Elizabeth A. Johnson (born December 6, 1941[1]) is a Christian feminist theologian. She is a Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, a Jesuit institution in New York City. She is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood.
Contents |
Johnson received her B.S. from Brentwood College in 1964, an M.A. from Manhattan College in 1964. and a Ph.D. in theology from Catholic University in 1981.[1] She taught science and religion at the elementary and high school level, then taught theology at St. Joseph's College (New York) and at Catholic University before moving to Fordham in 1991.[1]
In 1990, when the Vatican offered a draft of a new catechism for comment, she criticized the text for its use of Scripture "in a fundamentalist way, with little regard for insights about the New Testament forged in the last half-century of Catholic biblical renewal," quoting the evangelists as if they all held identical views, and ascribing to them concepts only developed after centuries of theological dispute. She praised the text placing Jesus rather than the church at the center of its discussions of worship and ethics, but objected to its "truncated view of the humanity of Jesus Christ" who "walks around like God dressed up in human clothes."[2]
She has served a head of the Catholic Theological Society of America[3] and the American Theological Society. She was one of the first female theologians church authorities allowed to receive a doctorate.[4]
Johnson's best-known work is She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1992), for which she became the fourth recipient of the Grawemeyer Award. It the first extended attempt to integrate feminist categories such as experience and emancipation into classical Catholic theology. Some of her other works have won awards, including the edited volume The Church Women Want, which received the Gender Award from the Catholic Press Association. Andrew Greeley has described her as a "feminist ideologue" and "one of those hard feminists who think that the use of that label [patriarchal] is enough to settle a debate."[5] One study of contemporary theology, on the other hand, found her approach "moderate" and said that "unlike radical feminists and other liberationists, she believes it is possible to redeem Christian tradition and make it more inclusive."[6] The Cardinal Newman Society, an organization of conservative Roman Catholics with a particular interest in Catholic higher education has on several occasions criticized colleges for awarding Johnson honorary degrees. Its president said "I think she has officially challenged church teaching in ways that are beyond the pale."[7]
Her Quest for the Living God appeared in 2007. In 2011, the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote that Quest "does not recognize divine revelation as the standard for Catholic theology" and "differs from authentic Catholic teaching on essential points."[8] Professor Johnson responded that the Bishops' statement "in several key instances...radically misinterprets what I think, and what I in fact wrote" and called these statements "misrepresentations." She noted that she had not had a conversation with the bishops.[9] Fordham President Joseph M. McShane issued a statement that called Johnson a "revered member of the Fordham community" and noted that she viewed the bishops' action as "an invitation to dialogue."[10] Boston College theologian Stephen J. Pope said that "The reason is political. Certain bishops decide that they want to punish some theologians, and this is one way they do that. There's nothing particularly unusual in her book as far as theology goes. It's making an example of someone who's prominent."[10] Terrence W. Tilley, chairman of Fordham's theology department, said: "What the bishops have done is to reject 50 years of contemporary theology.... Sister Johnson has been attempting to push Catholic thinking along new paths. And the bishops have now made it clear — this is something they stand against."[7] The board of the Catholic Theological Society of America issued a statement that said the bishops' critique showed "a very narrow understanding" of the ways theologians serve the church."[7]
One of the central disputes between Johnson and the bishops is language. Johnson writes that "all-male images of God are hierarchical images rooted in the unequal relation between women and men, and they function to maintain this arrangement." The bishops said: "The names of God found in the Scriptures are not mere human creations that can be replaced by others that we may find more suitable.... The standard by which all theological assertions must be judged is that provided by divine revelation, not by unaided human understanding. God does use human, and thus limited, means in revealing himself to the world." According to Tilley, in making that argument the bishops were "approaching the incoherent" since "All revelation is received through language, and all language is culturally conditioned." In sum, he said, "All they are saying here is that they have the truth and Sister Johnson doesn't." Teresa Berger, a feminist theology professor at Yale Divinity School, said that "Gender has become such a contentious issue in the church that any exploration of it, in terms of language or in the larger question of the nature of God, is viewed as a threat to the basic givens of the faith."[7]