The Feminine Face of Christianity
128 pages | Paperback | Quest Books, 2003
Even though feminine values have always been at the core of Christianity, its long history has often ignored or marginalized women’s key role in it. Margaret Starbird’s unique view from the feminine perspective serves the need many are feeling to search their traditional faith for fresh meaning and inspiration in these difficult times. This is the second in a series of splendidly illustrated but affordable gift books on the feminine experience of religion (following Gill Farrer-Halls’ The Feminine Face of Buddhism, 2002).
The result is a powerful and lovely tool for contemporary women seeking the Divine Feminine within Christianity. Each chapter includes inspiring sidebar quotes, prayers, poems, liturgies, and meditations—both traditional and modern—to provide manna for the spiritual journey and practice the presence of a God beyond gender, but immanently within reach.
Could Mary Magdalene have been Jesus’ wife? Starbird explores this possibility and the “sister-brides” who accompanied male disciples to forge a new understanding of gender-based faith and of sacred marriage with the Divine. She also gives us the rich heritage of stories about women’s generous service and encouragement for the inner journey, ranging all the way from little-known early saints to Mother Theresa. She points out that fundamental Christian values such as compassion, reconciliation, and the healing of crippled bodies and broken hearts are all strongly feminine in nature. Her view, though, is cooperative rather than contentious: She aims, not to discredit the masculine, but to right the missing gender balance she finds inherent in the faith. Margaret Starbird received a Fulbright Fellowship for study at the Christian Albrechts University in Germany. Author of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, she travels extensively leading retreats and seminars on reclaiming the Sacred Feminine. She lives outside Seattle, Washington.
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