Orland Evangelical Free Church | The Goddess In the Bible

Dan Brown’s fictional Professor Langdon wrote a book on the sacred feminine, a topic that fascinates many real people. Wicca, for instance, is a revival of witchcraft that emphasizes women’s spiritual power. It’s growing quickly. The classical goddess Gaia, the original mother earth, is worshipped by many neopagans. As the bumper sticker says, “The Goddess is alive, and magick is afoot!”

The resurgence of goddess worship in postmodern America and Europe should be no surprise. It is an ancient practice that features prominently in the Bible.

The Canaanite goddess Asherah was central to a fertility cult, a religion of sexual rituals intended to promote good harvests. She was the consort of the more notorious Baal, the god of fire and rain. The goal of the rituals in this cult was to enflame the divine couple’s passions so the earth would be fruitful.

Numerous commands in the Mosaic law counter these rituals to keep the worship of God holy. Exodus 20.26, for example, forbids going up to the Lord’s altar by steps “so that your nakedness will not be exposed on it.” The prohibition against marrying Canaanites is aimed at the sexual practices that would entice Israelites into idolatry (Deuteronomy 7.3-6).

The Lord also refused to associate himself with a goddess. Deuteronomy 16.21 says, “You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of the Lord your God.” The Lord was not Baal’s replacement.

As the interest in goddess worship deepens, evangelicals will have to resist the feminization of God. Two traditions will claim biblical support. The worship of Sophia, or wisdom, is advocated on the basis of Proverbs 8.22-31. There is also an effort to interpret the Shekhinah – the glory of the Lord (e.g. Exodus 24.15-17) – as the feminine aspect of God, or even as a goddess in its own right.

The rationale for the feminization of God is to undermine what many perceive as destructive masculine characteristics like domination and hierarchy in favor of nurturing feminine ones.

We will need to resist these reinterpretations on quite specific grounds. The God of the Bible explicitly distinguished himself from goddesses and their rituals. Also, the fatherhood of God is central to the redemption story, since our high privilege in Christ is to call God “Abba”, or “Daddy” (Romans 8.15). Most importantly, Jesus came as a man and referred to God as his Father (e.g. John 5.26-30).

In other words, God reveals himself as masculine, and commands us to worship him as our Father. We must not alter his self-revelation. We also must not go beyond this position and insist that God is male. God has no body (John 4.24, Acts 17.24-25, Romans 1.20). The lie of goddess worship is that the divine nature is physical and is revealed as female.

Further, we must reject the idea that masculinity is destructive. Jesus exhibits both an ability to nurture (John 4.7-26) and to dominate (Mark 12.28-34). His masculinity is the complete model.

The true significance of The Da Vinci Code is its expression of neopagan goddess worship, not its conspiracy theories. We will be contending with followers of goddesses for years to come.