About
It began as a question: why does God always seem to be imagined as male?
That led to another question: why not imagine God as female?
M. Kate Allen, a Roman Catholic Christian by upbringing, was deeply religious growing up. As she reached her late twenties and early thirties, she yearned for the divine feminine, and she wondered why it was so absent from her religious tradition.
Her ears first opened to the possibility of Goddess when she heard Bobby McFerrin's "23rd Psalm": "The Lord is my shepherd, I have all I need. She makes me lie down in green meadows...." McFerrin's psalm ends with a revised Trinitarian doxology: "Glory be to our Mother, and Daughter, and to the Holy of Holies...."
A friend of Kate's introduced her to Starhawk's The Spiral Dance. In it she read about Wicca, a religious tradition dedicated to the worship of Goddess. Kate also discovered a children's book published by Liturgical Press called Heart Talks with Mother God, in which the God of Christianity was imagined in numerous ways as a feminine figure. Kate, while still holding to her Christian identity, adopted "Thea," the Greek word for "Goddess," as her name for God, and began writing prayers of her own to Thea.
In May of 2015, Kate began to imagine a place where people from various faith traditions could go to explore and share experiences of the divine feminine. Thus Thea Koinonia was born.
Thea, as mentioned above, is the Greek word for Goddess. Koinonia is a Greek word that is too rich for simple English translation: it can mean fellowship, active partnership, and communion.
Thea Koinonia is meant to be safe harbor for those of any faith tradition wanting to imagine or reimagine the divine as feminine. It is a place for sharing and discovering earnest prayers, honest questions, and new ideas. Welcome.
That led to another question: why not imagine God as female?
M. Kate Allen, a Roman Catholic Christian by upbringing, was deeply religious growing up. As she reached her late twenties and early thirties, she yearned for the divine feminine, and she wondered why it was so absent from her religious tradition.
Her ears first opened to the possibility of Goddess when she heard Bobby McFerrin's "23rd Psalm": "The Lord is my shepherd, I have all I need. She makes me lie down in green meadows...." McFerrin's psalm ends with a revised Trinitarian doxology: "Glory be to our Mother, and Daughter, and to the Holy of Holies...."
A friend of Kate's introduced her to Starhawk's The Spiral Dance. In it she read about Wicca, a religious tradition dedicated to the worship of Goddess. Kate also discovered a children's book published by Liturgical Press called Heart Talks with Mother God, in which the God of Christianity was imagined in numerous ways as a feminine figure. Kate, while still holding to her Christian identity, adopted "Thea," the Greek word for "Goddess," as her name for God, and began writing prayers of her own to Thea.
In May of 2015, Kate began to imagine a place where people from various faith traditions could go to explore and share experiences of the divine feminine. Thus Thea Koinonia was born.
Thea, as mentioned above, is the Greek word for Goddess. Koinonia is a Greek word that is too rich for simple English translation: it can mean fellowship, active partnership, and communion.
Thea Koinonia is meant to be safe harbor for those of any faith tradition wanting to imagine or reimagine the divine as feminine. It is a place for sharing and discovering earnest prayers, honest questions, and new ideas. Welcome.
©2020 Thea Koinonia. All Rights Reserved.