Posted on 04/25/2007 6:54:31 AM PDT by NYer
“WOW -- coming from RC tradition I thought I’d never return to the Rosary. But here it is and here SHE IS. Blessed be, Mairly.”
The “here” in this message, found on herchurch.org, is Ebenezer Lutheran Church in San Francisco. But the SHE is not the Mother of God. SHE is “God/dess.”
On Wednesdays at 7 p.m., Ebenezer opens its sanctuary for the “Christian Goddess Rosary.” The church says it offers “Goddess Rosary Beads” and that “prayers and suggested meditations will be on hand as well as incense, candles and bells.”
“The Goddess rosary is grounded in traditions of the Christian Church and the proclamation of the gospel which is a vision of release from bondage for a new creation,” says the church’s web site.
The Goddess Rosary page on herchurch.org says that though “God as Father plays an important role” in Christian tradition, its “exclusive emphasis... contributes to a limited understanding of God, an understanding that supports a domination structure that oppresses and subordinates women.” Jesus used “Abba” as a “revolutionary deconstruction of domination structures of his day in both religious and social institutions.” The modern task is to do the same with “Goddess.”
Ebenezer, however, does not want to eradicate masculine images of God but to balance them with feminine images to “confront the biblical texts, products of their day and cultures, for the blatant patriarchal biases and misogynist attitudes.” And herchurch.org cites three Catholic theologians in support this confrontation: Harvard’s Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Fordham University’s Sister Elizabeth Johnson, and Rosemary Radford Ruether (who will lecture students in the course, “The History of God in Feminist Theological Discourse,” at LA’s Mount St. Mary’s College this spring.) Ruether calls the exclusive use of male imagery for God “idolatry.”
Herchurch.org offers a “Hail Goddess” prayer by feminist theologian Carol Christ, formerly of Harvard Divinity School but now director of the Ariadne Institute for Myth and Ritual in Greece. The prayer goes: “Hail Goddess full of grace. Blessed are you and blessed are all the fruits of your womb. For you are the MOTHER of us all. Hear us now and in all our needs. O blessed be, O blessed be. Amen.”
“I felt that I had stepped into a Presence, like a mother’s warm embrace,” wrote Dalyn Cook of Ebenezer’s Goddess Rosary. “The attendees were few in number, yet there was a sense of fullness in this welcoming space. I inhaled deeply the earthy scent of the incense, sending up delicate tendrils of smoke which curled around the altar in a nimbus visible against the warm rays of the evening sun filtering through the stained-glass windows....
“From the basket of rosaries, I took into my hand a strand of vibrantly-colored beads with a silver goddess icon in place of the traditional cross. The goddesses came in a variety of shapes and sizes, celebrating the beauty of the feminine form; I found reflections of my own figure in the full hips and Rubenesque curves of my goddess,” Cook wrote.
God has to be male?
Then what do females have to indentify with? (And Mary doesn’t count)
What happened to Shakina/Jehova?
Very well said....
Mary by the way is not the mother of God.
We can readily agree that She is the Mother of Jesus. John 10:30 "I and the Father are one." Do you deny the Holy Trinity?
Mary was a blessed woman who bore Jesus and went on to have a family with her husband Joseph.
Please, show chapter and verse.
Jesus is not God.
Already shown.
Jesus is the son of God the Father.
Yes. He is that too. That's a great mystery but it's true.
He is seated at the right hand of God making intersession for mankind.
Common Protestant mistake. He is enthroned before God. However, nowhere does the Bible say that He alone is making intercession for us... He is the One to Whom we cry! What you are referring to is His role as Mediator. Anyone in the legal profession will readily tell you that a mediator is one who settles a dispute and forges a bond. Christ did that on the Cross. I challenge you to find a reference in the Bible that can't be explained this way.
Amazing. Someone actually accepts “The Mists Of Avalon,” as fact. And I thought people were suckers for “The DaVinci Code.”
The details of exactly who's getting worshiped don't matter. It's offering worship to something that isn't God.
I was thinking fire and brimestone from heaven, in which case, I hope they have a really good bunker complex.
The Catholic rosary has beads, their rosary has beads...
This is a perfectly good verse about prayer, but it has nothing to do with praying to the dead.
OK, I re-read the article. I am just posoting what Catholic beliefs are. Is that OK with you?
Therefore, just as I might come to you and ask you to pray for me, we do the same with the Saints and elicit their prayers and intercessions. We worship no one but God.
The husband and wife relationship is far more important than the mother son relationship and the bible is clear that in heaven we are no longer married to our earthly wives. On earth when Jesus said "Who is my mother" he puts all Christian women at the same level as Mary saying that all Christian women are His mother/sister. Therefore RC doctrine about Mary's position in Heaven is scripturally baseless.
I’m only pointing out that the bible does not support prayer to dead “saints”.
Welcome home.
The bible says very clearly that the dead are not dead. It’s one of the biggest themes in the whole bible. There are many many places where the bible could simply state that we should ask for intercession from the dead but it never does. Rather it says many things about how wrong it is to speak with the dead, in any context.
this a wiccan phrase, I would think this gives it away and sums it up
So mote it be.
Apples and oranges. We are collectively the Bride of Christ in the Church. Our Earthly families are types of the Heavenly Family Who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We have the essence of God Himself, Who is Love and from that essence, we create the physical reality of our love which is offspring. These offspring we bring to communion with Christ so that they are no longer our sons and daughters but brothers and sisters in Christ. These Earthly relationships help us understand our relationship to God... but they are not eternal.
On earth when Jesus said "Who is my mother" he puts all Christian women at the same level as Mary saying that all Christian women are His mother/sister.
Obviously. Just as He gave all Christian women on Earth to John at the foot of the Cross to care for and take as his own mother... Again, you are mixing apples and oranges. Jesus is making a point in what you cited about the Heavenly reality of doing God's Will, not a point about Earthly family.
Therefore RC doctrine about Mary's position in Heaven is scripturally baseless.
You found us out. After 2000 years and more than a billion adherents, you have discovered the truth we tried so hard to hide. Or could it be, perhaps, that this is the result of personal interpretation outside of the Christ-appointed teaching role of the Church? My money's on the latter.
By the Earth, Sun, and Moon
The bible says very clearly that the dead are not dead. It’s one of the biggest themes in the whole bible. There are many many places where the bible could simply state that we should ask for intercession from the dead but it never does. Rather it says many things about how wrong it is to speak with the dead, in any context.
So the dead are not dead but we are not to speak to the dead. Got it.
In all charity, ask yourself this... if Christ is King of Heaven and Earth... are they separate kingdoms with separate peoples? Or is there one body with one Head, Who is Christ? There is one body and one communion and the only ones called "dead" by Christ are those who are not joined in salvation.
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