Toward a Goddess model of soteriology more

Religions answer people’s questions about death and afterlife, and provide support to overcome tangible problems of life, such as poverty, illness and strife, and to make sense of life amidst them.  Traditional religions thus developed their concept of salvation from the problems of life, the world’s ills, and ultimately the perceived consequences after death.  Christianity developed an entire religion around soteriology, and means to salvation became the central interpretation on Jesus Christ’s mission, life, death and resurrection narratives.  Modern seekers of feminine spirituality often come out from heavily soteriological religions in which sense of guilt is part of their indoctrination process.  In proposing alternatives to those “salvation-based” patriarchal faiths, thealogians have not yet developed a coherent soteriology to adequately respond in a pastoral setting.  The lack of working soteriology in a Goddess faith may be a driving factor in its inability to penetrate classist barriers and keeping the Goddess faith mostly an intellectual exercise and a social experiment by and for the university-educated, white middle-class women; and work toward a Goddess model of soteriology is essential in making feminine spirituality a living tradition shared and accessible by, and meets the needs of, people of all socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.