Carol Patrice Christ is an American educator, feminist historian, theologian, author, and foremother of the Goddess movement. She taught at major universities, including Harvard Divinity School, Claremont Graduate School, and Columbia University. She is Director of Ariadne Institute and the author of the widely reprinted essay Why Women Need the Goddess.
Background
Ethnicity:
Carol has German, Swedish, Irish, Scotch, and English ancestry.
Carol Christ was born on the 20th of December, 1945 in Pasadena, California, United States, the daughter of John Anthony and Janet Claire Bergman Christ.
Education
Carol Christ graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Humanities in 1967 from Stanford University. Then she gained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Religious Studies from Yale University in 1974.
Carol was an assistant professor of religion at Columbia University from 1972 to 1977. From 1977 to 1988 she was a tenured professor of religious studies and women’s studies at San Jose State University in California, United States. Between 1986 and 1987 she was a visiting lecturer and research associate at Harvard Divinity School in Boston. Christ was Stauffacher Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion at Pomona College in 1988, and Rockefeller Distinguished Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies in 1994.
Christ has been an Adjunct Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) since being an appointed a Rockefeller Fellow in 1994, she has taught at major universities in the US including Harvard Divinity School, Claremont Graduate School, and Columbia University. At CIIS she teaches online courses on ecofeminism and feminist and Goddess theologies and spiritualities.
Carol Christ is Director of Ariadne Institute which offers Goddess Pilgrimages to Crete in spring and fall for which CIIS offers academic credit. She has lived in Greece for many years and has run for office with the Green Party Greece. She is a regular contributor to the Feminism and Religion blog, a diverse community of feminist activists and scholars who write from Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Goddess, and other perspectives.
Carol Christ is the author of the widely reprinted essay Why Women Need the Goddess, which argues in favor of the concept of there having been an ancient religion of a supreme goddess. Carol P. Christ also co-edited the classic feminist religion anthologies Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality in 1989 and Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion in 1979. Among her other writings are She Who Changes that was written in 2003, Rebirth of the Goddess in 1998, Odyssey with the Goddess in 1995, Laughter of Aphrodite in 1987, and Diving Deep and Surfacing in 1980.
Christ believes in the ancient religion of the Goddess.
Politics
Christ's political views are described as seeking radical transformation, peace, and justice.
Membership
Christ is a member of American Academy of Religion, she is also on editorial boards of Woman of Power, Feminist Studies, Anima, Metis, Religious Studies Review, and others.
Personality
Carol Christ has been active in civil rights, anti-poverty, anti-war, feminist, and environmental movements all of her adult life. She drafted an official complaint to the European Commission of the European Union about the failure to protect the wetlands of the island of Lesbos where she lives.
Interests
swimming in the grey-blue sea, watching the sun set rose gold into the ocean
Connections
Christ was married to Roger Robinson, but the couple divorced in 1988. She hasn't children.