Honor you Father and Mother

US CATHOLIC, January, 2008

The US CATHOLIC editors interview Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J.

Stale images of God aren’t working for today’s seekers, says feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J. New ones are emerging from the experiences of all God’s people—male and female.

When you whispered a prayer this morning while sipping your coffee and eating your toast, to whom exactly did you pray? An old man with a beard somewhere beyond the clouds? Sophia, otherwise known as Holy Wisdom? The Holy Spirit? Jesus?

Elizabeth Johnson wants to know. In her new book, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (Continuum, 2007), she examines how Christians the world over have experienced the presence of God in new ways since the last half of the 20th century. Theologians agree, she says, that we’re in a “golden age of discovery.”

Even before her groundbreaking 1992 book, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (Crossroad), Johnson has been fascinated by how believers view God. “This might sound a little archaic,” she told Fordham Online, “but I take my cue from Thomas Aquinas—the study of God and all things in the light of God. That articulates for me what theology is about.”

A sister in the Congregation of St. Joseph who hails from Brooklyn, Johnson has been president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society. Winner of the U.S. Catholic Award in 1994, she served as a member of the national Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue, a consultant to the Catholic bishops’ Committee on Women in Church and Society, a theologian on the Vatican-sponsored dialogue between science and religion, and on the Vatican-sponsored study of Christ and the world religions.

We’re hearing a lot from atheists today who want to persuade us that God doesn’t exist. What do you as a theologian think about that?

Atheists are rejecting the old images of God that don’t really work that well even for Christians anymore.....

Read the whole article at: http://uscatholic.claretians.org/site/News2page=NewsArticle&id=13014&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=usc_&JServSessionIdr012=6n9uisp2b1.app46a