The Feminine in Religion

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The last decades have witnessed an increase in scholarly attention to the role and contribution of women to world religions, as well as a critical re-appraisal of feminine concepts of the Divine in contradistinction with the dominant and often normative concept of God as a supreme masculine figure. In parallel, the field of comparative religion has been characterized by a new emphasis on the specificity of female spirituality in world religions, and a host of penetrating studies have been devoted to female saints, mystics and female congregations and movements in Christianity, Islam and East Asian religions.The recent interest in the figure of the great Goddess, both in academia and in New Age discourse, is perhaps the best evidence of these tendencies. While the misogynistic traits of world religious traditions have received attention by many scholars, others have focused upon the claims of all major religions upon an integration of the feminine into their spiritual economy. One of the questions we will ponder is that of knowing whether Semitic monotheistic religions have been more resistant to feminine tendencies than the religions of East Asia by virtue of their patriarchal and misogynistic traits. Female religiosity has been sometimes characterized as conservative and the keeper of traditional values and heritage by sociologists of religion. By contrast masculine attitudes toward religion have not uncommonly been defined by a tendency to break the boundaries of the known, either in prophetic or reforming modes, if not by breaking away from religious norms and rejecting religion as such a feminine reality in the spirit of Nietzsche’s Übermensh. On the other hand, the history of religions bears witness to an affinity of women as religious faithful and the feminine as spiritual value with realities pertaining to the realm of the informal, spiritual intimacy, mercy and union whereas masculine religion appears more often than not on the side of form, institution, power and law. Our readings, lectures, and class discussions will primarily revolve around the following four sets of questions: The theological and metaphysical understanding and doctrinal constructions and formulations of the Divine as Feminine; The specificity, emphases and re-occuring patterns of female spirituality; The feminine as symbol and spiritual key in religion, mythology, spirituality and mysticism; The main characteristics of, and questions raised by, contemporary feminist trends in theology.