“She Who Is?”

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I’ve mentioned several times in these blogs that I had a sort of awakening in my early 30s about my image of God. A homily by a young priest declared that many Christians “don’t know who their father is.”

It was a revelation to know that in the gospels, Jesus incessantly talks about his “father.” In the gospels, he uses the term “Abba” - the loving way in which a child of that culture referred to a loving father - 170 times. And the prayers at the Catholic mass make no sense unless you understand that they are, with some exceptions, directed to God the Father.

So, my spirituality has since revolved around learning to know my Father better. Most of my prayers are directed to the Father, including the Centering Prayer I’ve been doing or several years.

Another Awakening?

But I’ve had another recent awakening, which leads me to believe that I need to adjust my idea of God, thanks to listening to podcasts of interviews with Elizabeth Johnson.

Johnson, according to Wikipedia, is a Catholic feminist theologian and distinguished professor emerita of Theology at Fordham University in New York. She belongs to the religious community of the Sisters of St. Joseph and is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

I knew of Johnson and in these blogs may have quoted from her teaching on the environment, but I’ve only recently discovered her book, “She Who Is,” which I assume to be a play on the famous words, “I am who am,” placed in the mouth of God from the burning bush in the Book of Exodus. I’m reading the 25-year anniversary edition of the book, which means I’m coming a bit late to her ideas about feminism and the image of God.

Let me put in her own words a little of what she has to say on the subject.

Elizabeth Johnson
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“The women’s movement in civil society and the church has shed a bright light on the pervasive exclusion of women from the realm of public symbol formation and decision making, and women’s consequent, strongly enforced subordination to the imagination and needs of a world designed chiefly by men.

“In the church this exclusion has been effective virtually everywhere: in ecclesial creeds, doctrines, prayers, theological systems, liturgical worship, patterns of spirituality, visions of mission, church order, leadership and discipline.

“It has been stunningly effective in speech about God. While officially it is rightly and consistently said that God is spirit and so beyond identification with either male or female sex, the daily language of preaching, worship, catechesis, and instruction conveys a different message: God is male, or at least more like a man than a woman, or at least more fittingly addressed as male than as female.”

God is Spirit

According to the teaching of the Bible and the church, God is spirit, existing in a sphere without time and space. For most of us, those concepts are impossible to grasp. That’s one reason Jesus is so important for Christians. In Jesus, God became one of us, living at a specific time in history and adapting to that era in which male dominance was absolute.

But did Jesus intend for that always to be the case, any more than he intended, for instance, that slavery or cruel punishments of that culture should endure? Is the masculine image of God set in stone? I don’t think so, because at least half of human beings are female and they, and perhaps many males, may relate more easily to a God who is “mother.”

Theology - our ideas about God and the church - evolves. It may be a bit irritating for some readers, but I’ve occasionally used “he/she” and “his/hers, iwhen referring to God. And I intend to continue, if I can remember to do so. That, in itself, shows how ingrained the masculine image is.

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