This is class 3 of 6.  All are welcome.

Cakes for the Queen of Heaven II is a woman honoring adult RE curriculum by Rev. Shirley Ranck open to all genders. It is a 6-week series that reclaims the stories of powerful women in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. Please plan to join your facilitators; Karen Christiansen, Chris Jarman, and Rev. Liz Teal for 6 lovely evenings of discussion and self-exploration.

A threshold is a point of transition between two places, spaces or points in time. “On the Threshold” explores several threshold stories. Did the matriarchs of Genesis – Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel – live on a threshold? As priestesses of an old Mesopotamian religion, did they struggle to maintain customs of matrilineal descent and powerful female  influence at a time when newer patriarchal ways were taking over?
Did Mary Magdalene occupy a similar threshold in the very early days of Christianity? The Gnostic Christians  believed she was not only an Apostle, but a leader among the Apostles; yet their writings have been excluded from  the New Testament.
The woman who came to be known as St. Brigit was the daughter of a pagan chieftain. She too, lived on an historic  threshold between the old Celtic religion and the new Christian religion which was taking over the land.

These ancient women lived on thresholds between an earlier social order which accorded women power and respect, and a newer patriarchal social order. Over time, women lost power and respect again and again, until the divine spirit could no longer be personified as female. Today, do we too stand upon a threshold between an earlier social order and a new world view? “On the Threshold” reclaims stories from the past and celebrates the new world-view and thealogy that is emerging today.