Elizabeth Johnson is 6th Annual Commonweal Lecturer
“Elizabeth Johnson is unquestionably one of a handful of top theologians in the Catholic Church today,” says Dr. Paul Lakeland, Fairfield’s Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J. Professor of Catholic Studies. In fact, he adds, “She is the premier American Catholic feminist theologian.”
Professor Johnson is currently researching Darwin’s idea of evolution in relation to the doctrine of creation so as to make care of the earth an inescapable part of Christian life. Her talk, “Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love,” will be held at the Dolan School of Business on Wednesday, April 17 at 8 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
Certainly, Elizabeth Johnson has no shortage of honors to her credit. She has been given honorary degrees from a dozen institutions of higher learning, including Villanova, Siena, Le Moyne and the College of New Rochelle. She is the former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, and former president of the American Theological Society. Currently, she is a Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University and was awarded Fordham’s Teaching Award in 1998.  She is perhaps best known for her book, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1992), and for her 2007 work, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, which the Catholic Press Association awarded first place in the category of Academic Theology in 2008.
Wednesday’s lecture is sponsored by the Center for Catholic Studies in conjunction with Commonweal magazine.
