The Sacred She: How the Church Silenced the Divine Feminine

There is a quiet, growing unrest—an ancestral memory stirring in the bones of women and allies who remember. Not through textbooks or sermons, but through intuition, body wisdom, and the stories whispered between generations. There was a time when the divine was not only masculine. It was feminine too—wild, cyclical, life-giving, and deeply sacred. Perhaps even beyond gender altogether. She was not a threat. She was the whole.

But something changed. She was rewritten.

In this article, we explore the systematic erasure and demonization of the Sacred Feminine within institutionalized, monotheistic religion—particularly as it evolved under Christian doctrine. This is not a condemnation of personal Christian belief, nor of faith itself. Many Christian values, such as compassion, justice, and love, resonate across spiritual traditions and deserve respect. Rather, this is a critique of the patriarchal structures and dogmas that shaped religious institutions—often at the cost of silencing, subordinating, or demonizing the feminine divine. Let’s take a closer look at how powerful goddesses were turned into imprisoned saints or rebranded as demons—and what that means for reclaiming the sacred feminine today.

From Worshipped to Wicked

Long before “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” dominated the spiritual narrative, the divine was often female, wild, and mysterious. From Inanna and Isis to Brigid and Artemis, goddesses ruled over birth, sexuality, wisdom, and the natural world. But as Christianity spread—especially under the Roman Empire—it did so not through peaceful persuasion, but through assimilation and annihilation.

The Church absorbed female deities where it could—but stripped them of power—and slandered the rest. The Sacred Feminine had to either be sterilized and subdued (hello, Virgin Mary) or branded as dangerous (Eve, Lilith, and every so-called witch at the stake).

The Misogynistic Restructuring of Spirituality

Let’s not sugarcoat it: Christian theology has long had a problem with women.The foundational myth teaches that a woman (Eve) caused humanity’s fall, and the only path to redemption lies in obedience, virginity, or motherhood—never in power.

Church fathers like Tertullian, Augustine, and Aquinas made it explicit:

• Tertullian called women “the devil’s gateway.”

• Augustine taught that female sexuality was the root of original sin.

• Aquinas claimed that women were just “misbegotten men.”

No wonder women have been excluded from priesthood, kept out of decision-making, and told to look up to a male God, male priests, and a male savior.

Between Faith and Institution: An Omnistic Perspective

With an omnistic worldview, I don’t inherently oppose Christian belief. On the contrary—many of its values, such as love for others or the Ten Commandments, strike me as common-sense morality shared across spiritual paths. I enjoy open-minded conversations with people about their beliefs, and I see beauty in many aspects of Christianity.

But problems arise where spirituality turns into rigid institution. The dogmatic structure of the Christian Church—especially the Roman Catholic Church—has failed to evolve with the times. This failure is starkly visible in how it continues to treat women. To this day, women cannot become priests, cannot be pope, and remain symbolically tied to sin while being denied equal standing in spiritual leadership.

This isn’t a flaw in faith—it’s a flaw in a long-standing institution clinging to patriarchal roots. And that calls for honest, respectful criticism—not to destroy belief, but to reclaim space for justice and growth. Criticizing these institutions doesn’t mean attacking individual believers. It means calling out systems that limit the divine to masculine form and reduce women to passive recipients of grace, rather than co-creators of sacred truth.

From Goddess to Saint (But Not as Equal)

One of the Church’s strategies was clever: transform beloved goddesses into saints. A way to maintain control over the faithful while hollowing out the power of the feminine.

• Brigid, the Irish goddess of fire, poetry, and fertility, became Saint Brigid, a pious nun with miracles—but no magic.

• Isis, Egyptian goddess of magic and motherhood, lent her iconography to the Virgin Mary, now demure and obedient.

• Diana/Artemis, protector of women and wilderness, was labeled a heathen seductress or buried under folklore.

  
  

These figures weren’t elevated. They were domesticated.

Demonizing the Divine Feminine

What couldn’t be turned into a saint was turned into a demon. Goddesses associated with sexuality, sovereignty, or sorcery were rebranded as evil:

• Lilith, once a symbol of autonomy and erotic power, became a baby-killing demon.

• Hekate, guardian of crossroads and spirits, became the queen of witches.

• Asherah, the Canaanite mother goddess once worshipped alongside Yahweh, was erased from scripture—except as an abomination.

  
  

This was no accident. It was a cosmic rebranding campaign that turned female spiritual power into something to be feared and punished.

The Witch as the Last Goddess

During the Inquisition and the witch hunts, women with ancestral knowledge—midwives, herbalists, seers—were targeted. These women were living echoes of the goddess. And the Church knew it. Burning them wasn’t just punishment—it was symbolic. A final effort to sever our connection to feminine divinity.

The Reclaiming

Now, centuries later, the goddess is rising again. Not as a nostalgic figure—but as a living archetype of wholeness. A call to reclaim our intuitive wisdom, cyclical nature, and sacred agency. The Urban Mystic stands at this crossroads—where candle wax meets calendar, where holy rage meets reverent grace. We’re not just remembering the goddess. We’re opening the door to her presence once more. Because we are not inherently sinful. We are not naturally temptresses.We are daughters of the divine—and it’s time we reclaimed our names.

Sources and Further Reading:

• Eller, Cynthia. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory. Beacon Press, 2000.

• Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Gaia & God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing. HarperOne, 1992.

• Christ, Carol P. Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. Routledge, 1997.

• Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman. Harcourt, 1976.

• Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels. Random House, 1979.

• Spretnak, Charlene. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. Beacon Press, 1978.

• Budge, E.A. Wallis. The Gods of the Egyptians. Dover Publications, 1969.

• Genesis 3 (Eve), Isaiah 14 (Lucifer), Deuteronomy 16:21 (Asherah poles).

• Malleus Maleficarum (1487), Heinrich Kramer.