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Episode one: Rules for the quest (17 min.)
Tom Fox asks, What are the ground rules for the journey of this quest to recognize the living God? Johnson names three: 1) God is an ineffable, incomprehensible mystery and we can never wrap our minds around the fullness of who God. 2) Therefore, every word we use to speak about God is metaphorical, symbolic or analogical. It always means that and more. 3) Therefore, we need many words, many names, many images, many adjectives for God. Each adds to the richness and texture and the greatness of what we mean when we say "God."
Episode two: The liberating God of life (20 min.)
"In the book of Exodus, when the slaves are in dire straits in Egypt, it's interesting that the God of Abraham does not identify with Pharaoh, which most deities do identify with the one in power, but instead chose the slaves as a very dear treasure," Johnson tells Fox. "That is the way God acts in the world when people are in oppressed suffering. Rather than siding with the oppressor, God is with the oppressed in order to liberate them."
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A sister in the congregation of St. Joseph who hails from Brooklyn, Elizabeth Johnson has been president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society.
She has served as a member of the national Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue, a consultant to the Catholic Bishops' Committee on Women in Church and Society, a theologian on the Vatican-sponsored dialogue between science and religion, and on the Vatican-sponsored study of Christ and the world's religions.
She is also the author of the much acclaimed She Who Is, as well as Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints, Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology, The Church Women Want, and Friends of God and Prophets. Today, Elizabeth Johnson is a distinguished professor of theology at Fordham University.