Elizabeth A. Johnson (born December 7, 1941) is a Roman Catholic feminist theologian. She is a Distinguished Professor Emerita of Theology at Fordham University, a Jesuit institution in New York City and a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood. The National Catholic Reporter has called Johnson "one of the country's most prominent and respected theologians." Wuerl Resigns, Ending Influential Tenure in Wake of Abuse Report, October 12, 2018, National Catholic Reporter
Johnson has served as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and is "one of its most well known members." The New York Times has described Johnson as "a highly respected theologian whose books are widely used in theology classes."
Her book Quest for the Living God (2007) became popular in churches and was adopted as a text for many university religion courses, but in 2011 the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Committee on Doctrine issued a doctrinal evaluation of the book that concluded it did not correspond with "authentic Catholic teaching." The public criticism by the bishops created "a substantial boon in sales of Quest," and frayed already strained relations between the church hierarchy and Catholic theologians.
The New York Times also notes that Johnson has been criticized by other Catholic groups, such as the conservative educational advocacy group, the Cardinal Newman Society.
Life Johnson grew up in Brooklyn, New York, the oldest of seven children in an "Irish Catholic family." As a young adult she joined the religious congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph whose motherhouse is in Brentwood, Long Island, NY. She received a B.S. from Brentwood College in 1964 and an M.A. from Manhattan College in 1964. Johnson taught science and religion at the elementary and high school level, then taught theology at St. Joseph's College (New York) and at CUA before moving to Fordham in 1991.
In 1981, she became one of the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in theology at the Catholic University of America (CUA). Johnson recalls that her experience there was "rich, respectful, and collegial," but was also "lacking in female presence." During her studies there in the 1970s Johnson observes, "I never had a woman professor, I never read one woman author. There were none to be had. It was a totally male education." CUA attempted to remedy this when Johnson herself was hired for a tenure-track position in Christology. Feminist theologians Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Sandra M. Schneiders influenced Johnson on feminist topics, including using feminine metaphors and language for God. Inspired by their example, Johnson and other women graduate students formed a group, "Women in Theology."
While at CUA in 1980 she felt profoundly affected by events of the Salvadoran Civil War when four American women, including three nuns, working as missionaries and helping oppressed people to escape violence, were abducted and killed by a death squad. Johnson mourned the women, but she "redirected her anguish by carrying out their mission in her own field of theology."
Johnson notes that leaders of her religious community encouraged her to enter the field of theology and pushed her to continue in spite of obstacles. "When I applied for tenure at Catholic University, I received the full positive vote of the faculty. But the outcome was in doubt because some bishops were not happy with an article I had written," she says, referring to her article questioning the traditional view of Mary as "humble and obedient." Though she contemplated leaving rather than facing the "arduous process of interrogation," General Superior Sister John Raymond McGann advised her not to give up, and Johnson did receive tenure. Full text quoted in Reprinted in
At Fordham, she was named Distinguished Professor in 1997 and "Teacher of the Year" in 1998. Adapted from She has served as head of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society.
Opinions In 1990, she criticized a draft of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church 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 draft for 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." In 2011, she wrote "All-male images of God are hierarchical images rooted in the unequal relation between women and men [...] Once women no longer relate to men as patriarchal fathers, lords, and kings in society, these images become religiously inadequate. Instead of evoking the reality of God, they block it." Jill Raitt, of Fontbonne University, said in a 2008 review on catholicbooksreview.org that "Johnson grounds her thinking in the transcendence of God that cannot be captured in any one theology or by any one cultural group" in a 2007 book. Raitt also said Johnson understood the "urgency of attending to all God's offspring, including the planet and its beautiful burden of living creatures of the sea, the skies, the earth." Much of Johnson's scholarship is built on the foundation of the Second Vatican Council, which urged members of the Catholic Church to overcome "every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural, whether based on sex, race, color, social condition, language or religion." In 2014, Johnson expressed what she perceives as the misguided priorities of the Catholic Church when she addressed the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) while it was being investigated by the Vatican: "When the moral authority of the hierarchy is hemorrhaging due to financial scandals and many bishops who ... cover up sexual abuse of children, a cover up that continues in some quarters to this day, and thousands are drifting away from the church ... the waste of time on this investigation is unconscionable." In 1995, Johnson stated that "the religious life has always been meant to be countercultural and prophetic."
Works The main areas of focus for Johnson's writing are the mystery of God, Jesus Christ, Mary, saints, science and religion, human suffering, ethics, and issues related to women. In addition to her books, her works include over 100 essays in scholarly and popular journals as well as chapters in anthologies.
Her feminist theological method is a "thorough deconstruction of male images of God", a search for alternative Christian sources, and "reconstruction of the theological symbol".
One of Johnson's best-known works is She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1991), for which she became the fourth recipient of the University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Grawemeyer Award in 1993. It was the first extended attempt to integrate feminist categories such as experience and emancipation into classical Catholic theology. Library Journal notes the book is "grounded in classical Christian thought," but contemporary, and encompasses women's experience. The book covers the history of Christian language about God and argues for gender-neutral or gender balanced language in discussions of God, while reflecting an "inclusive and creative Christian spiritual doctrine."
Johnson edited The Church Women Want (2002), which received the Gender Award from the Catholic Press Association.
Her Quest for the Living God (2007) quickly became popular not only among the laity, but also has been used as a text in university courses. Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, shares different understandings of God through experiences of those who are impoverished, oppressed, Holocaust victims, Hispanics, women as well as men, and people of a variety of religions. In his review of the book, Joseph Cunneen in American Catholic said: "This is one of the most important and provocative books on theology to have appeared in the U.S. since Vatican II."Quest for the Living God Bloomsbury, accessed 15 Jan 2016 The book also found an audience among some non-Catholics, including Episcopal Bishop Mark Sisk who gave copies to his New York clergy; he selected it as his "innovative choice" for 2009 because it included "a valuable reflection and overview of modern theological trends."
In Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love Johnson examines God's relationship with the earth's non-human inhabitants. The inspiration for the book came in 2009 from the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species; Johnson received a research grant to leave for the 2011–2012 academic year to write it. In addition to including a close reading of Darwin's work, the book reflects on the Nicene Creed which, according to Johnson, "is really a narrative of God's evolutionary relationship to the world. God makes the universe, comes into the world, goes down into death, rises again. And, with the spirit, God continues to give life to creation and ready it for the life of world to come."
Publications Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology (1990) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1992) Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit (1993) Who Do You Say that I Am?: Introducing Contemporary Christology (1997) Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints (1998) The Church Women Want: Catholic Women in Dialogue (2002) Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints (2003) Quest for the living God: mapping frontiers in the theology of God (2007) Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (2014) Creation and the Cross: The Mercy of God for a Planet in Peril (2018) Come, Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth (2024)
USCCB critique of Quest for the Living God
In March 2011 the Committee on Doctrine issued a doctrinal evaluation of Quest for a Living God that stated that this book is predicated "at the level of method" on "a false presupposition, an error that undermines the very nature of the study and so skews many of its arguments, rendering many of its conclusions theologically unacceptable." The evaluation equates Johnson's modern theism to an "Enlightenment deist notion of God that contains some elements, though now misrepresented, of a traditional Catholic understanding of God." "The false presupposition" in Quest for a Living God, according to the doctrinal evaluation, "is the conviction that all names for God are metaphors." The panentheism in Quest for a Living God "lacks any characteristic that would constitute a real difference between it and pantheism." Johnson, according to the doctrinal evaluation "employs standards from outside the faith to criticize and to revise in a radical fashion the conception of God revealed in Scripture and taught by the Magisterium." The doctrinal evaluation concluded "that the doctrine of God presented in Quest for the Living God does not accord with authentic Catholic teaching on essential points." But this doctrinal evaluation was not a formal ban.
Areas of concern "[T]he statement faults Johnson for treating language about God in the Bible and in church tradition as largely metaphorical, implying that truth about God is essentially 'unknowable'."Allen Jr., John L.,"U.S. bishops blast book by feminist theologian", National Catholic Reporter, March 30, 2011 The bishops also took issue with the conception "that all names for God are metaphors".