Carol P. Christ, PhD, a foremost figure in women’s spirituality and Goddess religion, passed away five days ago (14 July 2021). She was born in 1945.((Most people said her surname as “Krist.” Not to be confused with Carol T. Christ, former president of Smith College and chancellor of the University of California-Berkeley.))
Via HecateDemeter, here is an obituary for her from The Girl God blog.
Christ’s first book, about women writers on spiritual quest, is a book of spiritual feminist literary criticism that focused on feminist authors Kate Chopin, Margaret Atwood, Doris Lessing, Adriene Rich, and Ntozake Shange. She discovers four key aspects to women’s spiritual quest: the experience of nothingness; awakening (to the powers that are greater than oneself, often found in nature); insight (into the meaning of one’s life); and a new naming (in one’s own terms). She emphasizes the importance of telling women’s stories in order to move beyond the stories told about women by the male-centered patriarchy. Her concluding chapter speaks of a “Culture of Wholeness,” that encompasses women’s quest for wholeness, and she adds that, for this wholeness to be realized, the personal spiritual quest needs to be combined with the quest for social justice.
She published an influential list of books (see link above) and was also known for leading group pilgrimages to Goddess sites in the Mediterranean region. There are also links to other tributes to her.
So sorry to hear that Dr. Christ died. She truly left a beautiful and powerful legacy.
When I began reading Goddess Studies books, especially those written by Z. Budapest, I would often see Dr. Christ’s name. I certainly saw her name more than once in other Goddess books around the same time period.
Although she wrote for women-born-women, I still benefitted from her writings.
May the Great Goddess bring her Wholeness and Healing, and to those who were part of her tribe, too.