ABSTRACT
This chapter examines new conceptions concerning the nature, substance and location of deity and traces historically how new ideas in these areas are challenging the time-honoured views sponsored by the great religions over the past few millennia. There has first been a strong trend towards de-anthropomorphising deity. Second, God’s gender as specifically or mostly male is being abandoned. And, finally, the idea that God is primarily transcendent is being overturned. Examples from across the spectrum of new religious offerings as well as the changes in these areas within the great traditions are highlighted to illustrate these claims. This discussion is particularly significant because it undergirds the subjects that follow in the next two chapters, which are reimagining human place and purpose and reimagining redemption.
