God isn't Impressed with the Patriarchy

God is not attached to the toxic masculine style of spirituality that has dominated the church for centuries. The Divine is not impressed with the oppressive patriarchy, and things need to change.

2 1/2 years ago I was at my wits end with the Christian church. 

I grew up in a loving albeit strict Protestant Christian household and had gone through phases of extreme religious devotion to the God throughout my adolescence. I was involved in youth groups, Bible studies, church camps, and even outreach programs. I was baptized in elementary school and I genuinely believed the Bible--still do.

But something was wrong, and it became more and more apparent around age 18. I was repressed. I had become the kind of girl who "only got along with guys" in order to find self-worth in this man's world. I was becoming depressed; I self-harmed. I had tunnel vision about how to be successful in the future: Finish college, temporarily have a reasonable career, get married, and have babies by age 25.

And then--thank God--I met my husband. It feels cheap to attribute the turning point of my own spiritual / divine feminine path to encountering a man, but hey, meeting this guy was a light bulb moment! He was nothing like anyone that I grew up with. He didn't censor me. He didn't try to change me or hedge me in to some predetermined structure or belief system. Most importantly, he gave me the space to actually find myself and live out my own story. After being with him for some time, I got used to that luscious space. With him, I felt free to be the mystical, whimsical, intuitive, ritual-loving, nature babe that I thought I had grown out of as I entered "adulthood." Thus began the journey of rediscovering my own soul.

Unfortunately, this inner change made my relationship with my family and the church very strained. Attending Sunday services suddenly felt like rolling up to a personal scolding. I felt judged, shushed, and challenged by the pastor's harsh and often condescending words. I felt like I was growing as a person!--becoming healthier emotionally and even becoming a better person--and yet, everything new that I did or said resulted in fearful side-eyes and head shaking.

And so, 2 1/2 years ago I was ready to leave the church for good. The only thing that stopped me from fully running away from the faith of my youth was that I genuinely did believe. I believed in Creator God and I believed in the Gospel, so I did the unthinkable: I informed my parents that I would no longer be attending church with them. I was striking out on my own and church hopping all over the place--my last stop before getting off the Christian train.

Half a dozen churches and quite a bit of personal growth later and I realized something that forever changed my relationship to religion: The church, the pastor, and Protestant doctrines are not responsible for my relationship to the Divine. 

Just as God is vastly more mysterious and expansive than the human mind can grasp, our spirituality cannot and should not be constrained by any singular man-made system or sect of belief. 

We are allowed to question and doubt. We are allowed to seek God in ways all our own. And most of all, we are allowed to honor the divine power of our own souls without being pushed away from the Heavenly Father by man made traditions. 

With the freedom of that realization, I could finally enjoy attending church services again. Suddenly it all seemed so simple, which forced me to ask myself: Why hadn't I been able to live in that freedom of spiritual expression and personalize my walk with the Divine before?

As it turns out, the problem I was facing had nothing to do with Christianity's core beliefs. Instead, somewhere in my youth, I bought into the specific type of faith that the white patriarchy has produced: a hyper masculine, linear, black and white style of spirituality. 

Toxic masculinity has permeated the secular culture and we have to realize that toxic masculine spirituality is in our churches, too.

This style of spirituality plays games with semantics, assumes and then judges the motives of others, leaves no room for interpretation, and disregards the wisdom of women.

This is clear throughout history. Female healers were burned as witches--often after tortured-induced 'confessions' or being drowned in order to prove their innocence. This horrendous shift in the attitude toward the medicine woman effectively silenced female intuitive wisdom and cast a shadow over all things natural and spiritual since the early 1500's. What's more, this craze of eradicating all medicine women and earth workers as 'witches' (many of whom had no dalliance with the dark arts) resulted in a total loss of feminine style spirituality in the modern church.

Feminine spirituality is much more subjective than her masculine counterpart. There is an acceptance of grey area, and understanding that we do not and cannot know everything, and therefore a level of myth and folklore and wandering is accepted with grace. Feminine spirituality is emotional and individualized, holding intuition and communication with the Divine in highest esteem. It revels in the creations of God, realizing that humans are the stewards of this earth. It is soft and receptive, but it also has thorns.

It breaks my heart to say that this feminine style of spirituality is almost totally lacking from the white Protestant church, my friends. Maybe this trend has run rampant in all Christian churches, but I can only speak from my own personal experience and report what I've witnessed. I've seen female worship leaders banned from praying out loud in front of the congregation. I've had friends turned away from Men-Only Sunday School classes on fascinating theological topics and forced to attend women's groups about less heady topics instead, regardless of their desire to learn more. And I have seen countless young women abandon a caring and respectful Christian lover because she is slightly 'more spiritual' than him, and yet the church has forced her to believe that her husband *must lead her* spiritually.

There are a million and one things to unpack here, but my main point in this post is that the eradication of feminine spirituality from the church has left us with some major problems. Masculine and feminine energies are a pair! The Bible tells us that both men and women are created in the image of God, and regardless of biological gender we all have a blending of feminine and masculine energies within us. One is not greater than the other, and without the feminine side, white Western ideas of spiritually have become wildly out of balance. By pushing women out of spiritual leadership in any form and confining us to *only* child rearing and hospitality, the church is missing out on some profound aspects of faith.

It took me years and almost abandoning my faith to realize this, but when I did, I ran straight back to church. Why? Because the guys need us, ladies! Not the subdued version of women, but the true medicine woman--the true spiritualist--the woman of deep faith--the seer, the dreamer, the prophetess--they need all of us! We need the Miriam singing and dancing and leading the spirits of the church. We need the Mary, avidly learning theology and longing to spend time in the presence of the Divine. We need the Deborah sitting in a leadership position. We need the woman of ritual and emotion, pouring oils of anointment. We need the Lydia, hosting groups in her home. We need us all.

To all my women out there, the toxicity of the patriarchy has told you that you can choose 'witchcraft' or 'Christianity', and nothing in between. Look inside your own heart and realize that that kind of black and white labeling is not natural. You don't need to run from God in order to embrace your own unique voice. You don't need to shun your feminine side to be a person of faith. You don't need to disconnect from God's creation in order to look to the heavens. 

There's a balance to be struck here, and until spiritual women reclaim their power, the patriarchy will continue to be a thorn in the Church's side. 

And to all the woman warriors who have been blazing this trail: Thank you so much for speaking out. Your bravery inspires others. Keep fighting the good fight to end female suppression in the church; I'm with you!