At this writing there is an earnest push to make God more "feminine friendly" and more in touch with the feminine aspect of His divinity. It is pointless to question the intentions of this movement as the intentions will always prove to have been good on the part of those that feel it is important to put a twist on the testimony of the Bible for the sake of Christians. Misogyny is the often cited reason by women who reject Christianity. The testimony of misogyny is true on the part of women who have been at the hands of fathers, boyfriends, and husbands who claim to be Christian while at heart, are abusive and definitely misogynistic. Fathers in households have everything to do with the attitudes of their children. Minimizing the worth of their daughters by outright modeling of dismissive attitudes, ridicule of the sexuality of their daughters, as well as degradation of their sexuality is one way to elevate the male head of the household and have a good reason to abandon any attempt at dealing with daughters in a healthy way. This appears to be the way many fathers deal with their daughters. Sometimes it is just ignoring their children by demanding work schedules and social obligations that alienates children from them.
Our society has developed into one where "experts" are relied upon to take the roles that should be that of the parent. Teachers and the church, soccer and ballet, and TV train children, nurture children, and lead children. This is not the case for all people, maybe not the majority of people, but it is true for a large number of people. Divorce accounts for many children being left behind and the father being seen sporadically as a visitor at best and an intruder who stirs up trouble quite often. That has an impact upon the present generation and those generations to come. Career accounts for many children being left behind to fend for themselves finding structure and nurture in the hours until one tired and overworked parent arrives after work. The culture children are exposed to is less than romantic, more than demanding, and quite hard-edged. The emphasis is upon sexuality, sexual imagery, and sexual performance in one way or another for females to gain acceptance and identity. Children are pushed by the culture to grow up too fast in the hopes that their ship will come in as an adult while still in a child's body and developmentally a child. The church in the United States is one of the options for those seeking an expert to do the job of spiritual training so busy parents can ignore that aspect of parental responsibility.
Cognitive structures are gained from the child's setting that she finds herself in. Concepts, ideas, beliefs, and faith are all molded by whatever is available to the child, adolescent, or young adult. In an effort to compete with the culture at large some mainline denominations have introduced the idea of the goddess into church. Here again, rather than the father taking his role seriously he is let off the hook by the church taking up the slack in the role of expert. The church gives the message that God the Father is distant and inaccessible, just as the father at home or the estranged father is, but mother goddess is there for the female in a church.
My mother was in the hospital ready to have a major operation and my family was assembled in the waiting room taking up most of the chairs. One at a time, we went in to have a moment with her before she was whisked away for her surgery. During my turn a lady from my parent's church came in to see Mom. She asked if Mom wanted to pray and of course Mom said yes. The prayer was addressed to the "goddess" Sophia. The denomination was one which is considered mainline Protestant. I went to a church of the same denomination where I live and the minister referred to God as "He", looked over at the assistant minister who was a female and added "she". The party line is that God might be a "she" too. Denominational preferences are beginning to reflect the push to make the Bible's published gender neutral based on this cultural predicate with a bit of "theology" put in place to conform the Bible to a gender neutral document.
For each man’s ways are plain to the LORD’S sight;
all their paths he surveys;
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By his own iniquities the wicked man will be caught,in the meshes of his own sin he will be held fast;
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He will die from lack of discipline,through the greatness of his folly he will be lost.
Proverbs 5
Variously, some men have sought to dawdle about with finer points of this and that to make a name for themselves in matters concerning the church. It matters greatly how seriously we take God and the whole counsel of God as revealed in His Word, the Bible. If decisions are left to the influence of the culture to dictate our actions, we place God and the Bible second. That being the case, men no longer have the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as our God. The role God rightly should have in our lives is prevented from having any weight in our lives as God has revealed that He is not going to be second to anyone or anything. Unwittingly, through our arrogance and ignorance we place idols in the place God should rightly hold in our lives. Men will replace God with someone or something, either in the concrete or abstract. We act out of our own selfishness in the absence of God, making decisions based on utilitarian or material need. More often than not, we make decisions based on emotion and then make up rational reasons for our decisions before acting upon them in the best of circumstances. Later, we make emotional decisions and plow on without the pretense of rationality unless pressed to use reason. The theological justification for making a goddess have standing in the Christian churches is based upon one of the names of God, Elohim.
"H. B. Kuhn, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Asbury Theological Seminary, traces the progressive unfolding of dimensions of God’s personality and His relationship both to creation and to His people which are found in the different names by which God reveals Himself in the Old Testament in an excellent encyclopedia article. According to Kuhn, God’s self-revelation to His people revolves around four central names: El, Elohim, Adonai, and Yahweh. Most of His other names are compound names built upon these four.
The name El is one of the oldest designations for deity in the Bible and the entire ancient world. It became the general name for God in Babylonia, Arabia, and the land of Canaan, as well as the Israelitish peoples. Kuhn comments that El connotes not only the idea of might but also the idea of transcendence. Kuhn calls Elohim, the plural name for God, the plural of intensity. It is used over 2,000 times in the Old Testament to refer to Israel’s God. It is frequently used with the article (ha-elohim), meaning "the one true God." The third primary name by which God reveals Himself, Adonai, does not seem to have been in common use among Semitic peoples generally. It was used mainly by the Hebrews.
Kuhn then writes about God’s fourth and final primary name of self-revelation, Yahweh, a name unique with the Israelites:
The other Semitic peoples do not seem to have known it or at least did not use it in reference to the Deity except as contacts with the Hebrew people brought it to their attention. It was the special property of the covenant people.
It was in the Exodus story that God gave this name as His covenant name between Himself and His people (Exodus 3:13–15). Thus from this time onward the events of the Exodus formed the core of the Hebrew proclamation: "I am Yahweh your God (Elohim) who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exodus 20:2). Kuhn observes that
God has taken the initiative in restoring the knowledge-bond which existed between God and fallen man, a bond which was fractured by the Fall. And it was through His revelation to Israel of Himself under the name of Yahweh or Jehovah that the unfolding of saving history became visible. The unveiling of God’s nature by the giving of His name to Israel was of supreme significance to the entire Biblical system."
The name Elohim that underpins the theological argument for goddess worship is shared by both neo-pagans and Christians. Elohim is a plural word and people conclude that when He said in Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." that one of those included is a goddess with the same standing that He has. The application on the part of eclectic neo-pagans leads to worship that ignores parts of the Bible that are not feminine friendly in their view and includes worship or acceptance of other gods forbidden by God. Patriarchy has become a symbol for misogyny in our culture and the blame rests squarely on the men in our culture and in the Christian churches. The fact that males have the spiritual role of leadership in the Christian churches and in families has been misused by us. It has been an excuse to shove off things we would rather not do, that are part of our responsibilities. Our culture has been one in which the male has taken all the credit and lapsed severely in doing our part at home and in the church on the whole. This statement is an observation and not meant to induce guilt or place blame. The society and culture within which we live is dysfunctional and it is observably, glaringly, and obviously apparent. The reason there are so many 12-Step programs is that there is a need for them. Women who have tried to press to make men take responsibility or suggest that something is amiss find out they are pounded down and made to pay a price for their efforts. Often, women have found no recourse in the church or society because the cards are stacked in the favor of the male and put in the wrong due to a priori social structures based on male domination. Although the Bible has detailed the right relationship of the male and female in family and society few males bother to read a Bible or even pick one up. Scattered trips to church or even faithful church attendance have resulted in spiritually and Biblically uninformed men who passively listen to a sermon once a week at best that do not have a clue as to what God might think of any given situation in his family or workplace.
The experience of a lot of women with men as fathers or husbands has been such that men are only known as people who accept no responsibility for their actions or refuse to be held accountable for their actions. Willingness to depend upon a man to do his part in making a relationship or marriage work has resulted upon a betrayal of trust. Men love authority and control along with the creature comforts life may afford whatever the way these things might be gained. The experience of a lot of women is that their role is often minimized under the best circumstances and ridiculed under normal circumstances. After feeling the weight of emotional, psychological, spiritual, material, and finally physical abandonment on the part of the father or husband the woman is left with few, if any choices in regard to her relationship with that male. If the trauma were not so devastating and expected things might look hopeful and a fresh start possible. That does happen, but the baggage taken into a new relationship is often not resolved and usually another foolish male much like the last is chosen to take one more chance on. This is a black picture and perhaps not the experience of the majority of people, but is common and it functions on many levels in society. Some men can be made to see character flaws and can change and things can be worked out, but not always.
Then again, a lot of men are weak, expecting guidance and leadership from the woman. Some men think their goal in life is to find a woman who has accepted the role of bread winner so they can lounge about at home on the computer while the wife brings in money for their needs. This seems to be something that is becoming common. As a rule these relationships are fraught with inherent problems and the relationship depends on the male being weak to the point he is willing to accept rules set by the wife or female partner. In this case and those touched upon above, men become a joke, cruel joke, or hated joke very often. Often the net result leaves a great deal of pain and grief in the wake of failed relationships, along with a significant number of women single and impoverished. Women may have been without ample funds before, but there was the hope of something better. Retrenching as single women with new responsibilities and quite often children, it becomes a fact that men have not impressed them in any positive way. In fact the reverse is true, most encounters, relationships, and marriages have become bad memories for the most part.
The Courage to Heal is a book written by two women that deals with sexual abuse and how to cope with it and deal effectively with it. The trauma from sexual abuse is such that it is significant for the life of a woman on a permanent basis. The trauma's effects do not go away and destroy some things about people if not dealt with. I have yet to meet women and get to know them well that have not been sexually abused by someone at some point in their lives. Taking that which is not yours to have any part of leaves a lasting and most often traumatic or significant impact upon women. It is true that women who are strong enough and that have not victimized as children can deal effectively with it, going on with their lives in a healthy way. Sexual harassment is a fact of life and is a form of sexual abuse. Men tend to naturally hit on women and while it is not sexual harassment per se, women expect it and sometimes read it into a situation when men are not actually hitting upon them, at least consciously. It would seem a lot of males cannot control the natural attraction to women on a sexual basis to the point that we can deal effectively in a professional environment in a professional way so that sexuality is not a point of the encounter. Women who are not dysfunctional are particularly put off and highly aware of this flaw in men who are slightly or greatly dysfunctional sexually.
If women are forced to the conclusion that men are largely dysfunctional creatures at best and liabilities or a threat as a rule, the results seem to be predictable. The result is negative at best and adversarial as a rule. If this is at least partially a correct observation, it follows that respect for men is only present with a reason to fear them, whether the male wields power over women or has something they want. In the absence of fear women correctly decide that they have a good shot at being left alone or getting what they want, but respect is feigned and not reality based. Corrupted views of men based on the experience of women that have been at their hands does nothing to encourage the idea that God is any more loving than the men in their lives. A choice in favor of accepting Him as Lord and Savior is made in spite of the experience of women to a much greater degree than that of men. It is not difficult to imagine a bit of resentment not creeping in as a minister exhibits dysfunctional qualities. Personal testimony to the fact that there are a lot of males in positions of authority in churches who not only hit on women but pursue them while abusing their authority is not too difficult to ascertain.