Editors anyone?
Oct. 11th, 2004 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theatokosMy lovely laptop has died. It is black, cold, and quiet. Of course it had to die the day before my first real writing assignment of the semester. So I sit in the icky school lab. Now, I can't seem to access my email account. I was going to email this brief review of Elizabeth Johnson's book Truly Our Sister to a certain poet for a last look over. It's due tomorrow. I'll post it here and if anyone has feed back, feel free.
In her book Truly Our Sister, Elizabeth Johnson has nobly tackled a large and important area of Catholic thought and spirituality, that of the role and understanding of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Johnson insists that Mary be brought back into the community of saints, of those believers living and struggling in the faith, as a strictly historical figure, definable by name, gender, ethnicity, and social-location. Respectfully, yet boldly, she begins her book with an overview and critique of just about every way Mary has been used and written about for fifteen hundred years. She is especially critical of concept of the Divine Feminine that has raised up Mary at the expense of actual living women. By claiming Mary as the perfect woman in both her ultimate motherhood and her ultimate virginity, flesh and blood women are caught in a catch-22, since no actual woman is capable of being a (physical) mother and maintaining physical virginity. While reading this section of the book I was intrigued and excited to see where her abandonment of conventional Mariology would lead; I was to be left dissatisfied.
The second half of the book is an historical and exegetical retelling of Mary’s life. While she proved to be a capable historian and Biblical scholar, her detail was at times overwhelming. Her efforts want so much to place Mary as a concrete historical figure, to unearth a flesh and blood woman that living women today can claim as sister. Johnson reflects her American education and place in the times by trying to demythologize Mary and get at her historical roots. This creates a significant problem.
If we do desire to approach Mary as a living, breathing historical figure we have about as much to go on as we when approaching Jesus from the same angle. Despite the many pages Johnson spends exegeting each and every verse that mentions Mary, there isn’t much in the way of cold hard fact with which to construct a person, let alone one that has as rich and complicated a history as does the Virgin Mary. By attempting to remove all symbolism from her, Johnson also removes much of the beauty from the character of Mary. I wonder if she would approve of or find as beautiful a portrait of Jesus that seeks solely to present him as a historical being. Never does Johnson claim that we must abandon all faith and mystery in our veneration of Mary or in our belief in Christianity, yet the overarching point this book attempts to drive home is that the elevation of Mary as a symbol has been detrimental to women and must be replaced with an historical Mary, thought of as sister, not as Holy Mother.
I believe this is a partial step in the right direction; for it is true, and eloquently argued in the first six chapters of the book, that Mary has been abused by a patriarchal church in their efforts to subjugate women. However, Mary in all her near goddess glory has been an instrument of immense hope and power for women and men throughout the centuries. By reducing her to merely a flesh and blood woman and eliminating many of her heightened spiritual virtues and powers, Christianity loses a meaningful symbol of the holiness of women. Instead of reforming the symbol, she abandons it entirely and women are left without a concrete divine image to which they can relate. If Christians are not to look to Mary for a feminine face of the divine, then a radical restructuring of God must occur. Perhaps Johnson has forgotten that beyond theological discourse and the most enlightened ministers, God remains deeply entrenched in masculine imagery and an alienating figure to many, many women.
Oddly enough, there seem to be few formal responses to this book. The National Catholic Weekly, online at Americanmagazine.com, and Spiritualityhealth.com both reviewed the book and sang its praises. Only a review at University of Dayton commented on the need to retain transformative symbols as part of our understanding of Mary. Ultimately, it is the symbol that retains the meaning over time. We are two thousand years removed from the lived experiences of Jesus and Mary; they are not our flesh and blood brother and sister, they are the symbols in which we place our hope.
I obviously disagree with Johnson’s premise, or at the very least see the need for further explication of her points. In attempting to do so much, she ultimately falls short of doing enough. Her hope of grounding Mary in the historical continuity of believers creates a hole within the Christian tradition: where are we to look to now to see the Divine dwelling in woman? As flawed and incomplete a book as it is for all its detail, I believe that Truly Our Sister is a valuable contribution to the growth and understanding of feminist Mariology – it will provide background for those who are just setting out in their exploration of this field and it will frustrate scholars and devotees of the Blessed Virgin, good things all.
Thanks!
In her book Truly Our Sister, Elizabeth Johnson has nobly tackled a large and important area of Catholic thought and spirituality, that of the role and understanding of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Johnson insists that Mary be brought back into the community of saints, of those believers living and struggling in the faith, as a strictly historical figure, definable by name, gender, ethnicity, and social-location. Respectfully, yet boldly, she begins her book with an overview and critique of just about every way Mary has been used and written about for fifteen hundred years. She is especially critical of concept of the Divine Feminine that has raised up Mary at the expense of actual living women. By claiming Mary as the perfect woman in both her ultimate motherhood and her ultimate virginity, flesh and blood women are caught in a catch-22, since no actual woman is capable of being a (physical) mother and maintaining physical virginity. While reading this section of the book I was intrigued and excited to see where her abandonment of conventional Mariology would lead; I was to be left dissatisfied.
The second half of the book is an historical and exegetical retelling of Mary’s life. While she proved to be a capable historian and Biblical scholar, her detail was at times overwhelming. Her efforts want so much to place Mary as a concrete historical figure, to unearth a flesh and blood woman that living women today can claim as sister. Johnson reflects her American education and place in the times by trying to demythologize Mary and get at her historical roots. This creates a significant problem.
If we do desire to approach Mary as a living, breathing historical figure we have about as much to go on as we when approaching Jesus from the same angle. Despite the many pages Johnson spends exegeting each and every verse that mentions Mary, there isn’t much in the way of cold hard fact with which to construct a person, let alone one that has as rich and complicated a history as does the Virgin Mary. By attempting to remove all symbolism from her, Johnson also removes much of the beauty from the character of Mary. I wonder if she would approve of or find as beautiful a portrait of Jesus that seeks solely to present him as a historical being. Never does Johnson claim that we must abandon all faith and mystery in our veneration of Mary or in our belief in Christianity, yet the overarching point this book attempts to drive home is that the elevation of Mary as a symbol has been detrimental to women and must be replaced with an historical Mary, thought of as sister, not as Holy Mother.
I believe this is a partial step in the right direction; for it is true, and eloquently argued in the first six chapters of the book, that Mary has been abused by a patriarchal church in their efforts to subjugate women. However, Mary in all her near goddess glory has been an instrument of immense hope and power for women and men throughout the centuries. By reducing her to merely a flesh and blood woman and eliminating many of her heightened spiritual virtues and powers, Christianity loses a meaningful symbol of the holiness of women. Instead of reforming the symbol, she abandons it entirely and women are left without a concrete divine image to which they can relate. If Christians are not to look to Mary for a feminine face of the divine, then a radical restructuring of God must occur. Perhaps Johnson has forgotten that beyond theological discourse and the most enlightened ministers, God remains deeply entrenched in masculine imagery and an alienating figure to many, many women.
Oddly enough, there seem to be few formal responses to this book. The National Catholic Weekly, online at Americanmagazine.com, and Spiritualityhealth.com both reviewed the book and sang its praises. Only a review at University of Dayton commented on the need to retain transformative symbols as part of our understanding of Mary. Ultimately, it is the symbol that retains the meaning over time. We are two thousand years removed from the lived experiences of Jesus and Mary; they are not our flesh and blood brother and sister, they are the symbols in which we place our hope.
I obviously disagree with Johnson’s premise, or at the very least see the need for further explication of her points. In attempting to do so much, she ultimately falls short of doing enough. Her hope of grounding Mary in the historical continuity of believers creates a hole within the Christian tradition: where are we to look to now to see the Divine dwelling in woman? As flawed and incomplete a book as it is for all its detail, I believe that Truly Our Sister is a valuable contribution to the growth and understanding of feminist Mariology – it will provide background for those who are just setting out in their exploration of this field and it will frustrate scholars and devotees of the Blessed Virgin, good things all.
Thanks!
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Next Stop: Conjunction Junction...Mind the Gap
Date: 2004-10-11 03:39 pm (UTC)1. The phrase, with an overview and critique of just about every way Mary has been used drops right out of the critical academic voice and right into the excited twelve year old voice. You should replace it with something like a comprehensive critical examination of the ways in which Mary has been used over the centuries. That last part is a bit cliche, but you get the point.
2. When using an aside you need to separate it with commas: I wonder if she would approve of, or find as beautiful, a portrait of Jesus that seeks solely to present him as a historical being.
3. You need a comma here to join the phrases: Spiritualityhealth.com both reviewed the book, and sang its praises
Well done.
A.
Re: Next Stop: Conjunction Junction...Mind the Gap
Date: 2004-10-11 07:06 pm (UTC)