Threshold Winter 2011

Sister Urges Listeners to Embrace Biocentric Spirituality

Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, distinguished professor of theology at Fordham University in New York, believes that the ecological crisis in our world today is calling for a conversion of minds and hearts to care for the earth. In her talk, “Christ and the Earth: Prepare to be Astonished,” at Benedictine College on Oct. 10, she showed how Christ’s ministry, resurrection, and incarnation have made all creation sacred.

Reminding her audience of the interconnectedness of all creatures since we all share a common ancestry, Sister Johnson explained how “our human actions are ravaging and depleting the natural world, shortchanging its identity as a dwelling place for life.” She believes that Jesus’ ministry directs us to love the whole created world and that by his death and resurrection he redeemed not only humanity but the whole cosmos. Moreover, by becoming flesh, he “joined with the sphere of the material and mortal to shed light on all from within,” she said.

“Given the close weave between the ministry, death/resurrection and incarnation of Jesus Christ and the natural world, we need to develop a theology, spirituality and ethics that are biocentric, not only anthropocentric,” Sister Johnson said. She sees a definite relationship between social injustice and environmental destruction, pointing out that the poor suffer disproportionately from earth’s devastation.

Sister Johnson is former president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the ecumenical American Theological Society. She has written numerous articles and books including She Who Is in which she explored the use of female images for God, and Quest for the Living God, which received first place from the Catholic Press Association in 2008. She once said: “I find being a theologian a humbling, exciting, tough and wondrous ministry in the Church.”

About 300 women religious, Benedictine College students and people from the area attended the 14th Mary L. Fellin lecture, established in honor of the aunt of Sister Jo Ann Fellin, professor emerita at Benedictine College. Previous speakers include Sisters Mary Collins and Mary Irene Nowell, OSB, and Kathleen Norris.

Pictured below: Sisters Anne Shepard, Elizabeth Johnson, and Jo Ann Fellin