by Kjos Ministries

 (from A Twist of Faith) by Berit Kjos

The Feminine Face of God? Stopped by the suggestive title, I pulled the book from the shelf in our local bookstore, and pondered the subtitle: “The Unfolding of the Sacred in Women.” What did that mean?

I turned it over and read the endorsement on the back. “This is a book that invites women to define for themselves what is sacred….” Women, not God, would define what is sacred? Then “the sacred” could mean anything! Or could it?

Hoping to learn more about the spiritual quests of women, I brought the book to the sales counter. While waiting, I scanned some the miniature books on display. A tiny book titled Oneness explained that prayer and meditation “will center us … so that we can recognize the divine within ourselves.” Page after tiny page emphasized a pantheistic oneness of all beliefs–a unity that assumes that all people are joined to the same “Universal Consciousness” or sacred source of life. No need for the cross if each person is already made sacred through union with a cosmic god, I thought as I put it back.

I picked up another book, Thomas Merton’s Ways of the Christian Mystics, and flipped through its miniature pages. Published by Shambala, a prolific producer of occult literature, it told of a “sacred journey” with “origins in prehistoric religious cultures and myths.” Myths instead of truth? I felt sad but not surprised. Few spiritual teachers have done more to blend the biblical meaning of sacredness with eastern mysticism than Merton, the popular Catholic author who died in Asia searching the depths of Tibetan Buddhism. Yet thousands of Christian women search his books for simple paths to intimacy with God.

Merton’s little book echoes the theme of universal oneness. “Our pilgrimage,” he wrote, is “to the stranger who is Christ, our fellow-pilgrim and our brother.” He suggests some of the potential strangers: the Inca, Maya or aborigine who is “no other than ourselves, which is the same as saying that we find Christ in him.” No matter which gods he or she worships?

“Yes,” cry a chorus of contemporary voices. Respected guides such as Thomas Merton have opened the door to countless spiritual alternatives by tearing down the biblical separation between the holiness of God and the unholy spirits behind pagan religions. It may sound compassionate to blend the two and trust that both paths lead to the same destination, but it’s not true. They are incompatible. God withdrew His presence from His holy temple back in Old Testament days. His people had profaned it by worshipping their Canaanite gods and goddesses inside its walls. Having lost God’s blessing and protection, the nation that had been the envy of its neighbors was soon destroyed by immorality, greed, famine, and war.

Today’s search for meaning is nudging our entire nation along the same self-destructive paths, for human nature hasn’t changed. It still pulls us toward self-made gods that model all the sensual thrills and unrestrained lifestyles we can imagine. So it’s not surprising that the ancient goddesses revived by radical feminists some decades ago once again captivate women around the world.

Those who prefer to keep their Christian identity simply choose deities that sound more biblical. Their best match is Sophia, named after the Greek word for wisdom. To early Gnostics, whose self-focused teaching seeped into first century churches, she symbolized holiness and salvation through mystical knowledge, not through Jesus Christ.

You may remember that Sophia starred at the controversial 1993 Re-Imagining Conference in Minnesota. She also seduces women through more intimate neopagan neighborhood “Circles” that throw the biblical cross to the winds. One such Sophia Circle was advertised in a small newspaper someone sent me. “Women’s ritual group drawing from a variety of spiritual traditions welcomes new members for monthly gatherings,” it beckoned. “If interested, call Karen.”

I called Karen. “Are you connected in any way with the 1993 Re-imagining conference in Minnesota?” I asked. She assured me they were not. A week later I joined more than a dozen women at a local Catholic retreat center. Click here to continue …

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