watson@spock (Steve Watson) (10/17/90)
I'm cross-posting to the religion group since the thread seems to be heading that way. A lot of people in my own church (United Church of Canada) would say that Christianity is not, at base, inherently sexist (yes, I know it's hard to separate the True Faith from the beliefs people actualy hold), but that our view of God (as expressed for e.g. in the Bible) is filtered through a patriarchal culture. They say that many feminine references are hidden by translation done under patriarchal assumptions, or simply missed by lack of a good equivalent in the target language. ( I can't vouch for this myyself; I'm no language scholar.) But an example I heard in a sermon a few weeks ago: There is a Hebrew word which occurs throughout the Old Testament which is variously translated as God's `compassion', 'lovingkindness', or 'mercy'. The root of this word is the word for 'womb'. So a (highly literal) translation of this might be "God's womb-love for us". It would be hard to imagine a more beautifully or intimately female image of God than that. I agree that there are definite problems, both in the way religious institutions treat women, and in the source texts of western religions, but I think the situation is not quite as black as some people think, and there is hope for us yet. ================================================================== "God of hovering wings, Womb and Birth of Time..." -- ====================== disclaimer =============================== "Blame me, not the Company I keep..." - Steve Watson UseNet: mitel!spock!watson@uunet.uu.net