Elizabeth A. Johnson

Creation and the Cross revolves around a single, central concern: how does the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth have anything to do with the salvation of the whole, created cosmos? In other words, how can we conceive of a fully ecological doctrine of the atonement?

The ways we imagine God and image Christ are significant to the directions of the church, the politics of its body, and the possibilities of its service. Theology has historically depicted God as male, claiming that the language of masculine pronouns is ‘more Biblical.’ Even those who express that male language is helpful (as metaphorical shorthand) may not wrestle with why this metaphor and not others. While it is integral to incarnational theology to respect the concreteness of God in the male form of Jesus, does the incarnation serve as the only possibility for expressing God’s particularity? Does the male God serve as the only possibility for the Christian imagination? What are the repercussions of patriarchy in theology? How have feminist theologians navigated a response that both acknowledges their theological inheritance and imagines this inheritance anew? This course hopes not only to raise these questions, but also to offer resources toward a cogent response.

Should holiness be conceived as a predicate (an attribute), a state (a mode of being) or an event (a process)? It can certainly be understood as God‘s primary attribute. This is how much of classical Christian theology sees it. It can also be thought of as a particular modus
of existence shared by God and the holy ones (the saints and the angels), as attested by much of Christian tradition and popular imagination. A more dynamic view of holiness can be found in Scripture and throughout Christian theological tradition; and yet, in the
modern era, it has been overshadowed by the first two tendencies. This article offers a tentative enquiry into an ‘evental’ account of holiness by drawing from (1) Niels Gregersen’s and Elizabeth Johnson’s reflection on ‘deep incarnation’ and ‘deep resurrection’ as well as (2) John B. Cobb’s and Marjorie Suchocki’s process theology of the Spirit. Firstly, the ‘from above’ approach to holiness, prevailing in modern Christian theology, is briefly discussed based on John Webster’s understanding of holiness as God’s personal moral relation to humanity. Secondly, I suggest an alternative ‘from below’ approach to holiness based on Gregersen’s and Johnson’s deep Christology. Thirdly, Cobb’s and Suchocki’s take on ‘creative transformation’ and Suchocki’s original appropriation of
Cobb’s insights on process pneumatology are used as a hermeneutic key to reinterpret holiness as an ‘evental’ category. Finally, the notion of the holiness of life is reconsidered in light of my proposal.

This course explores the contributions of contemporary Christian theologians by centering their texts around eleven doctrinal foci: theological language, theological method, scripture, God, the trinity, Christ (Christology), the Holy Spirit (pneumatology), creation, sin (hamartiology), salvation (soteriology), and the church (ecclesiology). Though the doctrinal foci are foundational to theology in every period, this course addresses how theologians of the last century have altered the stakes and assumptions of theological discourse. While respecting the traditional, doctrinal scaffolding, and its more contemporary structures, this course invites students to build their own, informed theological positions.

The African Jesus of Tinyiko Maluleke and the Christ of deep incarnation represent two radically different christological trajectories. While the deep incarnation theologians extend Jesus's body into social and cosmic bodies, Maluleke locates Jesus's body in the bodies of his fellow Africans. Each of these christological moves is interpreted as a manifestation, albeit in a different sense, of God's radical embodiment through Jesus in our world. African appropriations of Jesus stand out as a warning that even christologizing centered upon the category of "flesh" is at risk of remaining purely visionary unless it is done by and/or with those in whose own bodies Jesus is being crucified.

This paper intends to build a bridge between cognitive science and
feminist theology in terms of a notion of embodied interaction, which is
one of the key terms in those two fields. Of course, there are some
interesting concordances and discordances between them. Cognitive science shows that our ordinary experience is based upon our embodied interaction with the world, while Johnson’s feminist theology constructs a new image of God out of the embodied interaction of (suffering) woman with the world. Here, embodied interaction means that our experience is bodily based and that it is at the same time reciprocal. Further, it is agreed that our experience of being a self is fundamentally ‘fragmented’ and ‘multifaceted.’ For the bodily self is constructed by an intrusion of the subject, which is outside the established boundary of the self. That is, the self always emerges in the form of the Two (the between) with the subject. In addition to the initial betweenness of the self, the body has so many selves of bodily drives, mental faculties and emotions that there seems to be no center at all. This fragmentedness of the self has to be healed. On the one hand, for Johnson, it should be healed by forming in a radically equal and mutual relationship an eschatological solidarity with others who suffers, that is, by following Jesus’ model of the embodiment of Sophia.1) On the other hand, for cognitive scientists, the disunified multiple selves are to be integrated by “loving interactions” or by “the letting go of habits of mindfulness.”2) The former way is to re-appraise the divine in human ordinariness, and the latter is to liberate people from their illusion by taking off the false and illusory attachment to something unreal. Thus, although the two fields have different emphases, tasks and goals, there is an interesting consonance between feminist theology in Johnson and cognitive science: embodied interaction. My argument is that the shared notion of embodied interaction enables us to re-appreciate the ordinariness tangential to the transcendent and that the embodied interaction
should be performed in terms of ‘integration’ in this ordinariness.

All differences considered, the Christ of deep incarnation and the African Jesus of Tinyiko Maluleke share at least one fundamental dimension: they both stand out as signs of God's radical embodiment in the world of creation/of African culture(s). Put crudely, while the deep incarnation theologians extend Jesus' body into social and cosmic bodies, Maluleke locates Jesus' body in the bodies of his fellow Africans. This study first identifies major convergences and tensions between these two christological perspectives and, second, posits that the scandal of reciprocity, seen as a characteristic feature of African christologies, can be translated into a twofold guiding principle for approaching and assessing African Christianity theologically. There shall be neither separation nor confusion between Christ and creation. 1 Africans are taking Jesus by the hand, teaching him a few African "moves" and sensitising him to local issues and conditions. 2

This article is a study of Christology in which Christ, the center of cosmos, is on the side of creatures in pain. I examine the argument of Jesuit paleontologist and mystic Teilhard de Chardin that the whole universe is in the process of Christification. With Ilia Delio and Elizabeth A. Johnson, I contend that Christ takes the side of suffering creatures going extinct just like Christ opts for the people on the margins of power. First, I sketch a background in which natural evil must be placed within an evolutionary framework. Second, in highlighting Delio's and Johnson's views, I ask, where is Christ in evolution? Finally, I revisit christological notions implied in Colossians 1 and John 1.

S. Elizabeth A. Johnson CSJ to amerykańska teolożka zaliczana i zaliczająca się do nurtu reformistycznego w ramach teologii feministycznej. W swojej refleksji, jak wiele spośród teolożek feministycznych, proponuje wypracowanie nowego języka teologicznego i religijnego, który w lepszy sposób, niż miało to miejsce dotychczas, oddawałby prawdę o Trójjedynym Bogu i Jego Objawieniu. Reforma ta miałaby polegać jednak nie na zastąpieniu języka patriarchalnego matriarchalnym, lecz na takim zrównoważeniu go, by jako język prawdziwie inkluzywny z jednej strony przypominał o tym, że nie tylko mężczyźni, ale także kobiety na równi z nimi stworzone są na obraz i podobieństwo Stwórcy, z drugiej zaś, że On sam jest ponad podziałem na to, co męskie i żeńskie, zaś z konieczności ograniczony, ludzki język, przesiąknięty zawsze kulturą, w jakiej powstał i w jakiej funkcjonuje, nie oddaje nigdy w pełni prawdy o Nim – zawsze może i powinien jednak starać się przybliżać do pełni Prawdy, choć na zawsze pozostanie ona dla ludzi tajemnicą. Język jest nierozłącznie związany ze sposobem myślenia – jedno wpływa na drugie i odwrotnie, tak więc określony język jest wyrazem myśli, ale z drugiej strony, myśl też kształtowana jest przez język. Oznacza to więc, że język teologiczny wywodząc się z praktyki życia ma przełożenie na tę praktykę – zaakcentowanie pierwiastka żeńskiego/macierzyńskiego w Bogu wpłynąć więc ma nie tylko na pełniejsze mówienie o Nim, ale także na dowartościowanie kobiet w Kościele.

The article discusses the key issues raised by contemporary feminist Christology. It shows a feminist critique of traditional Christological themes. Subsequently, the text presents some hermeneutical assumptions of feminist teaching on Christ. It also mentions the main feminist interpretations of the life and teaching of Jesus and some attempts to answer the question of the personal identity of Jesus Christ. The article indicates a strong ideological dimension of feminist Christology which weakens the reliability and credibility of its results.