Recognizing that their critique has rendered images of God no longer absolute, feminists have discovered that the religious power structure
is reluctant to admit that patriarchal symbols for God
are culturally influenced (as if God really
were male) or contingent (as if
use of a
feminine symbol to point to a nonrepresentable God
is more inadequate or idolatrous than
use of a male symbol) To read Mary Daly or Naomi Goldenberg, to consider Rosemary Ruether's demasculinizing of the Gospel stories or to ponder the renewed attention to «goddess» theology and the development of a lesbian theology
is to see the basic
language of theological discourse upset and transformed.