James Cone's "Christ in Black Essay

Open, View, and/or
Download this Document

Total Length: 1212 words ( 4 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1+

Page 1 of 4



Discuss the theological method of U.S. feminist theologians as presented by Elizabeth Johnson: What is the central question being addressed? Who is the audience? What are some of the sources used to enflesh the question and articulate the revelatory answer? How does she use traditional Christian symbols? How would you evaluate her theological position?

Johnson's theological platform is similar to that of Cone's, but, instead, focuses on a feminist agenda. Her frustration lies with God, for instance, still being alluded as 'He' by both by the Old Testament and by Jesus, for instance. The connotation, therefore, is that men (since God is portrayed as masculine) are more godlike than women.

For Johnson, cultural biases amongst biblical scribes and interpreters as well as commentators and traditionalists of the Catholic Church have resulted in women's diminished role in western religious traditions in general, and in the Catholic Church in particular.

In "She who is..," Johnson focuses on God as metaphor and symbolism of Christological perversion of gender equality. Man, in other words, uses the icon of God to promote himself and demote women by imbuing the Divine figurehead with masculine descriptivism and attributes.

In her book, Johnson conjoins both faith and feminism where as Johnson says she wrestles with the "central symbols of the Christian tradition." Johnson's discussion enters around God. Her opening question is our need to talk about God: after all, God is often associated with oppression, and God has been used as opiate to diverge form reality. However, talk about God shapes our highest values and directs the way we see the world as well as being "inseparable from solicitude for all creatures, and in particular for human beings" (14). The ultimate question, rather, is how we perceive and talk about God and here Johnson condemns the image of God as absolute male monarch arguing that we should better perceive Him in male and female terms.

Stuck Writing Your "James Cone's "Christ in Black" Essay?

View All Our Example James Cone's "Christ in Black Essay

Have A Custom Example Essay Written



Johnson proceeds to argue that God can be glimpsed from within female experience and alarming though it may sound God is revealed in all presence, therefore, "women's awakening to their own human worth can be interpreted at the same time as a new experience of God" (62).

Elaborating further on God, Johnson, being a Catholic, fleshes God out as Trinitarian. In fact, this is how she sees Him / her throughout her volume. The trinity rose out of the lived experience of early Christians, and Johnson argues that the idea of the Trinity, likewise, arises out of the experiences of contemporary women. Of the three, Spirit, Jesus, and Mother, the unity of God, she says, begins first with the Spirit for thus is female experience: that we intuitively react to the world and to phenomenon with Spirit, i.e. Intuition, rather than in the masculine, pragmatic, hard-handed reality.

Johnson's book concludes by discussion of God as Trinity qua Unity, and, again, this is where God or Trinity of Spirit is most obviously linked with women who best epitomize spirituality and the unity, equality, and capacity for friendship and love.

Centering her theological position on the impression of God as personality and particularly in a Trinitarian sense, some of Johnson's positions may be arguable and provocative (although many have often seen God as composite of both he and she). In short, Elizabeth Johnson is as much a specimen of unashamed Christian feminism as James Cone is of Black Theology......

Show More ⇣

     Open the full completed essay and source list


OR

     Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic


sample essay writing service

Cite This Resource:

Latest APA Format (6th edition)

Copy Reference
"James Cone's Christ In Black" (2011, June 13) Retrieved May 22, 2025, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/james-cone-christ-black-42490

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

Copy Reference
"James Cone's Christ In Black" 13 June 2011. Web.22 May. 2025. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/james-cone-christ-black-42490>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"James Cone's Christ In Black", 13 June 2011, Accessed.22 May. 2025,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/james-cone-christ-black-42490
   

Open, View, and/or
Download this Document
order custom essay example