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

by Elizabeth A. Johnson

Winner of the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. This classic explains what feminist theology is and how can we rediscover the feminine God within the Christian tradition. A profound vision of Christian theology, women’s experience, and emancipation.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Feminism, Nonfiction, Christianity, Spirituality, Faith

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

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 order of the Sisters of Saint Joseph whose motherhouse is in Brentwood, Long island, NY. She received a B.S. from Brentwood College in 1964, an M.A. from Manhattan College in 1964.

1981, she became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in theology at the Catholic University of America (CUA). CUA is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church and is the only university in the U.S. founded and sponsored by America's bishops. 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 into a tenure-track position in Christology. She became one of the first female theologians allowed to receive a doctorate by the church authorities, as a result of the "liberalization decrees that capped the Second Vatican Council." Feminism had begun impacting the thinking and dialog of female Catholic theologians, and pioneering 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."

She has served as head of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society.

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.

Johnson had 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. At Fordham, she was named Distinguished Professor in 1997 and "Teacher of the Year" in 1998.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

- GoodmorninggodfixdotcomhowmayIhelpyou?

- Uh, I'm having some problems with the Christianity package, it's not behaving the way I expected.

- Sorry mate, you need to give me some more details.

- Well, it says on your site that this is a religion of peace, love and tolerance, but --

- Please key in your account number and I'll run a quick test.

- Uh, sure. Wait a minute.

- ...

- Well?

- Mate, your trinity's fucked.

- I'm sorry?

- It's totally fucked. You've got rampant patriarchy and dualism all through the system and your Holy Spirit's not even operational.

- Did you say my Holy Spirit? I was wondering what that was for. I --

- Mate, it's a coequal part of your fucking trinity right? Your pneuma stops working, you don't have any fucking wisdom, you don't have any fucking God in the world, you're fucked.

- But I thought the Father --

- The Mother?

- What?

- Oh, alright the Father if you fucking insist. God's gender just fucking analogical innit? Look mate, she's -- sorry he's fucking transcendental right? How's, uh, he going to reach the world without Sophia?

- Sophia?

- Fucking Holy Spirit mate.

- Isn't the Son --

- Look, the D -- the Son, that's the fucking logos right? I'm tired of explaining this to you cunts.

- Excuse me, would you mind not blaspheming?

- Blaspheming?

- Yes, blaspheming. I find it extremely offensive.

- You mean I shouldn't say fuck and cunt all the time?

- Thank you, I would be very --

- Look mate, you're just illustrating what I mean about fucking patriarchy and dualism. Your theology is inculcating a belief in the inherent sinfulness of reproduction and the female body and you cunts don't even realise it. Now that's what I call fucking offensive. With all fucking respect.

- I, uh --

- Never mind, apology accepted. Let's get back to fixing your problem. When did you last change the philosophy?

- Uh, I'm not sure, maybe around 1300?

- Fuck me, you're still running Aristotle with the Aquinas plugin. I can't fucking believe it. You know it says to update the philosophy every century?

- Well, I was going to change it but I somehow never got round to --

- Mate, how do you expect to get a fucking inclusive religion what adequately represents women as an imago Dei if your philosophy fallaciously denies them an active role in fucking reproduction? That prescientific bullshit gets into the metaphysics and then voom! there goes your whole fucking ethos. Seen it happen a million times.

- Uh, what are my options here?

- Well, if I was you I'd just rip the whole thing out and start over fresh. I can offer you a tradein for a Buddhism package. Beautiful eightfold path, veil of illusion already pre-perforated, you'll be off the wheel of karma before you know it.

- I'm sorry, I - uh -

- Sentimental attachment, eh?

- You could put it that way.

- Look, tell you what. You read this here Elizabeth Johnson, I'm sending you a link, she goes through the whole thing step by step, you take your time, you think it over and then you come talk to me again.

- I --

- And don't worry. She doesn't say fuck or cunt once. You'll love it.

- Thank you, uh --

- All part of the service mate. Seeya.

[Marguerite Hargreaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this during theology studies, though not as part of the curriculum. (I took it with me to West Virginia while doing mission work with church youth groups.) I wish I'd read it sooner. It's changed the way I think about God and the way I think about the institutional church. It helps me that Elizabeth Johnson writes from within the Catholic Christian tradition. While this book is painstakingly researched and clearly presented, it doesn't keep the subject matter academic or theoretical. A guiding premise seems to be that religion is practiced, and the topic has to relate to the practice. Johnson taps into Scripture and the tradition, but synthesizes it in a way that makes it relevant for modern believers. It's probably worth a second look, but I'm still working through the list of books I pulled from Johnson's notes.

"What is the right way to speak about God? The presenting issue in debates about inclusive language is ostensibly whether the reality of women can provide suitable metaphor for speech about God. ... More is at stake than simply naming toward God with women-identified words such as 'mother.' The symbol of God functions. Language about God in female images not only challenges the literal mindedness that has clung to male images in inherited God-talk; it not only questions their dominance in discourse about holy mystery. ... Introducing this mode of speech signals a shift, among those who use it, in their sense of the divine, a shift in total world view, in highest ideals and values."

"If women are created in the image of God, then God can be spoken of in female metaphors in as full and as limited a way as God is imaged as male ones, without talk of feminine dimensions reducing the impact of this imagery."

"Discourse about God from a perspective of women's experience, therefore, names toward a relational God who loves in freedom."

[Elizabeth Magill · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy is looking for the Holy Grail, and he chooses the most humble cup among all the gem-encrusted, golden splendor before him? I love that scene, because it rings so true to my idea of God, and of Jesus—of course Jesus would drink from a simple cup. I had the same feeling after finishing Elizabeth A. Johnson’s She Who Is—a feeling that here, truly, is where God dwells. But in this case, the feeling is not a foregone conclusion—it is more like the release of unconscious tension, the feeling you get when you finally receive some long-awaited good news. This book brought feminism and Christianity together for me, and the experience was liberating and deeply satisfying.

Be aware: this book isn’t an easy read. It is a scholarly work, and the author places her thoughts within the context of classical theology. I sometimes had to reread passages, look up unfamiliar words, or accept that I would understand the gist of a paragraph (usually one that included a lot of Latin) without getting it word for word. But oh, was it worth the work it took to read this book. The rewards were manifold: a deeper understanding of historical Christian thought (especially classical theology—think Aquinas and Augustine), a revelation of the roots of patriarchy within Christianity (you know, that image of the Father in Heaven on a throne—he has a white beard, right?), and an explication of the work of women that Christianity has marginalized or left out altogether. By the time I finished this book, I understood that I had unconsciously accepted that my own religion didn’t hold women in as high esteem as it holds men, and that I shouldn’t accept it at all, consciously or unconsciously. Such an approach to the divine is wrong: not just socially, but spiritually. Not just in human consciousness, but in divine consciousness.

This truth, it seems, should be self-evident. And yet the concept of the divine feminine has been so buried within Christianity that the religion as a whole resists the idea of naming God She as something untoward, bordering on blasphemous. Even the Holy Spirit, which is traditionally the aspect of the Trinity that can be associated with the feminine, is not always named She. And when it is, the Spirit tends to be seen as lesser than the other parts of the Trinity.

Through a careful examination of the right way to speak about and conceive of God, Elizabeth Johnson frees Christianity from the restrictive bonds of patriarchy. The pages of She Who Is are filled with passages like this one: “What then has gone wrong? For despite the value of maternal metaphors in human language and the legitimacy of their occasional appearance in biblical texts and theological tradition, it is highly characteristic of Christian speech that the origin and care-giver of all things is named almost exclusively in terms of the paternal relationship.” (p. 172) Again and again, Ms. Johnson exposes the ways in which Christian speech and thought have taken male metaphor—and the historical gender of the man Jesus—to fashion a God that is, despite theological admission that God cannot be fully understood or categorized in human terms—literally as well as metaphorically male.

By bringing feminine metaphor to the forefront, and exploring the ways in which the personification of Biblical Wisdom known as Sophia permeates all of creation, Ms. Johnson excavates the lost feminine in Christianity. Like the divinity she describes, the pages of this book are dynamic, renewing, life-giving, sustaining, everywhere suffering with those in pain and yet far from helpless. Ms. Johnson’s concern is to empower women to see themselves as truly imago Dei, made in the image of God.

And so she does. To read She Who Is is to understand Christian thought in a completely new way—one that is inclusive of the experience and suffering of women throughout history and throughout the world, one that seeks the right way to speak about divine nature, one that explores the symbols of the Trinity with an eye toward embracing all of humanity. Throughout the book, Ms. Johnson emphasizes the unknowable nature of holy mystery, as well as the limited explication that any metaphors, male or female, can bring to this mystery. And yet, by revealing the long-obscured feminine aspects of divinity within a religion that has been defined by patriarchy since it became codified in Greek philosophy, she brings our understanding a little closer to that mystery, so that we might feel we are, truly, in the presence of a living God—She Who Is.

[M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Of course we shouldn't be uncomfortable with feminine imagery of God (whether it's the Father or the Holy Spirit), and of course we should criticize Liberation theologians for using Jungian language to refer to womanhood, knowing how downplayed female existence is on the basis of a gnostic outlook.

But this is taken too far to the point of arguing for female ordination and complaining about "the burned witches of Inquisition". Even to the point of referring to Jesus as "her" and at the same time, claiming that she does not seek to deny the male humanity of Jesus, she separates Jesus and Christ as two faces of the same subject, one of which would be able to include women.

Yes, sexism is a sin. But heresy is not any less worrying.

[Clare Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This is an amazing book. It is not an easy read, a little dense at times, but those who have read Beth Allison Barr’s Making of Biblical Womanhood and are looking for the next step…this book is it. Johnson makes the argument that female metaphor and imagery is not only viable but essential in the human attempt to understand God, and her knowledge of feminist theory, theology, and history are expertly woven to present her case. My understanding of God (or more accurately the mystery of God) and my faith are deeper after reading this, but most importantly Johnson makes a powerful place for women within the family of God. Will for sure be buying a copy so I can highlight the crap out of this book.

[Trinki Brueckner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. It is well and clearly written. Elizabeth Johnson is brilliant. She examines many symbols of God from a feminist perspective. Language is important and shapes behavior and actions. Referring to God as father, for example, mimics and reinforces patriarchy and harms women and all of creation. God as mother (and there are ample references to a female divine being in the Bible and Christian, Jewish, and Islamic tradition), leads us to value relatedness and compassion, and power-with, instead of power over. If you love theology, read this!

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

REQUIRED READING. Thank you, Elizabeth Johnson.

"SHE WHO IS: linguistically this is possible; theologically it is legitimate; existentially and religiously it is necessary if speech about God is to shake off the shackles of idolatry and be a blessing for women...If the mystery of God is no longer spoken about exclusively or even primarily in terms of the dominating male, a forceful linchpin holding up structures of patriarchal rule is removed." (243)

[E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books you wish you'd read even earlier.

And the best thing about it is all the beautifully written sentences and paragraphs that I can use in preaching and teaching.

[Maddie Joyner · Rating 4 out of 5]

We only read the first half for our class, really thankful for the questions & thoughts it brings to light
To sum it up with a quote: “Feminist theological analysis makes clear that exclusive, literal, patriarchal speech about God has a twofold negative effect. It fails both human beings and divine mystery.” Lmk if u want to borrow 💓

[Bailey Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m continuously captivated and amazed by peoples abilities to articulate their beliefs, thoughts, and arguments. Elizabeth A. Johnson eloquently develops a feminist theology that challenges, confronts, liberates, and frees current understanding and applications of speaking on and about God.
Beliefs and thoughts function. They act. They are the initial push to movement. Thus, “The symbol of God functions.” While all symbols, speech, art, (etc.) falls short and will never fully encapsulate the Creator of the Universe, they do have purpose. They do have meaning. Which both cannot go understated.

“To advance the truth of God’s mystery and to redress imbalance so that the community of disciples may move toward a more liberating life, this study engages imagination to speak in female symbols for divine mystery, testing their capacity to bear divine presence and power”

God transcends gender. God transcends any distinction and category and characteristic that is attempted to be ascribed to Him/Her/Thou/Who Is.

It’s interesting how seemingly divisive and controversial this discourse is to people. How affronted and blasphemous the use of female symbols seems to be. I wonder if our hold on the male symbols of God is less about honoring God and more about upholding the comfortability of the sinful systems and traditions we hold true to.

This study led me back to the Word. To the beauty and power and all-encompassing nature of God. I find myself, after reading this, want to know Him/Her more- wanting to honor God-Sophia in my speech and thought and how I view the world and people around me and the systems we create.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally finished it, and I learned so much. This book was absolutely transformative, and Elizabeth A. Johnson writes with clarity and humility. Due to the nature of the complicated theological traditions she has to examine and then pick apart, this book is DENSE. I found myself looking up words, referencing theologians, and re-reading paragraphs. But it's entirely worth reading, and I would encourage anyone with a Christian background to brave it and take the time it requires.

[Jack Mullins]

This was a journey. Luminous theology, but it took my full attention. For that reason, it took me quite a while to get through.

Elizabeth Johnson presents here a foundation of Christian feminist theology deeply rooted in women's lived experiences. Much of the work is focused on the language we use to speak about God, which I am now convinced is crucial to advancing a theology of women's liberation.

Johnson excavates "resources" from women's experiences, scripture, and classical theology for speaking rightly about God with respect to women's liberation. She then assesses each Trinitarian persona from a feminist perspective: Spirit-Sophia, Jesus-Sophia, and Mother-Sophia. (These characterizations, for me, opened up new interpretations of Hebrew Wisdom literature that are not purely Christological.)

She closes with chapters on three essential natures of God: the Triune God, the Living God, and the Suffering God. She argues for each of these characterizations to be re-emphasized over the un-feeling, distant God of classical theism. I see these characterizations as having taken root in my progressive Anglican circles, and yet, our liturgical language is still catching up.

I'm encouraged by Sister Johnson's work. I appreciate that she was writing 30 years ago in the milieu of a Roman Catholic church that still today stands by its androcentric traditions. I look forward to, eventually, reading Sister Johnson's work on Mary: Truly Our Sister.

[Belinda Mellor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel rather ashamed that I only discovered this book this year (on the bookcase of a 90 year old Catholic priest, who recommended it to me). I wish I could go back and study the subject in more depth, perhaps in academic circles: now that would be fun. In places it is rather dense (as is the case with all *real* theology books, I guess) and it is frustrating as a lot of what it says needs to be available to non-theology students without the references and terms that are required before you can really appreciate this study. I am now on a hunt for such a book to inspire senior school students and parish groups … Other than the dense parts, it is so uplifting, and fascinating. I got so much from it, and it sparked a few semi-dormant brain cells, which is always a good thing! Loved it.

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction to feminist God-talk, whether or not you agree with her conclusions.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a fan of the analogy of being, and Johnson's strenuous insistence on it was one factor that dampens my appreciation of the book. That is not to say that I did not learn a great deal from it. I think it is an important and valuable book, well worth the time it took to read.

It perplexes me that she stresses so often the complete transcendence of divine mystery over human understanding (I get it: it clears the ground to be able to say that previously neglected or rejected elements of human experience may serve as metaphors of God now), while her goal, over and over, in applying metaphors from womens' experience, is to pull God intimately into our experience, as She who suffers with us and whose compassion is true divine power. The imperative here is that we have to be able to say God is like us in some way(s), or there's only us in our lonely, cruel state.

The justification for the first move is that God is always more unlike than like anything we can say about God--indeed, we cannot even know how unlike. So female symbols open up new ways for us to think and speak about God--why not? But then when it comes to that second move of proclaiming God's intimacy, we have no ground to say we can trust our trust that God is really present with us. It just seems to me, were projection theories brought up, the whole thing collapses into implausibility. Brilliantly (or slyly), then, Johnson's criterion for discerning whether we are speaking rightly of God is whether human beings and their communities are flourishing. In the end, perhaps hers is a resolutely humanist theology in the heritage of Feuerbach?

The first three chapters of the book are where Johnson defines what she means by (Christian feminist) theology--"a reflection on God and all things in the light of God that stands consciously in the company of all the world's women..." (9), asking "what is the right way to speak about God?" (4)--and, further, develops an analysis of what we might call the "religious situation," the historical-cultural-political context in which it is necessary to ask how to speak rightly about God, in general and particularly in the company of all the world's women.

Part II of the book seems analogous to what we have seen treated elsewhere as the topic of authority in theology (Jones) or of sources of theology (Neville). Specifically, Johnson discusses experience, scripture, and tradition in light of feminist critical and constructive insights.

So, Part III, chapters 6-9, is where Johnson starts to move significantly beyond concerns about method, how to do theology, and into what Christian feminist theology has to say about God.

The chapters take the persons of the Trinity in turn (albeit in an unusual sequence). All three chapters share a similar structure:

* Following a brief introduction indicating her own claims, the second section of each chapter analyzes "what has gone wrong" (from a feminist perspective) in traditional theological treatment of each respective person of the Trinity.
* Next, Johnson discusses the "human analogue." Here she seems to highlight content in human experience that supports ways to imagine the relevant divine person of the Trinity. (Remember her analogical approach: human experience and language only enables analogies for God, not direct or "literal" knowledge. Then we might ask if this is knowledge at all, or just imaginative material? Perhaps Johnson would reply, there can be no knowing God at all, if we do not try imagining her first.)
* A section follows on the respective divine person "in action"--that is, as traditionally and characteristically present in experience.
* Finally, there is a section on "speaking about" the relevant person of the Trinity. Of course, Johnson means here to "speak rightly about" the divine person, as informed (analogically) by experience, as a Christian feminist theologian in company with all the world's women.

Although chapters 10-12 do not have quite as tight a formal unity as the previous three chapters, they roughly fit the patter:

* Each begins with some review of classical doctrinal language--of the Trinity, of God "per se" or "as such," and of God in relation to worldly suffering and evil, respectively.
* Together with or following the review, Johnson indicates how the classical language may be criticized from a feminist perspective.
* Next, some set of females metaphors grounded in women's experience are discussed.
* Then, finally what the metaphors may mean when taken up into speaking about God is explored.

Reading ch. 10, I was struck again by the way that Johnson's theological method measures the "rightness" of speech about God by how it impacts human beings. For instance, her assessment of the origins of classical Trinitarian doctrinal language is that "[t]he primary concern of these narrations and doxologies is soteriological: to announce and celebrate the good news of human liberation and cosmic reconciliation coming from God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit" (208) (I compare this with Beth Felker Jones' conservative evangelical claims that the doctrine of the Trinity is God's actual nature actually revealed in Scripture.

I also compare it with Robert Cummings Neville's emphasis on theology as rightly involving "conceptualization" of assumptions and assertions about divine matters, whereas Johnson says explicitly that:
"Speaking about the Trinity expresses belief in one God who is not a solitary God but a communion in love marked by overflowing life. In no way is it a picture model that signifies secret information about the inner life of God, but a genuine symbol arising from divine-human relation in this ambiguous world and pointing to dimensions of that relation that we trust are grounded in no less a relation that the very mystery of God. Its language is analogical at all times: Holy Wisdom is like a Trinity, like a threefoldness of personal relation" (234; italics mine), and so on.
Is this a strength or a weakness in Johnson's way of doing theology, I wonder--or both in different respects?

Chapter 11 gets more metaphysical than any other chapter. If that is not your bag, try not to be discouraged. Keep your focus on these things:

How did Being came to be chosen as a, perhaps the highest, name for God in the Christian theological tradition?
How can the traditional meaning of Being be criticized from a feminist perspective?
What metaphors for Being can be drawn from women's experience?
What could it mean to name God Being, if we start from that experience and those metaphors?

Chapter 12 powerfully shows why it is so important to Johnson to exploit the analogy of being as a basis for drawing God intimately into womens' experience. As I say, it's not clear to me it succeeds intellectually, but who can doubt the importance of finding some way to do that? Johnson would agree that feminism is not the only lens through which to achieve a liberating theological understanding of suffering; but feminism is in fact one such lens that looks squarely at the suffering and the strength of, especially, women in order to achieve that goal. That is not to say that men can't be feminists or anything like that. Feminism is for anyone and everyone who is oppressed by sexism, patriarchy and androcentrism. Men are among those who are oppressed by those structures. So, men, too, need to be liberated, and can be liberated, at least in certain respects, by feminist theology. Feminism, we might say, is a humanism. It's for us all.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

The greatest value I found in this text was that Johnson's arguments that the feminine manifestation of the Imago Die should be honored, valued, and treated with the same reverence as the masculine is so wonderfully phrased that is can be turned to the same purpose in affirmation of the LGBTQ+ Christian community.

I was also wonderfully pleased to find more feminist hermeneutic that I had not previously encountered. Though many of the authors I follow were inspired by Johnson's work, some of these ways of understanding scripture had not made it to my attention before.

It troubles me that so many people are able to fully accept the foundational arguments of this book, but still deny that ordination of women is the logical conclusion of those arguments. To me that is similar to someone accepting the premise that the "pull" sign on a door means you should pull to open it... then pushing it and insisting it should be opening.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book fell into what I consider a lot of really bad ideas about a feminine nature of God, and an alternative thereof. I don't disagree with the project at all, but I feel there are some serious mistakes in Johnson's approach.

One of her major points is finding feminine characteristics in the linguistics of the Bible. She points to Shekinah, a few OT references and mainly to Sophia. While I find those do legitimize a change in the view of God, they are scant, more linguistic than revelatory, and in Johnson's use do more to create a sort of paganist male-female God/ess and rather than a de-masculinized God, forms a hypersexed one.

[T.Kay Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe sits a little too firmly in orthodoxy to really get me excited, but it was still a great book. Walking the line between orthodoxy and authentic feminism is done really well in this book. I just want to sit down with her and have a good long talk and I would come out a much better person. Best read of the semester, I think.

[Mattea Gernentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is life-changing and dares to ask theological questions I've wondered for ages. My review is only lacking a star due to some excessive verbosity, repetition, dryness in specific chapters, etc. If you're curious about feminist theology, read this. Thank you, Dr. McGowin & Elizabeth Johnson.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

several years ago, a religious mentor of mine insisted i read this book. i am glad she did. "She Who Is" is a bit dense, and slightly repetitive-- nonetheless, conceptualizing god as a woman has had a powerful impact on my spirituality.

[Miranda Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have issues with feminism as I think it tends to make as many problems as it addresses. This book was a good example of this and I wasn't a huge fan of the whole Sophia thing as it was used in this book

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction to Catholic feminist theology. Johnson has a mastery of the tradition and language of Catholic theology which makes for a brilliant work.

[Novriana Gloria Carolina Hutagalung · Rating 5 out of 5]

"She Who Is," a mindblowing and critical book on feminist theology and its development in Christianity. This is clearly a must read book, especially for those who wish to engage in feminist discourses.
The search for and meaning of 'what' and 'who' God is always related to one's experience and reflection of faith within a certain time. Or we can say, a Christian's spiritual journey is like a scene from witnessing the 'She Who Is' until the scene ends and we move to a new scene with a whole new witnessing of the same 'She Who Is.' These scenes always transform until the end of our lives. Exhausting. But strangely, there is a magnetic field that draws us into it. There is a sense of inseparability and dependence which inevitably keeps us questioning, witnessing, and finding. Because by finding 'She Who Is,' we find 'who we are' and 'who I am.'
Western theology also seems to have failed to develop a pneumatology because of the failure of male theologians relating to women's experiences. In addition, they also lack the particularity of women's experiences - a liminal space that is impossible to get through, until a woman does it.
I also noted the phenomena of 'the Unnamed' in biblical stories. Many nameless women became witnesses of Christ. Like the story of the Woman from Bethlehem in Judges 19:25 who was tortured to death.
I imagine people who curated the Bible decided to remove the Woman's name because doing so made it easier for them to read the Bible, especially this passage, without being haunted by the horror if they know the Woman's name. Because if she has a name, she has an identity. Having a name means affirming her personhood. And this makes men feel an eerie uneasiness, because they saw how deathly a world dominated by men could be. They don't want to be exposed to that. So, they took these Women's identity by taking their names - just like many nameless women who became massacre victims in Indonesia and around the world.
And I connect this phenomena of 'the Unnamed' to Western theology's neglect of the faceless, the anonymous Holy Spirit. The forgotten God, likewise the forgotten Women.
And because men could not relate to the particularity of the nameless and forgotten women, the Holy Spirit, too, became a 'shadow' they could not recognize. The Unknown does not fulfill their wishes and satisfies their patriarchal agenda, which is the literalism of God Father/Son, therefore 'the unnamed' Holy Spirit becomes uninteresting; hence, the neglect.
Unfortunately, the perspective on Western dualism is deeply ingrained. This is the task for the post-colonial worlds to deconstruct every layer and legacy of colonialism from their pure values.
Elizabeth A. Johnson also mentioned about Western theological thinking that are too personal, even foreign to the idea of ​​relationality. On the other hand, the idea of ​​individuality is foreign in community-based countries such as in Asia, at least in the country where I come from, Indonesia, which is heavy with its kinship systems. This relationality has its own challenges, namely toxic relationships. How do we imagine a Trinitarian friendship in the context of toxicity?
Johnson stated that friendship is a mode of relation that entails a reciprocity and mutual love and understanding.
"The love of friendship is the very essence of God" (p. 218).
I teared up at this part. Reading this statement made me feel really estranged from God. The love of friendship feels like a distant memory. What was once a communion, now a dangerous situation.
Then I asked myself, how am I able to understand God if I have become too detached that I lost the understanding of the love of friendship? That my traumatic experiences fragmented my sense of being to the point the idea of relational being making no sense? So, when I isolate myself from the hurt of friendship or any relationship, does it mean I also isolate myself from God?
I cried because I forced myself to a frame that is unfit.
My last note, the idea of Sophia is still a breed of Western culture. I am imagining and hoping 'She Who Is' will be born from around the world, from the deep root of Javanese, Bataknese, Sundanese, Papuan, and the rest of the world in the future.
Overall, this book is a classic book, a very thoughtful and helpful introduction to the discourse of feminist theology. Any reader should not feel confused about "difficult" terms because you will be guided through.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

She Who Is is an academic nonfiction book explaining the crucialness of using feminine metaphors and descriptions when speaking about God and the mystery of God. Historically, masculine metaphors and descriptions have dominated discussion of God, which contributed to the growth and continued promotion of the patriarchy.

Johnson is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph, as well as being a professor at Fordham University. Her Catholic background leads her to use many examples and references to images that are not used in the Protestant church. Primarily, her discussion of the use of Sophia-Wisdom as a title for God relies heavily on verses from the Book of Wisdom, an apocryphal book that I had no prior experience with. This made it difficult at times for me to understand her arguments.

I put this book on my TBR after a friend from my high school youth group stated it was a book he wanted his toddler daughter to read some day. This friend is a Methodist minister and read this book for a class in divinity school. This book is definitely a book meant for trained theologians, as there were numerous terms and concepts that I had to look up. Some of them I still don’t understand completely. The book also suffers from that typical academic book trait of discussing minutiae that literally no one else thinks is realistic--in one part of the book, she proposes that the term “God” needs to be retired as a descriptor for the Creator as that term has been used to justify religious atrocities. Like ok, in most parts of the world referring to God as “She” is a controversial thing, much less removing the most common English term as a descriptor.

Despite the difficulties, I found a lot of Johnson’s arguments compelling. She discusses how the dominance of masculine descriptors for God not only makes it difficult for women to realize their full potential in the church, it reduces God to a certain idolatrous male image. Her discussion of how the Trinity traditionally has been viewed with the Holy Spirit as sort of a “lesser being”, despite all 3 aspects being equal, was fascinating. This view is particularly harmful as the Spirit has traditionally been given female characteristics, implying again that patriarchal structures have played a role in its reduction of status. She discusses how the classical view of God sees God as a distant male figure apart from the world and how that relates to human relationship and suffering. She shows how God should be seen as a mother figure as God has great creative powers that closely follow female creativity in birth and mothering.

I can’t say I recommend this book for everyone--it’s dense and it took me 3 weeks to read its 316 pages, even with 40 of those pages being notes/references. But I learned a lot and I will definitely be looking more closely at the language I and my religious constituents use in referring to God.

[Valeska · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book went on to the hot beverage and pastry shelf, but I may need to up my game on pastry, and say dinner or a whole cake.

It is a dense book - I had to pretend I was reading it at my old college library at first as it is very academic. She would mention other theologians and some I knew (Thomas Aquinas) and others I had to make use of the context clues.

Still, this is a great book if you ever have a hard time reconciling the culture that sometimes surrounds the concept of "Love Thy Neighbor" and the urge to smash the patriarchy. It laid the groundwork of a paradigm shift for me of thinking about God in the feminine. I always appreciated Saint Hildegard's writing on it, but this deep dive really helped me. I especially liked the part of thinking about the readings about Wisdom and the overall structure of the book. It got me really thinking about the trinity and the analogies about God that I had been taught over the years.

I have to caution though that there were some parts of the book that I thought were ahead of its time for a publication from the 1990s, but some others that I thought were a little dated - something to consider if you decide to pick this up.

About half way, I realized I would be getting more out of this if I was reading this book for a class. I hope to take courses at local universities when I retire, so thought I would look for this book on the syllabus. I then took it one more step. My alma mater has a campus in Door County where they host summer seminars, sometimes hosted by alumni. A college friend read this book while she was getting her masters in theology. I hope that she can be the teacher for the class, all our friends who would be interested can come to the class, and we can spend the morning talking about this book or other books about feminist theology (she can decide the syllabus), and then we can spend the week in Door County. I just need to figure out how I can suggest and then make courses at Bjorklunden come to life...

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A NOTED CATHOLIC FEMINIST THEOLOGIAN DISCUSSES "GOD LANGUAGE"

Elizabeth A. Johnson (born 1941) is a Christian feminist theologian and Professor of Theology at Fordham University, as well as a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph; she has also written books such as 'Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God,' 'Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit,' 'The Church Women Want: Catholic Women in Dialogue,' etc.

She wrote in the first chapter of this 1992 book, "My aim in what follows is to speak a good word about the mystery of God recognizable within the contours of Christian faith that will serve the emancipatory praxis of women and men... In so doing I draw on the new language of Christian feminist theology as well as on the traditional language of Scripture and classical theology..."

She defines Christian feminist theology as "a reflection on God and all things in the light of God that stands consciously in the company of all the world's women, explicitly prizing their genuine humanity while uncovering and criticizing its persistent violation in sexism, itself an omnipresent paradigm of unjust relationships." (Pg. 8)

She explains that her use of mainly female symbolism for God is "an investigation of a suppressed world directed ultimately toward the design of a new whole." (Pg. 57) Citing a talk by John Paul I (wherein he said that "God is our father; even more God is our mother"), she notes with approval, "God whose mystery cannot be expressed by any name nevertheless creates both male and female in the divine image, and can be spoken about in metaphors derived from either." (Pg. 172)

Johnson's book is a thought-provoking study of a not-often discussed issue, that of theological language.

[Jamjun Rorsoongnern · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I was assigned this for a graduate level feminist theology course) I believe that this is a perfect display of white christian feminism, reaching yet somehow failing to move toward action (especially in support of marginalized groups). If you’ve taken any intro WGS course before, it’s very easy to start poking holes and asking why the feminism presented is so diluted and conservative while being hailed as progressive and radical.

And let's not even get started on the whole "but for its time" excuse. There were folks like Lorde, Anzaldúa, Moraga, and Butler making more inclusive and radical womanist/feminist claims while also offering praxis to theory (and even in conversation with theology!). This seems like a strange pandering to feminists and conservative christians without sufficiently challenging either worldview. While it could serve as a workbook for honing/challenging one's feminist critical lens, it lacks the didactic depth and urgency found in works by theologians like Marcella Althaus-Reid and Pamela R. Lightsey, whose contributions offer genuinely radical perspectives within their field.

Furthermore, the text seems to perpetuate a troubling narrative of white feminist masochism, romanticizing suffering as a badge of honor and implying a perverse sense of privilege in enduring hardship. Overall, while not without merit, this text falls short of offering the transformative and inclusive feminist theology that contemporary discourse demands.

TDLR on my long rant: it's meh. overrated in some spaces, not horrible, but would have rather read other books.

[Chris Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnson provides a new human analog from the traditional patriarchal structures of theological inquiry and systematic theology. Approaching theology from a feminist perspective, she assures her endeavor is not to replace male God with female God, but to provide a new human analog from which we might imagine the being and act of God. To assume classical theology is "neutral" is a fallacy and she clearly shows how it is based on a androcentric view of God.

I found Johnson's musings on the Trinity through the Wisdom tradition to breathe fresh air into the concepts and systematics of trinitarian theology. I have personally grown to love personified wisdom in Scripture and find Sophia-God, Sophia-Jesus, and Spirit-Sophia to bring helpful and beautiful perspective into the conversation of trinitarian theology.

While Johnson's book is bringing feminist perspectives to classical theology, I found that it was not in the spirit of a replacement theology, but to show that more expansive language about God breathes life into theological discourse. "No language about God will ever be fully adequate to the burning mystery which it signifies. But a more inclusive way of speaking can come about that bears ancient wisdom with a new justice." Even with her particular feminist perspective, I think in the end she leaves room for queer theology, womanist, liberation, and more.

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book 100% slaps. It is a bit dense and requires a bit of a preliminary understanding of both feminism and theology (particularly with Western Christianity/Catholicism) to fully get into the text, but overall the concepts explored in this book were outstanding. The argument for presenting God in the non-binary or feminine pronouns is the main focus and I believe that it's very well done and really details the full explanation from the history to the philosophy of the concept.

I sort of wish it did touch more on Eastern theology and how the feminine pronouns for deities affect the belief systems of those religions. However, I think the few cameo mentions of Eastern theology versus Western were really well done and highlighted the argument well.

I'm just a big fan of this book. Everything from the initial argument that feminism is an act of service that all Christians should practice to one of the closing arguments that women should be angry by their divine right was glorious.

[Anabel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this scholarly work for Honors Theology. This is not likely something I would choose on my own, but I am grateful that I read this text. Feminist theological discourse is something I had never engaged in before, so it was a very interesting read. I was able to connect this to other parts of my life by having a repertoire of language to explain why patriarchal religion does not call to me in a discussion with a Jesuit priest. The concept of a Divine Feminine calls to me deeply and makes me see religion in a new context. It was definitely a difficult text to get through and I can’t say that I understood every part, but the larger pictures I gleaned were very satisfying.