UPDATE July 2023: I originally posted this review in 2021. Now it seems especially timely as a renewed debate rages over the role women should play in the Church. After Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders meeting in New Orleans in mid-June 2023 voted to amend their constitution to disallow women from serving as a pastor of any kind, hundreds of Baptist churches have either been thrown out of the SBC or have voluntarily left in protest. If you wish to be informed about the Feminist side of the argument, this book is a good source.
Subtitle: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel, & the Christianity We Haven’t Tried Yet
Author: Meggan Watterson
Published 2019
4 stars

The author, Meggan Watterson, is a feminist theologian with a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University. She has authored or co-authored several other books, so she knows how to research and interpret historical documents of theological importance.
This is a remarkable and thought-provoking book—some will say controversial or even heretical—about the Gospel of Mary, attributed to Mary of Magdala, who traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and its aftermath. All four gospels identify her (either alone or as a member of a larger group of women which includes Jesus’s mother) as the first to witness the empty tomb, and the first to witness Jesus’s resurrection.
In the fourth century, Mary’s teachings were ordered to be destroyed by powerful men in the early church who wanted to control believers’ access to God and salvation. In 591, Mary Magdalene’s reputation was further ruined when Pope Gregory I conflated her identity as Mary of Bethany and the “sinful woman” who anointed Jesus’s feet (In the Gospel of Luke), cementing the idea that she was a repentant prostitute. Even the disciple Peter, as recorded in the Gospel of Mary, felt threatened by Mary Magdalene’s relationship with Christ. He doubted that Christ would have taught her anything he didn’t teach his other disciples. Though the church issued a reversal of her standing, her disrepute lingers today.
Thankfully, some copies of the Gospel of Mary were illegally hidden by a group of ancient Egyptian Christians called Copts. Many fragments are still missing, but the existing fragments—as well as references to them in other ancient manuscripts—have been turning up since 1896 and well into the 20th century.
This is the only gospel (to date) written in a woman’s name. It is among the ancient writings—and several others are mentioned—that restores Mary Magdalene to her rightful place as a spiritual teacher and disciple in the early church. It is a radical message of love—love that belongs to each of us and is inside each of us. She teaches that we are not sinful and should not feel unworthy or ashamed of being human. We are, in fact, both human and divine, and our spiritual goal on our journey on this earth is to recognize and integrate these parts of ourselves. She teaches us to access this love within us through meditation. In so doing, we can tap into a love that connects everyone and everything in a transformative love.
I have two primary quibbles with this book. In the author’s attempt to reveal her own humanity, she crosses (in my opinion) the “too much information” line in sharing her private life and issues. It wasn’t all needed to make her points. The second error, I believe, is one made by many other ardent feminists who, through well-intentioned efforts to right centuries of undisputed (by me) gender inequities, lean so far in the other direction that it can be off-putting.
But overall, the teaching she finds and interprets from this ancient manuscript is thrilling and liberating…surprisingly contemporary with today’s fight for justice on so many fronts. Here are a few excerpts:
“There is no hierarchy in the spiritual world.”
“We’re all connected…we unify ourselves with love.”
“So being human is a privilege and a purpose itself. To be the bridge between the created world and the creating world. To be the voice of love for the voiceless.”
The Gospel of Mary suggests that Christ wanted us to focus on becoming like him more than worshipping him. It maintains that Jesus always wanted us to worship God. The author believes that through the centuries, the love preached by Christ, and continued to be taught by Mary, has been obscured by fear: fear of judgment, of abandonment, of being left out, and of not being saved. Mary’s gospel and other more recently discovered sacred texts focus on the internal transformation that Christ went through and that we can all go through. The Gospel of Mary, Watterson maintains, espouses a doctrine of wisdom (sophiology) rather than of salvation (soteriology).
Whatever your take on the author’s interpretations, the book reflects fascinating thought and scholarship. I found it fascinating, thought-provoking, and enriching.
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I really enjoyed your review and your own comments on how this author leans so far into the feminine she may put off some readers. But, that being said, the information she gives seems to be very important in placing the context of Jesus’ message and how it was heard by a very faithful disciple, Mary.
Thank you so much for reading my review and leaving such a thoughtful comment, Pamela! Even if there are flaws, I think this author’s work in exploring the Divine Feminine is important. Too many people get hung up in terminology, and that certainly goes for all the monikers given to the Holy Spirit. I believe Spirit shows up and manifests in so many different ways, and that the Spirit indwelling in each of us imparts a bit of sacred divinity. That idea takes nothing away from either God or Jesus.