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(Paperback - 10TH ANNIVERSARY)
With a voice at once prophetic, poetic, and scholarly, Johnson shows how the traditional understanding of God as male can make room for the feminine God, and how the experience of women everywhere enriches our view of God and our spiritual lives.
Johnson offers the most solidly based case to date for using women's experiences and female images to describe the Christian experience of God. Using historical references from the Cappadocians to Kasper and Moltmann and sensitive to the experiences of women today, Johnson shows how feminist language about God belongs in our pulpits and at our altars.
As perhaps the best book of feminist theology to date, She Who Is is at once thoroughly orthodox, grounded in classical Christian thought, liberatingly contemporary, and rooted in women's experience. Johnson reviews the history of Christian language about God and explains the need for feminist language about God, thereby providing background for nontheologians. She then develops an inclusive and creative Christian spiritual doctrine. Highly recommended for all collections serving educated lay readers, theologians, and clergy.
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August 23, 2000: This book is a remarkable balance of scholarship and inspiration. The author, who also wrote Consider Jesus, has a mastery of Christian theology, including patristic and medieval. She has also incorporated a great deal of contemporary reflection on the suffering God and God's love and compassion. What impressed me most about the book, however, is that while the author sees how important language is in determining how people believe and how they understand themselves and God, she herself isn't just playing language games. Her analysis of sophia, Jesus, and God is all done in the service of seeking truth, a truth that is both informative and inspiring. Surely not everyone will agree with Johnson's ideas, but she is such a clear and balanced writer, even those who disagree will be challenged by her book. I recommend it highly.