Bishops Attack Book by Elizabeth Johnson / God is Neither Male nor Female, but Female Images are in Bible and Christian Tradition/Bishops Awake!

By Paul Vitello

"Is God male? The Old Testament uses the masculine pronoun to describe him. Jesus refers to the divinity as Father. So does that make the creator a masculine force — and mean that men are more godlike than women? These are questions that theologians like Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson, a Fordham University professor, have been mulling for years. At 69, Sister Johnson is among the pioneers of a generation of feminist scholars who examine how cultural biases among biblical scribes may have led to women’s diminished roles in Western religious traditions, especially the Roman Catholic Church. The passages drawing the harshest admonishment, however, concerned Sister Johnson’s proposal that feminine as well as masculine imagery be used in prayers referring to God, a recommendation that has been debated and rejected by the bishops before. Still, the book persisted, “all-male images of God are hierarchical images rooted in the unequal relation between women and men, and they function to maintain this arrangement.” Wrong, the bishops said: If the Gospels use masculine imagery, it is because divine revelation would have it that way. “The names of God found in the Scriptures are not mere human creations that can be replaced by others that we may find more suitable,” the bishops wrote. “ Dr. Tilley, the Fordham theology chairman, described that argument as “approaching the incoherent.” “All revelation is received through language, and all language is culturally conditioned,” he said. “All they are saying here is that they have the truth and Sister Johnson doesn’t...”

Bridget Mary's Reflection:

Are the bishops really saying that God is male and the definitive argument is because the bible says so! Whatever happened to the basic teaching in the Baltimore Catechism that God is pure spirit! As Mary Daley observed years ago, that if God is male, then the male is God! But, bishops awake to the Divine Feminine. "Her "finger prints are all over our sacred tradition! Elizabeth Johnson is an outstanding theologian who has enriched theology with new and deeper understanding of the divine. In her award-winning book, She Who Is (New York, Crossroad, 1992) Johnson introduces us to a rich array of overlooked female metaphors in the Christian tradition. Here are a few biblical images in Johnson's landmark work: "Whether hovering like a nesting mother bird over the egg of primordial chaos in the Beginning (GN. 1a;2), or shelthering those in difficulty under the protective shadow of her wings (PS. 17:8, 36:7, 57:1,61:4m 91:1, 4, Is. 31;50 or bearing the enslaved up on her wings toward freedom (Ex. 19:4, Dt.32:11-12) divine Spirit activity is evoked with allusion to femaleness." (She Who Is, p. 83.) I wrote several books that present feminine imagery of God for prayer and contemplation: Exploring the Feminine Face of God, Delighting in the Feminine Divine, Heart Talks with Mother God (co-authored with Regina Madonna Oliver). In each of these books, I introduce readers to feminine images of God in the bible, Christian Tradition, and contemporary authors. Holy women and men throughout the ages have delighted in the feminine divine. Hildegard of Bingen uses feminine imagery to refer to the Spirit, Trinity and Wisdom. In Hildegard's first vision of the feminine divine, Hildegard describes a radiant woman surrounded by angels. Use of maternal imagery to describe God and Christ appears to be popular in the works of male saints like St Bernard Clairvaux. In several places, St. Augustine uses St. Matthew's image of mother hen:"Let us put our egg under the wings of that Hen of the Gospel." In her Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich provides us with the most comprehensive development of the Motherhood of God in the Christian tradition. According to Julian Divine Motherhood, is related to compassion and leads to compassionate living. Let us join the saints in delighting in the feminine divine, She Who Dwells Among Us!

Bridget Mary Meehan, RCWP Roman Catholic Women Priests Association www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org