Editing Thealogy (section)

==As academic discipline==
Situated in relationship to the fields of [[theology]] and [[religious studies]], thealogy is a discourse that critically engages the beliefs, wisdom, practices, questions, and values of the Goddess community, both past and present.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hope|first1=Angela|last2=Morgain|first2=Shan|title=What Is Goddess Thealogy & Deasophy?|work=Institute for Thealogy and Deasophy|access-date=10 December 2012|url=http://thealogy.org/defining.html|quote=Goddess thealogy and deasophy are reflections on both past and contemporary Goddess communities' beliefs, wisdom, embodied practices, questions, and values.|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130508072734/http://www.thealogy.org/defining.html|archive-date=8 May 2013}}</ref> Similar to theology, thealogy grapples with questions of meaning, include reflecting on the nature of the divine,<ref>{{cite book|last=Christ|first=Carol P.|title=She Who Changes: Re-imagining the Divine in the World|year=2003|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=9781403960832 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kfiMP5nS3GEC|access-date=10 December 2012|pages=11–12|quote=The common thread in all of these examples is that feminist spiritual practice raises philosophical questions about the nature of divine power and its relation to our lives.  Feminist theology and thealogy began as radical challenges to traditional ways of thinking about God and the world.}}</ref> the relationship of humanity to the environment,<ref>{{cite book|last=Crist|first=Carol P.|title=Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality|year=2012|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9780415921862|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wYcTok_Xmo8C|access-date=10 December 2012|page=153|quote=Goddess thealogy affirms that we all come from one course while stating that diversity is the great principle of the earth body.... We are both different and related in the web of life.}}</ref> the relationship between the spiritual and sexual self,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Clack|first=Beverly|title=The Denial of Dualism: Thealogical Reflections on the Sexual and the Spiritual|journal=Feminist Theology|date=September 1995|volume=4|issue=10|pages=102–115|doi=10.1177/096673509500001009|s2cid=143348693}}</ref> and the nature of belief.<ref>{{cite book|last=Eller|first=Cynthia|title=Living In The Lap of Goddess: The Feminist Spirituality Movement in America|year=1995|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=9780807065075 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bCCbVtnXUsEC|access-date=10 December 2012|pages=140–141|quote="Believing" in goddess is more a matter of adopting a new term for an old experience to call attention to its sacredness and its femininity.  This is the closest thing one gets to a consensus thealogy in feminist spirituality, but it does not truly do justice to the thealogies that grow up all around it.}}</ref>  However, in contrast to theology, which often focuses on an exclusively logical and empirical discourse, thealogy embraces a postmodern discourse of personal experience and complexity.<ref>{{cite book|last=Raphael|first=Melissa|title=Thealogy and Embodiment: The Post-Patriarchal Reconstruction of Female Sacrality|year=1996|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=9781850757573 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3xWtpfrWbzoC|access-date=10 December 2012|pages=228–229|quote=The postmodern theological/thealogical shift from a God of law presiding over a cosmic machine to a divinity holding creation in a nexus of complex relations has -- like one of its forerunners, process theology -- brought the divine into the very heart of change: the Goddess does not sit and watch the cosmos but is dancing at its very centre.}}</ref>

The term suggests a [[feminist]] approach to [[theism]] and the context of [[Gender of God|God and gender]] within [[Paganism]], [[Neopaganism]], [[Goddess]] Spirituality and various nature-based religions.  However, thealogy can be described as religiously [[Religious pluralism|pluralistic]], as thealogians come from various religious backgrounds that are often hybrid in nature. In addition to Pagans, Neopagans, and Goddess-centred faith traditions, they are also [[Christianity|Christian]], [[Judaism|Jewish]], [[Buddhism|Buddhist]], [[Muslim]], [[Quakers]], etc. or define themselves as Spiritual Feminists.<ref>Raphael, Melissa. "[http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3424503088&v=2.1&u=atla29738&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w Thealogy]". ''Encyclopedia of Religion''. Ed. Lindsay Jones. 2nd ed. Vol. 13. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. pp. 9098–9101. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. "There are those on the gynocentric or woman-centered left of Jewish and Christian feminism who would want to term themselves ''theo/alogians'' because they find the vestiges of the Goddess or 'God-She' within their own traditions as Hochmah, Shekhinah, Sophia, and other 'female faces' of the divine."</ref> As such, the term ''thealogy'' has also been used by feminists within mainstream [[Monotheism|monotheistic]] religions to describe in more detail the feminine aspect of a monotheistic deity or trinity, such as God/dess Herself, or the [[Heavenly Mother (Latter Day Saints)|Heavenly Mother]] of the [[Latter Day Saint movement]].

In 2000, Melissa Raphael wrote the text ''Introducing Thealogy: Discourse on the Goddess'' for the series Introductions in Feminist Theology. Written for an academic audience, it purports to introduce the main elements of thealogy within the context of Goddess feminism. She situates thealogy as a discourse that can be engaged with by Goddess feminists—those who are feminist adherents of the Goddess who may have left their church, synagogue, or mosque—or those who may still belong to their originally established religion.<ref>{{cite book|last=Raphael|first=Melissa|title=Introducing Thealogy: Discourse on The Goddess|year=2000|publisher=Pilgrim Press|location=Cleveland, Ohio|isbn=0829813799|access-date=7 December 2012|page=16|series=Introductions in Feminist Theology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1gbXAAAAMAAJ}}</ref> In the book, Raphael compares and contrasts thealogy with the Goddess movement.<ref>{{cite book|last=Raphael|first=Melissa|title=Introducing Thealogy: Discourse on The Goddess|year=2000|publisher=Pilgrim Press|location=Cleveland, Ohio|isbn=0829813799|access-date=7 December 2012|page=10|series=Introductions in Feminist Theology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1gbXAAAAMAAJ|quote=[T]his book is not an empirical study of the feminist wing of the Goddess movement.  Rather, it is an exposition of a body of thought—thealogy—that derives from Goddess women's experience and from a broader history of emancipatory ideas and which can be defined as feminist reflection on the femaleness of the divine and the divinity of femaleness, and, more generally, spiritual, eithical and political reflection on the meaning(s) of both.}}</ref> In 2007, Paul Reid-Bowen wrote the text "Goddess as Nature: Towards a Philosophical Thealogy", which can be regarded as another systematic approach to thealogy, but which integrates philosophical discourse.<ref>{{cite book|last= Reid-Bowen|first= Paul|title= Goddess as Nature: Towards a Philosophical Thealogy |year= 2007|publisher= Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|location= Aldershot |isbn=9780754656272|pages=200 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0MOmj9WpwI0C}}</ref>

In the past decade, other thealogians like Patricia 'Iolana and D'vorah Grenn have generated discourses that bridge thealogy with other academic disciplines. 'Iolana's [[Carl Jung|Jungian]] thealogy bridges analytical psychology with thealogy, and Grenn's metaformic thealogy is a bridge between matriarchal studies and thealogy.<ref>{{cite web|last=Grenn|first=Deborah J.|title=Connecting With Deity Through a Feminist Metaformic Thealogy|url=http://www.metaformia.org/assets/Articles/Connecting.pdf|work=Metaformia: A Journal of Menstruation and Culture|access-date=10 December 2012|year=n.d.}}</ref>

Contemporary thealogians include [[Carol P. Christ]], Melissa Raphael, Asphodel Long, Beverly Clack, Charlotte Caron, Naomi Goldenberg, Paul Reid-Bowen, Rita Nakashima Brock, and Patricia 'Iolana.