Chaplain Nancy Victorin-Vangerud has been inviting progressive Christian speakers to participate in the Mahle Lecture Series at Hamline for 11 years. The topic this year was a book written by two feminist theologians, Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, whose aim is to reframe God outside of male language and more broadly reframe religion outside of male experience.

“We may not have been in certain institutional positions, we may not have been educated to read, to write,” Victorin-Vangerud said. “But, we (women) have been creative leaders in our own right in religious traditions.”

This year’s Mahle Lectures, named after Hamline trustees Kathi and Steve Mahle, were celebrating the 25th anniversary of Re-Imagining, the controversial feminist theologian conference of 1993.

“Part of this work, of Re-Imagining, is doing the archaeology of your tradition,” Victorin-Vangerud said.

The book Plaskow and Christ wrote together is titled “Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.” Christ, a Professor of Theology and Director of the Ariadne Institute, and Plaskow, also a Professor of Theology and Reform Jewish feminist, met at Yale Divinity School in the late ‘60s. The pair has previously collaborated on two books, exploring women and religion.

At Christ’s talk, “Sophia, Goddess and Feminist Spirituality: Imagining a Future,” she spoke about rituals in women’s worship.

“I’ve found that the best rituals connect community to a place,” Christ said. “All of our [Ariadne Institute] rituals occur outdoors and are inspired by the ancient history of Crete.”

Christ takes two groups of women on ‘Goddess Pilgrimages’ to the Greek island of Crete every year to practice rituals she created to honor a forgotten tradition of Goddess as a being who protects women, peace, harmony and nature.

“The feminist movement placed a question mark over all patriarchal texts and traditions,” Christ said,  “secular and religious, and as such is beholden to none of them.”

Plaskow’s lecture, “Jewish Feminism in a Post-Feminist Age,” took place at Mt. Zion Temple on Nov. 2. She spoke after the Friday Shabbat service, which was filled with people from all faiths in solidarity with the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

“One of the greatest accomplishments of Jewish feminism has been the wonderful flowering of feminist scholarship and engagement with Jewish texts,” Plaskow said.

She encouraged the Jewish community to embrace and examine the ugly and violent parts of the Torah, which she calls “texts of terror,” and to have critical conversations about family violence, sexual violence and LGBTQIA+ rights as they come up in weekly Torah readings.

Both women talked about the limitations of a male God.

“I could say that the movement to gender neutral pronouns… represents a contraction of language,” said Plaskow. “I think it represents a certain failure of imagination. It’s as if the denominational leaders said ‘Okay, male language is a problem, so let’s get rid of it while changing as little as possible.’”

Plaskow argued that the more imaginative images of God would create more inclusion in churches and synagogues.

“We need female images, gender neutral images, images of intimacy, natural images, images that make real God’s presence throughout creation.”

The weekend concluded with a session in the Anderson Center on Saturday, Nov. 3 with conversations, songs and dancing, with both Plaskow and Christ.