Come On Guys! Where Is She?

Publisher is Crossroad/Herder & Herder; ISBN: 0824519256; 10th Annv.. edition (May 2002)

The Library Journal calls the book " Thoroughly orthodox, grounded in classical Christian thought, liberatingly contemporary, and rooted in Women's experience."

When I clicked on the title link to Barnes & Noble, I immediately encountered the suggestion that I might also like to read the following writings listed among books "closely related":

THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS, by Elaine Pagels (read it - liked it);

WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE, by Bishop John Shelby Spong (read it - partially agreed with it);

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, by Paul Tillich (not yet read but I'm interested because both Johnson and Spong quote Tillich);

GOD AND THE RHETORIC OF SEXUALITY, by Phyllis. Trible.

These writings all, to a certain degree, crash against the wall when it comes to widespread acceptance by our most public and accepted authorities of Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy.

Why?

Perhaps the reason for less-than-enthusiastic acceptance and support of this sort of thoughtful writing is because the writing is exactly that - thoughtful. It is also intellectual and academically complete with cites, quotes, notes and bibliographies galore.

What is there about thoughtful writing on Christian history and practice that leads to discomfort among the devoutly orthodox, particularly those of influence who seem to be the spokespersons for what is claimed to be the majority view?

One suggestion easily noticed is that the majority of the spokespersons are male and serve in callings based on authority founded in a literal interpretation of scripture. Johnson's writing speaks directly to this reality as the prime hindrance to a more useful and fulfilling practice of Christianity as a way of life.

Yet despite being her writing being " thoroughly orthodox and grounded in classical Christian thought", the resistance to what Johnson writes is part and parcel of more than two millennia of a blind and unreasonable acceptance of a patriarchal order within Christianity that is more and more being revealed as doubtful.

In order to read and write thoughtfully, one is greatly advantaged by an ability to think critically. Yet critical thinking seems to be one of those rash habits that causes unease and, when allowed to proliferate without censor, leads to the sort of exploding grenade reflected by Bishop Spong's writings.

More than 2000 years of Christian doctrine and philosophy has evolved from that which more and more appears to have been Roman editing of what became the Bible; a manipulation of facts, words and deeds - all intended to create secular and religious security. The source then of contemporary Christian beliefs and attitudes very much appears to have been a polluted well from which polluted water has been distilled into a modern polluted form.

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