God Had A Wife? When Pastors Trade Scripture For Mysticism And Fables

For years, conservative Christians have watched mainline denominations increasingly reinterpret Scripture through the lenses of modern sexuality, gender ideology, social justice and progressive politics. But another theological shift may be equally concerning, especially because it is beginning to appear in churches that still carry historically evangelical names.

Mysticism, interfaith spirituality, ancient paganism and speculative theories about the Bible are increasingly being blended into what is presented as Christian teaching. Instead of Scripture being the authority by which other spiritual claims are judged, outside philosophies and religious traditions are sometimes being used to reinterpret Scripture itself.

A striking example comes from Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where co-pastor Zach Helton recently presented his congregation with an extraordinary claim: the God of Israel once had a wife named Asherah, and later religious authorities essentially erased her from the biblical story.

Helton reportedly described Asherah as a "female divine presence" worshipped alongside Yahweh and argued that King Josiah's destruction of Asherah poles and pagan shrines was less an act of spiritual reform than an attempt to consolidate religious and political power. He even lamented what Josiah's reforms supposedly meant for young Israelite girls who, in Helton's telling, were being deprived of a feminine divine figure to look up to.

There is one enormous problem with that interpretation: the Bible tells almost exactly the opposite story.

Asherah certainly appears in the Bible, and ancient Israelites unquestionably worshipped her at various points in their history. But nowhere does Scripture identify her as Yahweh's wife or present her worship as a legitimate expression of Israel's faith.

Instead, worship of Asherah is repeatedly described as apostasy.

Judges 3:7 states that the children of Israel "did evil in the sight of the LORD" and "served Baalim and the groves [Asherahs]." Deuteronomy 16:21 specifically prohibits setting up an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord, while First Kings describes hundreds of prophets associated with Asherah being supported by the wicked Queen Jezebel.

Then comes King Josiah.

Second Kings 23 describes Josiah removing vessels made for Baal and Asherah from the Temple, destroying pagan shrines, removing idolatrous priests and tearing down the Asherah itself. Helton may view these actions through the modern categories of political power and gender, but the biblical author makes his own judgment unmistakably clear.

Rather than condemning Josiah, Scripture praises him.

Second Kings 23:25 declares that there was no king like Josiah who "turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might." To transform that biblical hero into a villain therefore requires more than interpreting an ambiguous passage differently; it requires reversing the moral judgment that the biblical text itself explicitly provides.

Here Helton touches on something real but draws a radically different conclusion from historic Christianity.

Archaeologists have uncovered ancient inscriptions that appear to associate Yahweh with "his asherah." Scholars have debated precisely what those inscriptions mean, including whether they refer directly to the goddess Asherah or to a cultic object associated with her.

There is also abundant biblical evidence that Israelites mixed worship of Yahweh with pagan religion. But this is hardly a secret that later biblical writers successfully covered up—the Bible repeatedly and openly records it because Israel's idolatry is one of the central themes of the Old Testament.

Israel worshipped Baal too, but that doesn't make Baal God's brother. Israelites sacrificed to Molech, but that doesn't make Molech another legitimate member of the biblical Godhead.

Likewise, Jeremiah records Israelites worshipping the "queen of heaven," but Scripture presents that practice as rebellion against God rather than evidence of a suppressed goddess tradition. Much of the Old Testament chronicles Israel abandoning the Lord, adopting the gods of surrounding nations, suffering judgment and eventually being called back to covenant faithfulness.

Finding archaeological evidence that Israelites worshipped Asherah therefore does not overturn the biblical account. In an important sense, it reinforces what Scripture has been saying all along: Israel repeatedly fell into syncretism and idolatry.

Helton's theological background makes this sermon particularly revealing. His church biography says he is "deeply shaped by the teachings of Jesus, Buddhist practice, mysticism, and perennial wisdom over any particular religious expression."

That description helps explain why this controversy is bigger than Asherah.

Christianity has historically taught that Scripture tests spiritual claims. Christians can study other religions, examine archaeology, wrestle with difficult passages and learn about ancient cultures, but those sources do not become authorities standing above Scripture.

Increasingly, however, some pastors appear to be reversing that order. Outside spiritual traditions, contemporary cultural assumptions and personal experience become the standards through which Scripture itself is reconstructed.

If Josiah's reforms offend modern sensibilities, Josiah becomes the problem. If biblical monotheism appears too patriarchal, perhaps a goddess was suppressed; and if Christianity's exclusive truth claims seem too narrow, "perennial wisdom" can be imported from other religions to create something more spiritually inclusive.

At some point, however, Christianity stops correcting the culture because the culture has been given authority to correct Christianity.

The New Testament repeatedly warns Christians that churches would eventually prefer novel spiritual ideas over sound doctrine.

Paul told Timothy that a time would come when people "will not endure sound doctrine," but would gather teachers according to their own desires, turning "their ears away from the truth" and toward "fables" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). He similarly warned Christians not to be "carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14).

Those warnings should resonate with Christians today because the greatest danger facing the modern church isn't necessarily atheism standing outside the sanctuary declaring that Christianity is false. Sometimes the greater danger is Christianity gradually being transformed from within—one imported philosophy, one mystical practice and one reconstructed biblical narrative at a time.

Eventually a congregation may still sing hymns, read passages from the Bible and have "Baptist" written across the sign outside while being taught a spirituality that previous generations of Baptists would scarcely recognize.

The Asherah controversy therefore matters for reasons far beyond one Nashville congregation. It represents a much larger question confronting churches across America: when Scripture conflicts with modern spiritual fashion, which one gets corrected?

For historic Christianity, the answer was never supposed to be Scripture.