She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse

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In the late fourth century debate over the question whether Jesus Christ was truly divine or simply a creature subordinate to God the Father was so wide spread that Gregory of Nyssa was led to remark: "Even the baker does not cease from discussing this, for if you ask the price of bread he will tell you that the Father is greater and the Son subject to him." In our own day, says Elizabeth Johnson, an analogous debate over "right speech about God is exceptionally alive in a new way thanks...to a sizable company of...
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More About This Book

Overview

In the late fourth century debate over the question whether Jesus Christ was truly divine or simply a creature subordinate to God the Father was so wide spread that Gregory of Nyssa was led to remark: "Even the baker does not cease from discussing this, for if you ask the price of bread he will tell you that the Father is greater and the Son subject to him." In our own day, says Elizabeth Johnson, an analogous debate over "right speech about God is exceptionally alive in a new way thanks...to a sizable company of bakers, women who historically have borne the primary responsibility for lighting the cooking fires and feeding the world." In She Who Is Elizabeth Johnson attempts to "braid a footbridge between the ledges of classical theology and feminist theology," and in so doing offers the most solidly grounded case to date for using women's experience and female imagery to describe the Christian experience of God. With an extraordinary control of the history of Christian God-talk from the Cappadocians to contemporary theologians, and with an acute sensitivity to the varieties of womenás experience today, Johnson shows in countless ways how feminist language about God belongs in our pulpits and at our altars. Put in starkest terms, the questions this book poses are two: Can the Christian doctrine of God accommodate a thoroughgoing feminist approach? And can feminist theology learn anything from classical Christian discourse about God? Johnson's response to the first is to show how feminist theology, drawing on women's interpreted experience and a critical retrieval of elements in Scripture and tradition, can enable speech about God previously closed to the imagination - that it can move the tradition from an androcentric to a genuinely liberating view of God. To the second question Johnson responds by showing how the classical tradition can add density to feminist speech about God, directing attention to the vast scope of divine activity. Women's reality is thus

Johnson offers the most solidly based case to date for using women's experiences and female images to describe the Christian experience of God. Using historical references from the Cappadocians to Kasper and Moltmann and sensitive to the experiences of women today, Johnson shows how feminist language about God belongs in our pulpits and at our altars.

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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
As perhaps the best book of feminist theology to date, She Who Is is at once thoroughly orthodox, grounded in classical Christian thought, liberatingly contemporary, and rooted in women's experience. Johnson reviews the history of Christian language about God and explains the need for feminist language about God, thereby providing background for nontheologians. She then develops an inclusive and creative Christian spiritual doctrine. Highly recommended for all collections serving educated lay readers, theologians, and clergy.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780824511623
  • Publisher: Crossroad Publishing Company
  • Publication date: 8/1/1992
  • Pages: 300
  • Product dimensions: 6.32 (w) x 9.29 (h) x 1.06 (d)

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Pt. I Background: Speech About God at the Intersection of Mighty Concerns
1 Introduction: To Speak Rightly of God 3
A Crucial Question 3
Context: Mystery Mediated in History 6
Purpose: Connecting Feminist and Classical Wisdom 8
Plan 13
Scotosis vs. the Glory of God 13
2 Feminist Theology and Critical Discourse About God 17
The Lens of Womenás Flourishing 17
Speech about God at the Intersection of Mighty Concerns 19
Feminist Theology 22
Critique of Speech about God 33
3 Basic Linguistic Options: God, Women, Equivalence 42
Why the Word God? 42
Why Female Symbols of God? 44
Why Not Feminine Traits or Dimensions of God? 47
Equivalent Images of God Male and Female 54
Options 56
Pt. II Foreground: Resources for Emancipatory Speech About God
4 Women's Interpreted Experience 61
The Dynamism of the Conversion Experience 62
Experience of Self Experience of God 65
Moral Values 67
Image of God, Image of Christ 69
5 Scripture and Its Trajectories 76
A Hermeneutic of Revelation 76
Spirit/Shekinah 82
Wisdom/Sophia 86
Mother 100
6 Classical Theology 104
Divine Incomprehensibility 104
Analogy 113
Many Names 117
Pt. III Speaking About God from the World's History
7 Spirit-Sophia 124
Divinity Drawing Near and Passing By 124
Forgetting the Spirit 128
The Human Analogue 131
Spirit-Sophia in Action 133
Speaking about Spirit 141
Speaking about God 146
8 Jesus-Sophia 150
Wisdom Made Flesh 150
Distorting the Christ 151
The Human Analogue 154
Jesus-Sophia in Action 156
Speaking about Christ 161
Speaking about God 167
9 Mother-Sophia 170
Unoriginate Origin 170
Eclipsing the Mother 172
The Human Analogue 176
Mother-Sophia in Action 179
Speaking about God 185
Pt. IV Dense Symbols and Their Dark Light
10 Triune God: Mystery of Relation 191
Tradition and Its Discontents 191
Freeing the Symbol from Literalness 197
Directing the Symbol toward Meaning 205
Female Metaphors 211
The Symbol Gives Rise to Thought 215
Speaking about the Triune God 222
11 One Living God: She Who Is 224
"No Real Relation" and Womenás Sensibility 224
Divine Nature: A Communion 227
Bespeaking God's Solidarity with the World 228
Female Metaphors 233
Divine Being, Sheer Liveliness 236
Speaking About the Living God: SHE WHO IS 241
To Practical and Critical Effect 244
12 Suffering God: Compassion Poured Out 246
The Apathic, Omnipotent God and "His" Critics 246
Female Metaphors 254
Divine Suffering 265
Divine Power 269
Speaking about the Suffering God 271
Epilogue 273
Notes 275
Index of Authors 307
Index of Subjects 313
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