
a loving, non-judgmental being who fills all of creation with
her sacred life. Sometimes this goddess appears to Sharon, bathing
her in bright light and a loving presence.
These and countless other
women share two radical views: traditional Christianity with its
biblical boundaries are out, and boundless new vistas of spiritual
thrills and skills are in. Anything goes -- except biblical monotheism,
belief in one God. The broad umbrella of feminist spirituality
covers all of the world's pagan religions -- and many of today's
popular distortions of Christianity. Most seekers simply pick
and mix the "best parts" of several traditions. Someone
might start with Buddhist meditation, then add Chinese medicine,
Hindu yoga, and a Native American wilderness initiation called
"Spirit Quest." Some of these combinations match today's
feminist visions better than others, but most involve --
Pantheism: All is god.
A spirit, force, energy or god(dess) permeates everything, infusing
all parts of creation with its spiritual life.
Monism: All is one. Since
the pantheistic god is everything and in everyone, all things
are connected.
Polytheism: Many gods.
Since the pantheistic force or god(dess) makes everything sacred,
anything can be worshipped: the sun, trees, mountains and eagles
-- even ourselves.
Paganism: Trusting occult
wisdom and powers. Throughout history, tribal shamans, medicine
men, witchdoctors, or priests have contacted the spirit world
using timeless rituals and formulas which are surprisingly similar
in all the world's pagan cultures.
Neopaganism: New idealized
blends of old pagan religions. To make paganism attractive in
today's self-focused atmosphere, its promoters idealize tribal
cultures and pagan religions. Instead of telling the whole truth
and nothing but, they tell us that spiritual forces link each
person to every other part of nature. Anyone, not just spiritual
leaders, can now function as priestess, contact the spirit world,
manipulate spiritual forces, and help create worldwide peace and
spiritual oneness.
GATEWAYS TO THE GODDESS.
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. [7] 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."[8]
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. . . . O ye-ah, ye-ah!"[9]
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."[10]
For "sisterhood means revolution"[11] - a rising revolt
against biblical beliefs values that is proving the timeless allure
of pagan spirituality.
As many of you know, that
that allure drew over 2000 women from mainline churches in 49
states and 27 countries[12] 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,[13] the four-day conference
sent shock waves across our nation that are 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."[14]
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 dreamcatcher,
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:
* Everything is connected to the same god or goddess.
* Therefore everything is naturally sacred and good.
* Therefore insights from my "inner Self" are true and the biblical view of sin is merely a patriarchal club for controlling women.
* Therefore the Church, the cross, and male authority obstruct spiritual progress.
* Therefore biblical Christianity
doesn't fit.
To establish this new paradigm,
the old biblical "lens" must be altered or replaced
with a new feminist lens. The Re-Imagining Conference, like our
changing schools, used guided imagery and pagan rituals to accomplish
the shift. Those new experiences - whether imagined or acted out
- desensitized participants to biblical taboos and made paganism
seem as normal as Christianity. It also helped them "discover"
and define their own truth.
Kathleen Fischer summarizes
the process in her book, Women at the Well:
"Attentiveness to
a person's experience is, of course, central.... What a feminist
perspective adds to this emphasis is belief in the authority of
women's experience, confidence that we are engaged in a new encounter
with the divine through that experience, and the conviction that
it is a norm for the truthfulness of the tradition."[15]
In other words, a woman's
experience, not God's own revelation, determines the truthfulness
of the new beliefs. If something feels good, sounds loving, and
seems empowering, it must be right. Few seekers heed the warning
in Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things....
Who can know it?"
"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.
BASIS FOR FAITH IN THE
. . .
CHRISTIAN PARADIGM FEMINIST PARADIGM 1. The Bible 1. Imagination (or experience) 2. Spirit-given insights into truth 2. Experience (or imagination) 3. Experiences that affirm Scriptures 3. Preferred Bible verses that affirm the experience
SEX AND FEMINIST SPIRITUALITY
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":
"Once upon a time, in Sumeria, in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in Greece, there were no whorehouses, no brothels. . . . There were instead the Temples of the Sacred Prostitutes. In these temples, men were cleansed, not sullied, morality was restored, not desecrated, sexuality was not perverted, but divine.
"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."
Do you see the two paradigms?
One sees reality through the filter of biblical truth; the other
looks through the lens of feeling-based paganism. 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,
seems at ease among the latter. "Sexuality and spirituality
have come together, and Church, we're going to teach you!"[16]
she announced at the Re-imagining conference. Her theology, she
explained, is first of all informed by "making love with
Coni," her lesbian lover. Is she implying, as modern pagans
do, that sex is a channel for spiritual energy?
"Sexuality is a sacrament,"
writes Starhawk, the Wiccan author you met in chapter 4. "Religion
is a matter of relinking, with the divine within and with her
outer manifestation in all of the human and natural world."[17]
"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 re-visioned 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.[18] 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,[19] 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?"[20]
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.
"Flee sexual immorality.
Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits
sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know
that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,
whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were
bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your
spirit, which are God's." (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)
THE NATURE OF TEMPTATION
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 illusion
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.
SIN IS . . .
BIBLICAL PARADIGM FEMINIST PARADIGM separation from God separation from nature rebelling against God ignoring the god(dess) in self self-centeredness not loving self first or enough pride lack of pride lack of self-discipline limiting self -fulfillment disobeying God submitting to a patriarchal god tolerating sin not tolerating sin
Tolerating sin destroys
shame. Some years ago, I watched the pastor's wife in a Presbyterian
(USA) church teach a Sunday school class called Women at
the Well. She first "centered" the class
with a chant by mediaeval mystic Hildegaard of Bingen whose pantheistic
images sounded more Buddhist than Christian. Then she read a quote
by Thomas Merton, the Catholic mystic who embraced Tibetan Buddhism.
Finally she gave us a two-page handout from a book called Soul
Friend: An Invitation to Spiritual Direction.[21] It told
me that today's mysticism, which blends acceptance of sin with
a permissive feminine God, isn't all that new:
"In the fourteenth century in Europe there was a great flowering of mysticism, and out of this period came some of the greatest spiritual guides of all time whose writings are highly relevant today. . .
"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 turned into a thing of honour.'[22]
". . . 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.'"[23]
It's true that our sins
show us our need for Christ's redemption, but they are not "disguised
virtues. " They don't typify something of honor, nor can
they be softened by putting a feminine face on God. We can live
without shame only because God has forgiven us, not because sin
has lost its sting.
If I condone my own sins,
I will neither come to the cross nor appreciate God's wonderful
mercy. Nor would I fight the seductive pull of Satan's temptations
-- especially those that look almost too good to resist.
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.[24]
Decades of sex education promoting promiscuity and perversion
in our schools has 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 life."[25]
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:
Every 24 hours in this nation more than 12,000 teenagers contract a sexually transmitted disease. Thirty percent of all STD's contracted are incurable.[26]
Each year 1.3 million new cases of gonorrhea are reported.[27]
One million teenage girls, nearly one in 10, become pregnant each year.[28]
* About one and a half
million unborn babies are aborted each year.
"Current sex education
programs are designed to destroy the normal embarrassment and
modesty of children," writes Stanley Monteith, M.D., author
of AIDS: the Unnecessary Epidemic, in his informative
newsletter, "yet it is that modesty that has traditionally
been a barrier to early sexual experimentation and promiscuity."[29]
The root problems 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,"[30] 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?"[31]
FROM TOLERANCE BACK 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, Buddhist
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 their
loyalties from the Shepherd who protected them to "other
gods" who destroyed them. As faithful Samuel told Saul, the
first king of ancient Israel,
"...rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
He also has rejected you
from being king." (1 Samuel 15:23)
Saul had followed his feelings
rather than truth, therefore God could no longer use him as a
leader. Soon an unholy, "distressing spirit" began to
torment him, driving him to murderous fury. Only the sweet music
played by the shepherd-boy David could soothe his troubled mind.
Having rejected God's gentle guidance, Saul faced the terrors
of a demonic substitute. 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:
* "they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts...." (v. 21)
* "their foolish hearts were darkened. (v. 21)
* "Professing to be wise, they became fools...." (v. 22)
* They "changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible
man -- and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."
(v. 23)
The last point was the
purpose at the Re-imagining conference. The leaders tried to change
the eternal God into mental images of created beings that decay
and die. The result is a fixation on corruptible things -- including
self --that decay and die, followed by an endless stream of disappointment
and grief.
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.... (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.
(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:
"I have been crucified
with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in
the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Galatians
2:20)
Endnotes:
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: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas by Anantanand 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)
21 Cited by class "hand-out" from Richard J. Foster, Renovare: Devotional Readings (Vol. 1, no. 43, 1991), no page number shown.
22 Kenneth Leech, Soul Friend: An Invitation to Spiritual Direction (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 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: Paulist 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, "The 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 born 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: 1 Billion People," HIV-Watch (Vol. II, No. 1); 7.
30 Romans 6:12.
31 William K. Kilpatrick, "Turning Out Moral Illiterates," Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1993.
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