Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History

This is a remarkable book. REmarkable in every respect, i/e., the amount of information, the clarity of style, the points of view. Certainly, not politically correct, since it dares contradict the excesses of the feminist movement. Everybody interested in the history of the gender war should read it. Kudos.

Prof. Ruether has done a fine job in avoiding the radicalizing polemics of the feminist movement and providing a balanced perspective of how the feminine aspect of holiness has been marginalized by patriarchy. She does this without waxing nostalgic about a fancied halcyon day when women ruled peacefully. She convincingly argues that this thesis was never established on anything other than an ideological wannabe basis. Her final chapter, on the modern Wicca movement, provides a good foundation for establishing a tolerant view of how the feminine aspects of divinity can be incorporated into a holistic view of spirituality. I would have liked to have seen a more in-depth analysis of why the early christian fathers were so determined to eliminate the emphasis on feminine Wisdom and replace it with Jesus , but overall she has given an interesting accounting of the process whereby Christianity (especially the Protestant variety) has become an almost exclusively male preserve. This book is highly recommended for any student of early religion, the feminist movement or aboriginal spirituality.

This is an unusually well-balanced survey of goddesses in history and belief. Compared with other books on the subject, it offers more substantive material and there is an obvious effort to represent each point of view. The reader is given a full account of the manifold manifestations of goddesses throughout history as well as the various feminist viewpoints of today.