On my reading list for today is Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973/1985). I know, I know, I should have read it years ago. But that’s not the point.

While reading Daly, I remembered that Theodore Parker wrote some prayers that referred to God as both Mother and Father. Now where did I see those prayers? — I couldn’t remember, so I tried searching the Web. And I found a complete edition of the 1862 printing of Parker’s prayers online at this University of Michigan site.

This is a University of Michigan Web project of publishing American literature online. Pages are viewable as graphic images of the actual pages from a book, or as html text. Many of Parker’s other books are also available through this same Web site, along with many other 19th C. books that might be of interest to religious liberals today.

Alas, Parker’s prayers were not nearly as progressive as I had remembered. He made a good start, but he didn’t completely break away from patriarchal imagery (see e.g. pp. 59-60). Nonetheless, I thought you might want to know about this incredible online resource.