I’ve been quiet
There are definately times in life when real world conversation takes precedence over online conversation and this has been one of those seasons for me. This post is personal rather than abstract and I’m guessing that this year many of my posts will also be personal rather than theoretical.
I’ve finally settled on a Masters in Theology, or rather the sub-discipline focusing on Christian Spirituality. I’m going to be doing some grounded research into people’s actual experience of Godde today – not what the Bible says or the theory that we talk about but the actual in’s and out’s of what people’s relationship with Godde looks like in practice. The goal is to understand how better to enable small and medium sized gatherings of people to pursue intimacy with Godde together.
So this year I’ll be doing all the background reading I need to, designing and testing the interviews, and then doing interviews with a small group of people. Next year I’ll be submitting all of that as my ‘research proposal’ (Which is the bulk of the work) and producing my thesis.
A couple of us have also been talking through the Divine Feminine Version of the NT, or DFV. You can read up a bit about at the website. At this stage we’re working toward a version of the Gospel of Matthew. The goal is to gather support and criticism for the project to shape it to be the best it can be. I’m looking forward to us ‘getting there’ so that we can go further with it.
Your use of the word “Godde” may already be revealing. Should you come across anyone who spells it “God”, this will undoubtedly be a socialised form of the word, which is likely tied in with “what the Bible says or the theory that we talk about”. How will you ever separate the two?
Hi Thomas,
I know tons of people who spell it “God”.
For me both “Godde” and “God” refer to the same Person, at least in my meaning. They’re just loaded with different emphases – the former gender-inclusive, a conscious embracing the feminine in addition to the masculine, and the latter a usually unconscious preference toward the masculine and masculinity.
In terms of my research I don’t really need to distinguish between these two as the point of departure is the same.
Personally, I would have thought Godde (your description) to be God. Depending, of course, what one means by the terms.
Incidentally, I handed in a Master’s thesis for examination last week. It took me 4½ years. The title: “A Deconstructionist Critique of Christian Transformational Leadership”.
Sounds like an interesting paper. Any chance I could read a copy?
I’ll gadly send you the PDF. It’s not yet the citable version, because there’s always a chance the examiners will request some changes. If you drop me an e-mail at scarboro@iafrica.com, I’ll send you a copy back.