Every ‘ism’ identifies a certain group of people as ‘the other’, and holds them of lesser value, restricting their freedoms and the goals they can aspire to, and leaving them open for exploitation and, in some cases, annihilation.

In the Goddess religions, we see the divine as immanent in every human being. Each of us has an inherent worth that cannot be quantified, denied, or compared to the worth of another. If we restrict one portion of the human race from full participation in society, we limit our collective intelligence and potential.

In her book "Women, Race and Class," Angela Davis outlined how sexism and racism support each other. The myth of the pure, virginal white woman menaced by dark, sex-crazed former slaves justified both violence against black men and control of white women. Women of the dominant race were reconciled to their subservient role by fear of rape and sexual violence, and by their superiority status compared to blacks. Men of the oppressed races could slave their battered egos with their superiority to women. Women of color, victims of a double discrimination, were called upon to exert immense strength and courage just to survive and attempt to nurture their families.

When spirit is split from nature, when God is removed from the world, then this world and all that we associate with it become devalued: the body; those who bring life into the world; the earth that sustains life; and darkness, the color of soil and the womb. Spirit, light, pure mind, intellect, maleness and detachment from the body are seen as closer to God. Within that split universe, we denigrate women, people of color, and those who work with the earth, who till the soil, clean up the messes, rear the children and do the physical maintenance of life.

I can’t speak for other traditions, but for me, one challenge of Goddess spirituality is to put the sacred back into the world, to heal the split and to speak for the deep value of each one of us and of the natural world that sustains life. In so doing, we are also called to work against sexism, racism, and all the other forms of discrimination, to honor the spark of the holy in each human being, and to make a world where we can each most fully embody the divine possibilities of our being.