Florida Catholic | Sister Elizabeth Johnson

Looking at God through different lenses

Distinguished theologian, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, says lived experiences of 20th century are giving rise to new theologies about God.

ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC MIAMI BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 01.11.08

Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph and professor of theology at Fordham University, will speak Monday, Jan. 14, at Barry University.

Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, PH.D, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph and professor of theology at Fordham University, will speak on the topic, “The Banquet of the Creed,” Monday, Jan. 14, at Barry University. She is an author of award-winning books, lectures worldwide, and is past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.
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Those questions have answers in new theologies of faith that have arisen since the mid-20th century, said Sister Elizabeth Johnson, distinguished professor of theology at Fordham University.

The answers come from the lived experiences of people in different places: post-Holocaust Germans, Hispanics in Latin America and Christians concerned about the environment.

“There’s a renaissance going on in ideas about God in our day, in different parts of the world,” said Sister Johnson, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph who profiles 10 of those theologies in her new book, “Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God.”

The book is an attempt to bring those theologies to the “people in the pew,” said Sister Johnson, who will speak on the subject when she visits south Florida Monday, Jan. 14, to receive the Yves Congar Award for Theological Excellence given by Barry University.

“So many people are hungry for good spirituality, for a good relationship with God,” Sister Johnson told the Florida Catholic in a telephone interview prior to her arrival. “Sometimes our ideas of God don’t feed us well enough. They’re not full of life. I wanted this book to be able to feed people.”

She compared today’s theologies to the four Gospels, which provide “four different angles on Jesus,” even though the message is the same.

Matthew, for example, can cast Jesus as the new Moses because he is writing to Jewish believers. But that same analogy would have been lost on Luke’s Greek-speaking gentiles.

The same principle is at work today.

“Different people are going to respond to God differently,” said Sister Johnson. “We have one faith that unites the whole church, but the understanding has different colors, different angles, because people’s lives are different in different places and different cultures.”

The goal of her book is “to get the ideas that theologians are talking about out in circulation to the people of the church,” so that everyone will benefit, just as believers today benefit from reading all four Gospels rather than just one.

“My conviction is the way you believe God to be shapes your life, because you’re trying to be like God. It affects your behavior,” Sister Johnson said. “The more you understand, the deeper it gets in your own heart and in your own life.”

“It’s so enriching to know that the ideas that we have about God are growing and developing,” she added. “I think it’s the work of the Holy Spirit. We keep going back to the Bible and finding new things there.”

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