Posted on 08/29/2026 9:45:13 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat
A Nashville pastor is facing scrutiny after teaching that God once had a wife named Asherah who was later written out of the Bible. Zach Helton, co-pastor of Glendale Baptist Church, a congregation associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Alliance of Baptists, made the claims during a recent sermon. Helton told his congregation that Asherah was the "female divine presence who was worshipped alongside Adonai" and the ancient consort of God before biblical authors concealed her identity.
Helton's church bio states he is "deeply shaped by the teachings of Jesus, Buddhist practice, mysticism, and perennial wisdom over any particular religious expression." He condemned King Josiah for destroying idols and Asherah poles during his reign, lamenting the impact it would have on young Israelite girls who needed a feminine deity to look up to. Helton argued that Josiah's reforms were motivated by a desire to consolidate political power, not theological purity.
The pastor claimed that ancient Israel worshipped not only Yahweh but Yahweh and Asherah together, and that the prophetic literature shows nobody had a problem with that. He asserted that scriptures were modified and history rewritten to eliminate the divine feminine, blaming "fragile male egos" for the change. "Can you imagine for a minute being a woman in seventh-century BCE Israel?" Helton asked his congregation.
Critics have pointed out that nowhere in the Bible is God said to have a wife, and that Asherah is consistently presented as a false idol. One response noted, "Asherah is not Eve, nor is she the wife of God for God does not have a wife." The theory Helton presented, while discussed in some academic circles, remains highly controversial and is rejected by orthodox Christian theology
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Helton seems to be one of those “pastors” who has just enough education to know a little bit about such things, but not enough to realize that he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Written out?
It is as if she was Brother Chuck on Happy Days.
The pastor is buying into the controversial concept that Yahweh and El were the same. El had a wife, Yahweh did not.
That is NOT a pastor.....THAT is what the Jesus meant by false prophet.
Soy boy cannot imagine that because of love and loyalty, the safety and the worth as dowry of most women was zealously safeguarded by their fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins.
Nothing, nobody, nothing and nowhere is 100% perfect. But strong families are the bedrock of civilization; and the Jewish religion then and to this day emphasizes strong family ties with its Friday night devotions at home. Israeli women of seventh-century BCE didn't need to look up to a female diety to feel blessed and loved by God; they had strong mothers who raised children, crops and cattle and fought off snakes and mountain lions alongside the strong males who protected them.
The "all income levels" set me back too. I have never heard of a Church that wants to see a IRS Form 1040.
The site I am referencing actually believes what the pastor says. But I included it because it explains the origin of Asherah.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/asherahasherim-bible
Asherah, along with Astarte and Anath, was one of the three great goddesses of the Canaanite pantheon. In Canaanite religion her primary role was that of mother goddess. Canaanites associated Asherah with sacred trees.
It’s tough to find a new anfle to start a church since so many have already been used. Keep hustling for that new gig pastor.
Big time.
Heretics.
Most likely.
Deuteronomy 6:4
True.
He’s gender assuming
he is “deeply shaped by the teachings of Jesus, Buddhist practice, mysticism, and perennial wisdom over any particular religious expression.” He condemned King Josiah for destroying idols and Asherah poles during his reign, lamenting the impact it would have on young Israelite girls who needed a feminine deity to look up to.
Or as crazy as thinking Mary is just another female in God's brood.
If the church wanted to call Mary the mother of God the way my daughter is called the mother of Oliver, it would have said Η Μητέρα του Θεού, but the term used is Θεοτόκος, which means the bearer of God. My daughter made my grandson Oliver to be Oliver, but Mary did not make Jesus to be God: she bore Jesus, but His Divine nature was imputed, as described in Philippians 2.
This places Mary in a highly favored position in the church, as was stated in Luke 1, κεχαριτωμένη, that she was and is full of caritas. The Orthodox recognize this, and Luther recognized it, though my fellow LCMS Lutherans often sound more like Baptists. When Catholics build a shrine, as is across from Disneyworld, to "Mary, Queen of the Universe," they tread, I think, too closely to promoting a Divine Couple view of theology which goes back to Baal/Ashtoreth, or for that matter Izanagi and Izanami in Japan.
But be careful to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater, to mix metaphors.
And later Artemis of the Ephesians, whom the Romans called Diana, and the Brits called Cynthia.
Glendale Baptist has always been leftist crazy
Very very very homosexual oriented
I went there once 30 years ago with a friend of a girlfriend who’d insisted we go
I lasted about five minutes and looked at my too comely companions and said no way
Got up and waited in the car and had a fat LaGloria Cubana
Ah, bringing back that old time Canaanite religion.
Leftists already sacrifice babies to Moloch.
So this tracks.
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