You are NOT accountable to your Audience, your Congregation to man, to women; NO Excuses; You are accountable to the HOLY Spirit, not to the Opinions of God's People.

YOU are Accountable to Spirit; to God; to the Holy Spirit. And this is Between YOU and SPIRIT. ~ Woman Spiritual Leaders in the Ministry, daughter of Billy Graham

you are NOT of this WORLD, nor do you answer to those of this world.

Religious Persecution and the Internet by Reverend Crystal Cox
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/164067605/Religious-Persecution-and-the-Internet-by-Reverend-Crystal-Cox

"Hope is a STATE of MIND independent of the state of the world" ~ William Sloane Coffin

"William Sloane Coffin Sermon Archive Project. It is truly a labor of love (a lot of labor; a lot of love) to digitally “Save Bill’s Voice.” Delivered from the Riverside Church pulpit over his ten years as senior minister, there are over 300 sermons in need of archiving to a digital format.

It is my intention to transfer all of the sermons (and any other sermons I can find from around the country) from the deteriorating cassette tapes that are currently their home, not only to be made available on this website, but also to be stored with his papers at Yale University's Sterling Library.  These digitized sermons could provide an enduring and invaluable resource for scholars, divinity school students, religious leaders and socially engaged activists around the world.

"I think this is a good investment for history, for culture, for religion, for the pure pleasure of hearing Bill's voice and his well chosen words. I think the idea of supporting David's initiative is terrific. I have contributed, and one doesn't have to be religious to enjoy and appreciate the content of the sermons, each of which  usually contains a lesson in morality, or politics, or justice....." Cora Weiss"

Source and Sermons
http://www.williamsloanecoffin.org/

"William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (June 1, 1924 – April 12, 2006) was an American Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist. He was ordained in the Presbyterian church and later received ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ. In his younger days he was an athlete, a talented pianist, a CIA agent, and later chaplain of Yale University, where the influence of Reinhold Niebuhr's social philosophy led him to become a leader in the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960s and 1970s. He also was a member of the secret society Skull and Bones. He went on to serve as Senior Minister at the Riverside Church in New York City and President of SANE/Freeze (now Peace Action), the nation's largest peace and justice group, and prominently opposed United States military interventions in conflicts such as the Vietnam War to the Iraq War. He was also an ardent supporter of gay rights."
Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sloane_Coffin

Spirituality means to me living the ordinary life extraordinarily well. 
As the old-church father said, 'The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” 
― William Sloane Coffin

"Not about Peace, but about JUSTICE"

“Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. 
There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself.” 
― William Sloane Coffin

It Takes Conviction.. 

..accepting Unpleasant TRUTH

“Fear destroys intimacy. It distances us from each other; or makes us cling to each other, which is the death of freedom.... Only love can create intimacy, and freedom too, for when all hearts are one, nothing else has to be one--neither clothes nor age; neither sex nor sexual preference; race nor mind-set.” 
― William Sloane Coffin

a Frequency Keeper, Warrior of Light, Magic Weaver; Pleiadian Channeling 2014. Follow your Chosen Path with Joy.

Awaken Goddess Alchemy; Pleiadian Channeling; Solara.

Reverend Crystal Cox on Making Major Life Changes, Following your Bliss, Being Kind to yourself and connecting with your calling.

"COMPLICATIONS AND CONFUSIONS IN DISCUSSIONS OF THE GODDESS"

"Although writing in patriarchal Greece from a patriarchal perspective, Hesiod said in hisTheogony or Birth of the Gods that Gaia or Earth alone was the mother of the Mountains, Sky, and Sea. With the male Sky she gave birth to the next generation of deities known as the “Titans,” who were overthrown by Zeus.

Hesiod’s was a “tale with a point of view” in which “it was necessary” for the “forces of civilization”–for him represented by warrior God and rapist Zeus–to violently overthrow and replace earlier conceptions of the origin life on earth and presumably also to overthrow and replace the people and societies that created them.

With the triumph of Christianity in the age of Constantine in the 4th century AD, Christus Victor replaced Zeus in the cities, while the religion of Mother Earth continued to be practiced in the countryside. Over time, many of the attributes of Mother Earth were assimilated into the image of Mary, and priests began to perform rituals earlier dedicated to Mother Earth, such as blessing the fields and the seeds before planting. In the Middle Ages “the Goddess” re-emerged within Western Christianity in devotion to the Virgin Mary, the female saints, and figures such as Lady Wisdom, at the same time that the history of the Goddess was being erased.

In the middle of the 19th century, in Das Mutterrecht (The Mother Right), J. J. Bachofen stunned the scholarly world with his theory that matrilineal kinship, matrilineal inheritance, and reverence for the Great Mother were to be found at the origins of civilization. Bachofen challenged the view that patriarchy and the worship of male Gods had existed “from the beginning .” 

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a large number of scholars and writers agreed with Bachofen that Mother Earth was worshipped in early “matriarchal” socieities.

Almost all of these scholars also agreed with Bachofen that the religion of the Goddess in matriarchal societies represented a “primitive,“ “inferior,” and “lower” state of culture. Thus they also concurred that “it was necessary” for matriarchy to be overthrown by patriarchy in order for civilization to “advance.”

19th and 20th century theorists invoked Darwin’s evolutionary theory and spoke of an “evolution of cultures” in which the “stongest” and the “fittest” survived. For them, it was “obvious” that the triumph of patriarchy over matriarchy was a triumph of reason over unreason, the individual over the group, and civilization over its opposite.

The classicist Jane Harrison whose work uncovered a history of the Goddess underneath the art and literature of the Greek “classic age” can be read as having had a preference for the earlier religion of the Goddess and an antipathy for the Olympian religion of Zeus. However, she deemed the shift from “matriarchy to patriarchy” a “necessary stage in a real advance. Matriarchy gave to woman a false because magical prestige.” (Prolegomena, 285) On the same page she noted that (true) “understanding was not granted to the Greek.”

Presumably she looked forward to a time when the “mystical truth” that the “stronger had a need, real and imperative, of the weaker” would lead to a new cultural synthesis in which the stronger would no longer feel it necessary to “despise and enslave” the weaker. However, her language is so cryptic that it is easy to miss her point—whatever it is.

Carl Jung and his disciple Erich Neumann who wrote the widely read Jungian book, The Great Mother, accepted Bachofen’s theory that matriarchy preceded patriarchy and his conclusion that patriarchy marked an advance in culture. Neumann argued that patriarchy allowed the individual to emerge from the group and for rationality to emerge from the mists of magical and irrational thinking. For all his love for and interest in “the Great Mother,” Neumann concluded that it was necessary for her “reign” to end.

Jung and Neumann agreed that rationality and individualism which they viewed as “brought to us by patriarchy” were a “good thing.” However, in the face of modern technology, growing alienation of city dwellers from nature, and the destruction wrought by modern warfare, both Jung and Neumann concluded that it was time for patriarchy to reincorporate at least some of the values of matriarchy.

For them “the masculine” had need of “the feminine” in order to reunite the masculine with the body, nature, and the unconscious. While they spoke of the reintegration of the masculine and the feminine, neither Jung nor Neumann mounted a full-on critique of patriarchy for the violence it brought with it, nor for despising and enslaving women in real life.

The view that a matriarchal age preceded patriarchy was challenged in the mid-twentieth century by mainstream scholars who argued that no matriarchal societies ever existed. These scholars called attention to the power of uncles, the brothers of the mothers through whom matrilineal kinship was traced, and concluded that societies with matrilineal kinship were patriarchal after all.

After the Second World War, interest in matriarchal societies and the Goddess waned in the face of a new view of “man” as the “naked ape.” The idea that mother-honoring societies of peace preceded patriarchy was deemed a romantic longing for a golden age and viewed as a fantasy belied by the inheritance of aggression from “the apes.” (The idea that dominance and aggression is the main human inheritance from apes has been challenged by studies of the bonobo apes.)

In early 1970s when second wave feminists began to critique “patriarchal” religions and to seek alternatives to them, they rediscovered the literature on matriarchy and the Goddess. This literature seemed to confirm feminist longings for an alternative to patriarchy and its Gods. While some feminists criticized earlier scholarship, others simply ignored its assumption that early civilizations were primitive and its conclusion that it was necessary for matriarchy and the era of the Goddess to be superseded by patriarchy and the era of the Gods—in order for civilization to advance.

In her great works The Language of the Goddess and The Civilization of the Goddess, Marija Gimbutas did not directly address the assumptions and conclusions of earlier scholarship on the Goddess. However, her conception of the “civilization of the Goddess” boldly challenged the assumption of earlier scholarship that Goddess cultures were “primitive” and “uncivilized”; it thus undermined the conclusions of earlier scholars that “it was necessary” for such cultures to be overthrown. Gimbutas argued that in many respects the civilization of the Goddess was “higher” than the patriarchal ones that replaced it. As she said, the civilization of Old Europe was peaceful, egalitarian, sedentary, and highly artistic—and survived for millennia without war.

Gimbutas did not use the term “matriarchy” in her works, because she rejected the popular and scholarly assumption that matriarchy is the opposite of patriarchy—a society where mothers rule and females dominate males. She spoke carefully of egalitarian cultures that were “matristic” or mother-honoring, and probably matrilineal and matrilocal. In recent years, a new group of scholars have redefined matriarchy to refer to mother-honoring egalitarian societies where grandmothers and great uncles share power in community. I suspect that Gimbutas would have adopted this new definition of matriarchy. However, the fact remains that she did not use the term.

Despite the attempts of new generations of scholars to redefine terms, and to challenge the assumptions and conclusions of earlier scholars, those who dismiss Goddess scholarship generally assume that new generations of scholars are saying “the same old thing.”  What is the cause of this failure of scholarly objectivity?  The whole discussion of the power of women and Goddesses in prehistory raises questions that cannot help but stir up emotion. Was patriarchy and advance in civilization? Was it necessary for men to dominate women in order for civilization to advance? Is war inevitable? Or was patriarchy a wrong turn in human history fraught with violence and injustice?

I suggest that the emotions involved in the above questions have made it difficult for sustained rational discussion to occur. It was one thing to discuss matriarchy and the Goddess as a sideline to the necessary triumph of patriarchy. It is quite another to suggest that patriarchy might not have been “necessary” at all. This thought threatens the foundations on which our entire understanding of civilization–and our educational system–is based.

Originally published on Feminism and Religion.

Carol P. Christ is looking forward to the spring Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Early bird special for fall tour until June 15. Carol can be heard in a recent interview on Voices of Women.  Carol is a founding voice the Goddess movement and the study of women and religion. Her books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions."

Sourcehttp://witchesandpagans.com/SageWoman-Blogs/complications-and-confusions-in-discussions-of-the-goddess.html

" A Message to Lightworkers – May 22, 2014"

"The latest update from our friends, the Collective, onboard the New Jerusalem, under Ashtar’s command.

Greetings, our friends and fellow shipmates! Namaste.

There is much happening now on your Earth plane. For one, your systems of governance are in a moment of great shift.

There is breaking through now, the first level of what you refer to as Disclosure—the admittance on the part of the US and other governments that they have been in discussion, in networked alliance, and engaged in work and scientific exploration, with what you term ETs—those of us living in higher dimensional levels and at a higher level of what you term “technology,” which to us is not at all a separate form of thought or mechanics, but simply a natural use of universal law of energy and light source.

Watch throughout the remaining months of this year, as your media begin to allow small shafts of light to be emitted from the previously closed up rooms of information and complicity.

Some of this information will be a surprise, some of it will not, particularly for those of you who cannot understand why the secrecy has taken place at such a serious level, and for so many decades, even centuries.

Watch how the stories will increasingly appear, regarding the ISS [International Space Station], statements made by members of Congress and other governments’ officials outside the US, hints imparted by your president and other leaders, and increasing signs in the sky.

For we are ready to meet with you, once you have collectively admitted that we exist, and are psychologically prepared as a race, without fear, to increase and elevate your experience of us.
For another, your banking systems have recently undergone a great change, unheralded by your media, as it is presently being kept in secrecy by those who instituted the change and those who are immediately affected by it (banking officials).

Nor would we describe it in detail, though it is utterly clear to us and easily done, as worldwide recognition of these changes will occur in perfect timing, and not before.

But know that the previous systems of feudal servant and overlord are now ended in ways previously only thought of or argued for.

This is done—this part is finished. Your rights as individuals and as nations, to live under free systems of trade and currency, and not fraudulent and easily breakable systems, has come through at last.
This is one of the great underpinnings of your new world.

Rejoice with us, and expect to hear of these changes, for you shall, and sooner than you might believe.
Namaste."

Source
http://carolineoceanaryan.com/2014/05/22/a-message-to-lightworkers-may-22-2014/

Bringing Back Goddess Church
Pleiadian Priestess
Reverend Crystal Cox

"Top Thirteen Most Influential People in Goddess Spirituality" Feminist Spirituality: Bringing Back the Goddess; Raising the Consciousness of the Feminine Divine.

"Earlier this month I was very interested to see a series of posts on Raise the Horns about the top 25 most influential people in the birth of paganism.

When I read Mankey’s post, it reinforced my own conception of Goddess spirituality as having a distinctly different lineage and flavor than much of contemporary paganism.

His list, while extensive, useful, and accurate, involves a distinct lack of Goddess scholars, highlighting to me that Goddess spirituality IS a different movement and isn’t actually just a Goddess-oriented branch of contemporary paganism. Indeed, almost everyone on his list I’d either never heard of, not read, or don’t enjoy their writing. I immediately started to draft a list of my own and came up with 13 women, which seemed delightfully appropriate.

We in the Goddess feminist community have our own path, herstory, and lineage, one that really only began in the 1970′s in direct connection to the feminist movement, rather than the pagan movement.

Not necessarily in a particular order, here is my own list of the top thirteen most influential people in the development and articulation of Goddess Spirituality as its own distinct path. (I’ve been scrambling to finish collecting my thoughts in time to post this list while it is still Women’s History Month!) Only one of my own picks also appears on Mankey’s list.

1. Carol Christ–this feminist scholar is the most skillful and intelligent thealogian of the present day. Christ’s influence on my own ideas and concepts has been profound. Her work is academic, focused, and deep, and she wrestles with heavy questions.
   
   I particularly enjoy her books Rebirth of the Goddess and She Who Changes. A brilliant, thoughtful, amazing writer, Christ’s essay Why Women Need the Goddessremains, in my opinion, one of the most important and influential articles of our time.
   
2. Merlin Stone–author of the classic When God was a Woman, this professor of art history changed the landscape and understanding of ancient cultures and their relationship to the Goddess (and, yes she drew on the work of Murray and Graves, but moved into feminist thealogy rather than pagan practice).
   
3. Riane Eisler—author of The Chalice and the Blade, she made a significant contribution to the understanding of the history and development of patriarchy as well as offering a solution in the form of a partnership model of society.
   
4. Marija Gimbutas—scholar and archaeologist and author of several books chronicling Goddess figurines from around the world, including The Language of the Goddess, her work has come under scrutiny and criticism, but remains a potent contribution to the lineage of the Goddess movement.
   
5. Starhawk–the first of two on my list who bridge the gap between more “classic” paganism and feminist spirituality, Starhawk had a huge impact on the development of a female-oriented spiritual tradition. Her book The Spiral Dance was the first introduction to the Goddess for many women. In keeping with what I find to be a personal lack of click with a lot of pagan authors, I did not particularly enjoy The Spiral Danceand actually read it much later than most of the other books about feminist spirituality that I reference in this post, but regardless of personal taste, her influence on the Goddess movement is profound.
   
6. Z. Budapest—considered by many to be one of the first mothers of the feminist spirituality movement in the U.S., like Starhawk, Z’s writings are not my personal favorite resources because of their heavy Wiccan orientation, but they are undeniably classics in Goddess circles. Z has taken heat from many pagans for her position on transgender people.
   
7. Patricia Mongahan–recently departed author of Goddess-specific resource books like The Goddess Path and Wild Girls, Patricia’s writing is more practical and less scholarly/thealogy-oriented than some of my other favorite authors.
   
   
8. Monica Sjoo—radical artist, ecofeminist, and Goddess scholar, Sjoo wrote The Great Cosmic Mother and one of my other favorites, a critique of New Age spiritual paths called New Age Armageddon. Her classic and awesome painting God Giving Birthnarrowly avoided ended up in Court on the charge of “obscenity and blasphemy.”
   
9. Hallie Iglehart—while less well-known and influential than some of the other women on my list, Hallie was personally very impactful to my own Goddess path, since her books were some of the first, personal and experientially-oriented Goddess-specific books that I read. She is the author of Womanspirit, a synthesis of feminism and religion, and of The Heart of the Goddess, a visually stunning collection of Goddess images and meditations/reflections.
   
   
10. Cynthia Eller—while Eller’s book focused on debunking the “myth of matriarchal prehistory” made her lose popularity among many in the Goddess community (see her clarifying comments here), her scholarly engagement with the complexities of articulating the concepts of feminist spirituality and of thealogy is challenging, illuminating, and offers the opportunity to dig deeply into one’s own perspectives. Her book Living in the Lap of the Goddess is a thorough exploration of women’s spirituality and the Goddess movement.
    
11. Charlene Spretnak–another rocking writer with a thorough grasp of the sociopolitical and cultural context, value, and purpose of Goddess spirituality, her classic anthology The Politics of Women’s Spirituality is one of the best and deepest explorations of the concepts, personal experiences, philosophies, and thealogies of why Goddess.
    
12. Karen Tate–through her weekly radio show, Voices of the Sacred Feminine, I would venture to say that Tate is one of the most influential and dedicated “Goddess advocates” of the present day.
    
13. Elizabeth Fisher and Shirley Ranck—authors of germinal religious education curriculums focused on feminist spirituality and woman-honoring traditions, originally published by the UU Women and Religionprogram, their work with Rise Up and Call Her Name and Cakes for the Queen of Heaven continues to change the lives of women around the country by introducing them to a vision of what the world could be like if the divine was imaged as female.

Also deserving of mention are:

• SageWoman Magazine (and her editors)—this specifically Goddess-women oriented publication is a treasure and a delight.

• Feminism and Religion blog–daring to explore the intersection of religion, scholarship, activism, and community, FAR is not specifically Goddess-oriented, but includes Goddess scholars amongst their contributors and weaves a beautiful, living, organic tapestry of the multifaceted web of feminist spirituality in the present day.

I find that feminist spirituality can be distinguished from paganism because of the inclusion of a coresociopolitical orientation and distinct sociocultural critique. 

Feminist spirituality to me is the intersection of religion and politics. It is religious feminism. 

It may or may not include literal experience of or perception of the Goddess, but it names the female and the female body as sacred, worthy, and in need of defense and uses Goddess symbols, metaphors, stories, and experiences as primary expressions of divinity and the sacred."

Source

http://goddesspriestess.com/2013/03/29/top-thirteen-most-influential-people-in-goddess-spirituality/

Women Speaking in the Church, Proclaiming The Good News by Pastor Melissa Scott.

Women Speaking in the Church: Anna the Prophetess by Pastor Melissa Scott

Click Below to Watch Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55342Ce8qPE

Reverend Crystal Cox on the WORD "Church" "Religion" "Priest" and Healing.

One Creator Many Paths. YOU have a PURPOSE. Awaken Folks.

the Time is here. The Grandmother's of the World are coming to together. the Feminine Divine is rising. a Voice for the VOICELESS. Animals, Air, Water, and Victims. 

Time to Bring Back Goddess, the Spirit of the Feminine.

Awaken the Feminine Divine. 

Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers: Walking the Talk from Omega Institute on Vimeo.

"By Changing Energy, Miracles Occur"

"- in recognition that matter is energy and that

many higher levels of energy exist in reality.

By changing energy, miracles occur.

Tour of Your Energy Bodies As Seen with Higher-Vision (The Human Constitution In Its Healthy & Awakened State)

You are more than the physical body that you sense. Your mind, emotions, and soul have their own bodies. These bodies are distinct from yet connected to your physical body. You have many bodies. Highly sensitive people have always been able to perceive one or more of these nonphysical bodies. Recent advances in science and technology are verifying their existence. Our day to day experience confirms their reality.

The Buddhic/Christic Body

This body was not named after the individuals, The Buddha and The Christ, but rather they were named after this level of consciousness that they embodied. Many world teachers and founders of major religions embodied in the world this state of consciousness.

Function:

The Buddhic Body facilitates the expansion of consciousness beyond separative individuality. This allows identity to break free of individuality so that identity can include others; such as family, friends, social group, soul group, and eventually humanity as a whole.

The Buddhic Body facilitates intuitive understanding through union with others, knowing by being that which is to be known.

The Buddhic level is THE source of happiness and bliss for the Manasic/Higher Mind, Causal/Soul, Mental/Intellectual, Astral/Emotional, and Physical levels. (See Mechanism of Pleasure) It is the plane of bliss.

This body eventually transmutes, heals, and resolves all human problems with the power of love, unity, and wisdom.

The Buddhic/Christic body contains the archetype of perfection for the human being. The embodiment of this archetype, the fusion of the personality and the Buddhic/Christic body is the goal of human evolution.

Range of Consciousness:

Buddhic consciousness does not begin until very significant progress on the spiritual path is made. This starts as intuition (an ability to know wisdom through love, without thought or psychic abilities) and as compassion for others.

Pure Buddhic consciousness is characterized by an expansion of identity beyond individuality so that you are big enough to identify with a group of individuals or souls. World teachers embody this state in the way that they totally dedicate their individualities to the good of the group of humanity.

Unity is so real and intense on this level that you are in a state continual ecstatic union with others. It is a state of intense love and continual total-being orgasmic ecstasy.

If what is thought to be Buddhic or Christ consciousness does not include this experience of intense orgasmic bliss then it is not actual pure Buddhic/Christ consciousness but rather its reflection in the Mental or Astral levels, or a mixture of Buddhic with Mental or Astral levels. Buddhic/Christ consciousness is a state of ecstatic individual self transcendence.

The mark of someone who has truly attained this state of consciousness on a continual basis is that they are never oriented towards their individuality. They will never or rarely speak about their individuality.

They are totally selfless in their actions and desire nothing of a personal nature because they reside in the source of fulfillment, in continual intense bliss. Also, their expression is utterly harmless and overflowing with compassion.

The Buddhic vehicle has its own level of five senses. These are: Comprehension (Buddhic hearing of 4 sounds: personal, that of others, that of one's soul group, that of the planetary entity that is one's origin), Healing (Buddhic feeling that facilitates realization of the manner in which to heal and cause wholeness), Divine Vision (Buddhic sight that allows one to see the divine in all), Intuition (Buddhic taste, whereby one's essence is recognized in and under all forms), and Idealism (Buddhic smell, the ability to sense the ideal).

Buddhic consciousness is also characterized by omniscience, all-knowingness. Realization of identification with the Divine begins on this level. Buddhic consciousness incarnates the love aspect of Deity.

It resides in the Buddhic Universe which is filled with golden and white light, profound wisdom, swirling mandalas of groups within groups within groups of light-beings. (For information about the Buddhic Universe go to The 7 Universes.)

Form/Structure:

When awakened, the Buddhic/Christic body can be perceived as a large conglomerate of spinning vortices pointed outward.

The cone shaped structures, in the image above, are vortices of energy. This body is extremely elastic, and when its attention is directed to an object (on its own level or mental, astral, or physical levels), it expands and elongates and travels to the object faster than the speed of light or the speed of thought, then the vortices tunnel into the object facilitating an immediate unification and merging with the object of attention. A central column of light-energy signifies its current range of consciousness.

Rarely are Buddhic bodies seen alone, as depicted above. They are normally dynamically interacting with groups within groups of other Buddhic beings.

It has a total of 6 spatial dimensions. (For more information about this go to Understanding Spatial Dimensions.)

How Awakened:

Pain and suffering awaken the beginnings of compassion for others, the first glimmer of Buddhic/Christic consciousness. When a person takes their evolution in their own hands by the disciplined spiritual practice of meditation then pain and suffering become unnecessary and are replaced by bliss. Buddhic consciousness is awakened primarily through certain types of meditation. Loving service to one's family, friends, humanity, and the world, also helps to awaken this consciousness."

Source and More
http://www.energyreality.com/pgs/budd.htm

Nostra Aetate; DECLARATION ON THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

"  NOSTRA AETATE
PROCLAIMED BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON OCTOBER 28, 1965

1. In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship.

One is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth.(1) One also is their final goal, God. His providence, His manifestations of goodness, His saving design extend to all men,(2) until that time when the elect will be united in the Holy City, the city ablaze with the glory of God, where the nations will walk in His light.(3)

Men expect from the various religions answers to the unsolved riddles of the human condition, which today, even as in former times, deeply stir the hearts of men: What is man? What is the meaning, the aim of our life? What is moral good, what is sin? Whence suffering and what purpose does it serve? Which is the road to true happiness? What are death, judgment and retribution after death? What, finally, is that ultimate inexpressible mystery which encompasses our existence: whence do we come, and where are we going?

2. From ancient times down to the present, there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history; at times some indeed have come to the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father. This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense.

Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry.

They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust. Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination.

Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites.

The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.(4)

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet.

They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.

4. As the sacred synod searches into the mystery of the Church, it remembers the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham's stock.

Thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God's saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ-Abraham's sons according to faith (6)-are included in the same Patriarch's call, and likewise that the salvation of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by the chosen people's exodus from the land of bondage.

The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles.(7) Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles. making both one in Himself.(8)

The Church keeps ever in mind the words of the Apostle about his kinsmen: "theirs is the sonship and the glory and the covenants and the law and the worship and the promises; theirs are the fathers and from them is the Christ according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:4-5), the Son of the Virgin Mary. She also recalls that the Apostles, the Church's main-stay and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ's Gospel to the world, sprang from the Jewish people.

As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation,(9) nor did the Jews in large number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading.(10) Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues-such is the witness of the Apostle.(11) In company with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and "serve him shoulder to shoulder" (Soph. 3:9).(12)

Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.

True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.

Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.

Besides, as the Church has always held and holds now, Christ underwent His passion and death freely, because of the sins of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation. It is, therefore, the burden of the Church's preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of God's all-embracing love and as the fountain from which every grace flows.

5. We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. Man's relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that Scripture says: "He who does not love does not know God" (1 John 4:8).

No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.

The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to "maintain good fellowship among the nations" (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men,(14) so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven."

Source of Post
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

Interview with shaman Mira Michelle Jones; Bringing Back Goddess Church

Bringing Back Goddess Church
All Faith Spiritual Sanctuary
Port Townsend Washington

Pastor; Priestess; Reverend Crystal Cox
ReverendCrystalCox@Gmail.com

Searching for the Divine Feminine: Looking for Aspects of "Her" Between the Lines; Bringing Back Goddess Church, Reverend Crystal Cox.

"May The Blessing of God Go Before You

May Her peace and grace abound.

May her spirit live within you.

May her love wrap you ‘round.

May her blessing remain with you always.

May you walk on holy ground.

~Miriam Therese Winter, Life Prayers

I always had a sense that if there was a God, there had to be a Goddess.

Host-Hostess. Steward-Stewardess. Actor-Actress. In my heart I knew there had to be a yin to the yang I grew up knowing as the Divine source of all that is. I just did not have a clue as to how to find Her.

It wasn’t until I was in seminary school that I began to truly see the many feminine faces of God, known as Goddess, as she exists in so many of the world's religions and traditions.

My path included many bumps, questions and doubts along the way. I share my insights with you because I suspect that many people raised in our traditional religious culture may find it hard to believe--and perhaps even sacrilegious to consider--that the male God of the Bible is one of many interpretations of divine presence that exist in the world’s religions.

Fortunately, I was trained by a seminary that encourages free thinking and exploration. Its motto is "Never instead of, always in addition to." In order to embrace all faiths we were taught that God is one source and yet that source manifests in many ways, through many paths, religions and spiritual practices. And that God is represented by a wide-range of deities with different names.

Nevertheless, the fear of acknowledging a feminine face of God grabbed hold of me in the middle of seminary school. I was doing what seminarians are supposed to do... grappling with God. As I studied comparative religion, I was trying to reconcile the belief system I was raised with--God is a man, no two ways about it--with the new belief systems I was learning--The Divine is neither male or female and/or The Divine is indeed both male and female.

One day I was praying to a feminine deity...and I became panic stricken: What if the Male God gets mad at me and cuts me off? What if he’s saying, Oh, switching teams, eh? We’ll see about that...

Many people are even afraid to consider the Divine as feminine in form or nature. Yet I learned on my personal journey that in order to be truly whole, whether we are women or men, we must embrace both the male and feminine aspects of the divine--and we must embrace those aspects of ourselves and of one another.

I discovered that I am among so many women--and men--searching for spirituality that brings both The Father and The Mother to the table. As we desperately seek balance and peace on our planet, and in these times of deeply disturbing and frightening world events, many of us are searching for what’s been missing in modern life.

And I believe one of the most important missing pieces of our lives has been The Sacred Feminine--not instead of, but in addition to, The Sacred Male. In the tradition of all-inclusive spirituality, we refer to the Divine as God, Goddess, All there is.

She is there, in between the lines

When I first began to search for signs of the Mother in the world’s religions, I found a few beautiful examples, including the "she aspect". One was in the gentle spiritual practice known as Taoism, founded by Loa Tzu in the 6th Century B.C.E..

The Taoists explain the origin of all that is as feminine, yet is manifested as both male and female, in what is known as the Yin and the Yang. It is this energy that the Taoist religious text Tao Te Ching attributes to the creation of the cosmos. "Conceived of as having no name, it is the originator of heaven and earth...it is the Mother of all things."

In Kabbalah, the mystical aspect of Judaism, the indwelling aspect of God, also known as Shekinah, is considered to be the feminine aspect of God. Kabbalists also know the soul as "She." Consider this petition to the divine from the tradition of mystical Judaism:

"My soul aches to receive your love. Only by the tenderness of your light can she be healed. Engage my soul that she may taste your ecstasy."

The Judaic scriptures and the Gnostic Christian doctrines also include wisdom as a feminine aspect. She is called, Sophia and considered the personification of wisdom.

The Buddhists confer that Praj-na-para-mita (which means the perfection of wisdom) is feminine. An important Buddhist text, Sariputra, puts it this way: "The perfection of wisdom gives light, O Lord. I pay homage to the perfection of wisdom. She is worthy of homage. She is unstained and the world cannot stain her."

Then of course, there is Grace. In Christian Theology it is the expression of Gods love in his free and unmerited assistance. And, as the New Testament puts it, Grace can only be conferred through Faith. Isn’t it interesting that those are names assigned to women?

That Grace and Faith evoke perhaps the greatest sense of connection to the Divine, yet do so in the name and essence of the feminine. I was excited to see that when you dig around a bit you will find the feminine between the lines of well-established religions. Still, I was searching for a God who looked like me--feminine in nature and in her manifestations...The spiritual mother I longed for.

Hail Mary

Conventional religious belief is obviously dominated by references to and images of a male Divine, whispering ever so softly of feminine energies between the lines. Yet Catholicism has given us our most tangible mainstream connection.

Mary, mother of God’s only begotten son, along with a handful of popular female saints, have been the most highly visible aspect of the feminine in the traditional religion for 2,000 years.

Because of that, The Blessed Virgin cuts across religious boundaries. She is, in many ways, the adopted spiritual mother of all women, and people of many faiths embrace her. She has been solely responsible for keeping the sacred feminine alive for a couple of millennium.

Yet there are many cultures that are rich with mythology, spiritual practices, religious experiences and sacred texts that show us many ways in which The Goddess has been and can be worshipped, remembered and evoked.

It is extraordinary to realize that just over 2000 years ago, less than 40 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, queen Cleopatra of Egypt prayed to the mother Goddess, Isis, who was the favored deity of the Queen’s temples. Cleopatra’s beloved, Julius Caesar, bowed to Isis’ Roman counterpart, the Goddess Venus.

What was considered sacrilegious in their day was not the worship of Goddesses… but Caesar’s worship of Cleopatra, which was so intense that he erected a statue of Cleopatra as Venus, but looking like Isis, in a holy temple to the Roman Goddess. The Romans did not appreciate that interfaith approach to Goddess worship back then.

When the Romans conquered Egypt, they ultimately replaced the antiquities and images of Isis and her infant Horus with images and icons of Mary and the baby Jesus.

Although Mary and Jesus are the most famous mother and child, the image of the mother and the child (or the pregnant, fertile mother) abound as a motif of cultures that worshiped The Great Mother. Joseph Campbell often said that the same essence of the Divine Feminine could be found in the religious mythology and folklore of every culture. Many of the stories are the same, yet the names and specific circumstances change according to cultural tradition.


History of the Goddess

The earliest signs of Goddess worship date as far back as 33,000 years ago. One of the most famous artifacts of the Divine Feminine is The Venus of Willendorf, which is believed to have been carved in stone 20,000 to 30,000 thousand years ago.

And while she looks like a rotund female--pregnant and voluptuous--when you place a replica of her famous statue flat on her back, she takes on the form of the earth--the hills and valleys, mountains and ravines, are all in her body.

And that is how the ancients worshiped The Great Mother--as Mother of the Earth, Mother Earth and Mom Nature. They followed an earth-based religion. The Great Goddess Mother was the earth--alive, growing, pulsating with life.

She was fertility, death and regeneration, as witnessed in the flowers and trees, the moon and the ocean, the cycles of life and nature. She was seen in so many diverse forms--fluid, capable of assuming any role. Much like our own mothers.

She was revered as the great power because women were seen as the great power. It was human women who could conceive, birth, and nurture children from their own bodies. A Miracle. But a miracle akin to the magic of mother earth--who could nurture flowers in the summer, protect them in her womb in the winter, and magically let them grow again in spring.

It is believed by many scholars that it was the eruption of violence as perpetrated by the newer, male dominated cultures that obliterated the peaceful, earth honoring ways of Goddess worship and paved the way for the strong hold of Christianity and eventually the obliteration of the Goddess from religion, religious texts and teachings.

Native American and indigenous shamanic cultures

The shamanic religion--50,000 years old and still going strong, and considered the oldest of all religions--also reveres the mother, along with the father. She is the earth, the Great Mother. Some cultures call her Patchamama or Corn Woman.

She is the nurturer who feeds us from her own body and sustains all of life. In Native American cultures she is represented by the turtle--a hard shell with a soft inside. A popular Lakota chant sums it up well: "The earth is our mother... we must take care of her."

Who is the Goddess?

Like most people who are unfamiliar with the concept and rich spirituality of including The Goddess, the first time I began to explore the aspect of Feminine Divine called Goddess I was afraid that it meant I had to worship only a SHE and practice a spirituality that excluded men. Wrong.

Almost three decades ago, Merlin Stone wrote a groundbreaking book called When God Was A Woman, tracing cultures that worshipped "The Goddess" or "Goddesses".

She described Goddess this way: She is the "divine feminine principle" or the "sacred feminine principle in the universe."

In this millennium we are seeing a resurgence of the Divine Feminine and an observance of the feminine as sacred. We are seeing her in history, art, folklore, religion, spirituality, archeology, media, and mythology.

Many scholars and clergy agree that we need Her help to midwife this new point in history... Because she brings to our world--and our lives--those qualities that, as discussed, even some traditional religions and most mystical religions assign as feminine qualities: Wisdom and the expression of the Soul. When we tap into wisdom and follow the call of our souls we can then forgive, be tolerant, appreciate everyone’s individual evolution, and love without conditions. The energy of the Divine Feminine also balances the energy of the male; without it, the qualities traditionally associated with male energy--which include warring and aggression--will get completely out of hand.

Rich spiritual traditions and religious mythology can help in everyday life

The natural progression of my search for the Divine Feminine is to write a book that puts together all that I have learned about the Goddess and how she can help us in our daily lives.

In researching my book, A Goddess Is A Girl’s Best Friend (Perigee, Fall 2002), I found thousands of ways the Divine Feminine is personified in different cultures.

The rich mythology of the Feminine Divine has reemerged to offer role models--and guidance--to modern men and women. She comes to us as The Mother, and also the Maiden and The Wise Woman. She is also Sister, Daughter, Best Friend. For example:

The Greek Goddess Aphrodite, also known as the Roman Goddess, Venus, is Goddess of Love and Infatuation. She has completely insinuated herself in our culture, helping us to evoke the love within us all and encouraging us to experience high romance.

The Egyptian Goddess Isis is one of the most revered Goddesses, worshipped as Queen of Heaven in the ancient Egyptian religions. A healing and resurrection Goddess who was also considered a physician, she brought her beloved Osiris back to life from the dead and bore his child Horus, who went on to be the chosen son to represent the father, on earth.

She lives on through her image and energy in reliefs on ancient temples and tomb walls. She shows us we can heal, survive our grief, and live fruitful lives.
Goddess Isis

The Chinese Goddess Kuan Yin is a beautiful Bodhisattva who has captured the heart of Buddhist worshipers and beyond, just as Mary has captured the heart of so many in her religion of origin and around the world. She comes to tell us to be merciful and compassionate--especially to be our own merciful mothers.

Lakshmi is the Hindu Goddess of Good Fortune who brings abundance and beauty into our lives, pouring her gifts upon us. She, like Aphrodite, was born of the milky waters of the sea. She is symbolized as beautiful woman with four arms, one pouring coins into the ocean from whence she came. She is still worshipped daily in Hindu temples and homes, as are all Goddesses in that tradition. Read More About Lakshmi in Rev. Laurie Sue's Monthly Column at SoulfulLiving.com.

All that is Divine is both Female and Male

The Hindus teach us that the Divine essence of all that is is the creative summary of both male and female principle. And so do the Taoists, who show us the feminine and the masculine principle that feed one another and make up the whole in the symbol of Yin/Yang.

The circle of black and white halves show two opposite energies, from whose interactions and fluctuation, the universe and its diverse forms emerge. Tibetan Buddhist do the same with their most sacred objects, dorje and bell. The bell represents the feminine and the dorje is the male principal. No worship service is ever conducted without use of each, together, one held in each hand.

In these systems of belief.... You can’t have one without the other. You can’t have day without the night. You can’t have man without woman, or masculine without feminine. In very, very simple form, you can forget about toast for the rest of your life... you can’t plug in a toaster without both the male plug and the female outlet.

When we really understand that the Divine nature of all that is contains both the masculine and the feminine principles, it begins to make sense that men and women each contain those Divine principle; that the energy of the Goddess exists within all of us; and that one energy might at some times be more prominent than the other.

For example, any man or woman in a traffic jam may choose to evoke their male energy by vocalizing dissatisfaction with the traffic or even trying by driving aggressively. On the other end of the spectrum, both the man and the woman who share a moment of gentle nurturing and loving are operating from a more receptive and gentle feminine energy.

We are all children of God, Goddess, All There Is. When we acknowledge that we are all Divine, as well as complex beings that are both feminine and masculine in nature, we can begin to access true balance in our lives. It is in acknowledging that these qualities exist in all of us that we begin to find balance in our relationship to ourselves, our relationships to one another, and in our relationship to the world we live in.

I Believe The Goddess Is Re-emerging Just In Time…

The Goddess is re-emerging to show us another side of ourselves. Or at least to help us consider God is both masculine and feminine in nature, and therefore, that we all possess The Divine Within. She’s come just in time. Here’s why:

Women feel left out of traditional religion. 

It’s not just about becoming a clergy person or having power, it’s about being able to recognize our own divinity. Men have been able to recognize their divinity through worship of a male divine. It’s time that women access The Goddess Within but first… we need role models.

Men are shut off from their feminine energy and, quite frankly, their softness in many cases, and there is so little in religious environments in our culture--and most of the world’s cultures--that nurtures that side of males. Because of this, men are suffering, and our world is suffering, because we still do not completely support the idea of men being sensitive, loving, gentle, forgiving, healing, even mushy. This is so odd, because that was exactly what the ministry of Jesus Christ was about. Jesus was, in so many ways, the embodiment of both the male and female principle.

Of Mary Magdalene, it has been said, "he could not see her in tears without himself weeping." He spent every waking moment of his ministry embracing people in his love and continues to do so. I mean, who would dare call Christ a wimp? Yet, we often label men who are in touch with that part of themselves by that name.

Because of the ingrained idea of a male divinity, our relationship lives are utterly confusing. Love means war when instead of accessing all the qualities of the male and feminine in ourselves, we seek partners to make us whole. We have to learn to come into relationships whole and we can only do that when we embrace all aspects of the Divine.

We’ve got kids to raise and it’s time we teach them that all of who they are is okay; that their sex doesn’t have to assign them to specific gender roles; that we are all made up of the male and female principle, the yin-yang. If we raise our boys to know the divine only in male terms than we deny them access to a part of themselves, and if we teach our girls that the Feminine Divine only exists in fairy tales, they will grow up as Barbie Dolls instead of as Goddesses.

We live in a world that is spinning out of control. This became so painfully evident in the September 11, 2001 attack on our nation, which brought forth a darkness that shocked and pained us all. But even before that, we were at war with one another and within ourselves, and our world reeled with imbalances: violence in our schools, people starving to death on a planet that has plenty of food to feed everyone, one natural catastrophe after another. Mom Nature has been trying to get our attention. God, Goddess, All There Is has been whispering in our ear… We must take stock of our world and ourselves. We must change, now.

New York author Rick Carrier told me that his book, The Mother of God, is about a female deity who walks the earth to come and tell us: CLEAN UP YOUR ROOM. It is time to clean up our planet, our personal lives, our pain, our wounding of one another and our earth, our relationships, our bad habits, our unconsciousness.

The Feminine Divine lives to love and protect all her children. She’s there for us, always. But she’s screaming out for our attention: "Listen to your mother," she calls, "I know what’s best for you!"

Source
http://www.soulfulliving.com/divinefeminine.htm


Bringing Back Goddess Church
Pastor; Priestess; Reverend Crystal Cox
Port Townsend Washington

ReverendCrystalCox@Gmail.com