Title : She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse
Author : Elizabeth A. Johnson
Year : 1992
Keywords : feminism, feminist theology, patriarchy
"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.
NGH.
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