St. Wonder Woman

"Compare and contrast for a moment the freeing, empowering influence of Wonder Woman with what women have historically received from the Virgin Mary. Mary's power was never direct, it was always secondary--like girls, it was said, were supposed to be. The Virgin Mary's power was that of intercession, a kind of "divine pillow talk." She was so pure and so gentle that she was thought to be able to move with her requests the father God or the judging Son Jesus, both of whom had the real power.

[...] Is this a feminine role model that today's young women will or should follow? Hardly. Yes, Mary was a woman, but she was both de-sexed and dehumanized by a condescending and patriarchal hierarchy before she was finally said to have been lifted into God. The clear message of Mary was that both the body and the sexuality of a woman were evil. The ideal woman was not a flesh-and-blood woman—no, she was portrayed as sweet, passive, docile, compliant, obedient, virginal, and unreal, hardly the qualities that would empower young women to break out of their stereotypical expectations.

[...] Today, one cannot help but note that in the nations of the Western world that most honor the Virgin Mary, the status of woman remains low. She has not been an asset in the quest for the emancipation of women. If I were holding before my daughters or my granddaughters a model for their lives, and my choices were the Virgin Mary or Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman would win hands down.

If the goal of organized religion is to call people to the fullness of their humanity, as I believe it is, then perhaps church leaders ought to look at those they hold up as role models. Both Wonder Woman and the Virgin Mary are mythological figures. The church does not like to admit that, but it is true. Neither woman, as we have come to know them, ever lived in history. Only one of them pretends to be historical, the other freely admits she is not.

But Wonder Woman has done more to break the culturally imposed boundaries on women than the Virgin Mary ever did. Wonder Woman has shaped, freed, and transformed more women’s limits than the Virgin Mary has done in 2000 years. If it were possible to do so, I would nominate her for sainthood."

– ECUSA Bishop +John Shelby Spong

I can see why Spong drives Pistic, Nicene literalists crazy. They keep dragging him up on heresy charges, and he keeps beaming his heart and intellect at them until they go away. How Gnostic is that? If not for the vocal minority of rampant gay-bashers and Sunday School literalists, I'd consider ECUSA the largest Gnostic Christian Church in the world.

There's an interesting response to his article here

"Offering her virginity to bear the God-man hardly was a passive, joyless exercise for Mary - even if one believes the event to be mythical rather than historical. Opening the door to salvation, despite personal risk and dishonor, despite the ire of a fiancé who had the power to stone her, seems incredibly brave. Letting a child walk the path marked out for him and watching him die as a criminal, while standing at the Cross, sounds courageous. Uttering a resounding "Let it be" so that the Creator might enter the world indicates power. Surrendering one's soul and body, one's will, so that the divine nature that lived in Jesus Christ might live in all human beings, sounds, well, heroic. Wonder Woman fought political battles, but the Mother of God fought in the battleground of the human heart. She serves as an example not just to women, but to all human beings."

– Deborah Belonick