The annual presentation and celebration of the Yves Congar Award for Theological Excellence on Monday, January 14, 2007, was a feast of scholarship, insight, and tradition for the community of Barry University and South Florida. The 2008 Congar Award recipient Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, New York, and internationally renowned Catholic theologian, delighted and inspired the hundreds in attendance at her lecture “The Banquet of the Creed” in which she plumbed the theological and religious depths of the Nicene Creed. Emphasizing the liberating potential of the creed for the community of faith, Johnson stated, from “the opening words ‘We believe,’ the people saying this prayer are engaged in act of faith…. reaching out …with their whole being, risking a relationship that has the power to transform their lives.”
Johnson set forth the banquet in terms of several key affirmations that believers proclaim in this Creed, beginning with “We believe in one God,” whose “first signature act” is that of Creator of “all that exists, in heaven and on earth, whether visible or invisible.” In this affirmation of the tradition, Christians acknowledge that God does not exist in isolated splendor, but in relationship to a cosmos dependent on its Creator for its existence and sustenance. Moreover, this is a cosmos that speaks eloquently of its Creator – each creature a unique channel of God’s self-communication to people of faith. Such affirmation of belief, furthermore, has received a new dynamism in the dialogue between Christian faith and evolutionary science. From this dialogue, Christians learn three key insights. First, “the Maker of heaven and earth is still in business….approaching with a call to ‘come ahead’ into the future…. promoting novelty in the world of nature.” Second, the cosmos is understood to possess intrinsic value, loved and created by God for its own sake. “Far from being just a backdrop for our lives,” Johnson insists, creation “is a sacrament of divine presence, a locus of divine compassion, and the bearer of a divine promise that keeps opening it up to a fresh and unexpected future.” Third, this understanding calls Christians to develop a life-affirming and ecologically responsible way of being within the community of the cosmos. “Countering the sins of ecocide and biocide, we must take action on behalf of the natural world, advocating its care, protection, restoration, and healing, even if these go counter to powerful economic and political interests, and they do.”
Her emphasis on a life-affirming theology that values the material world and embodiment, led to her reflection on the second affirmation of the Creed, “We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.” This affirmation draws Christians into the paschal mystery of the Word-made-flesh, who, in his life and ministry, suffering and death, resurrection and ascension, incarnates the eternal God at a particular moment of history. In this Incarnation, Jesus enfleshes God’s radically preferential option for those who are oppressed and inspires the countercultural challenge to racism, poverty, and sexism – a challenge that is embodied in “the struggle of millions of people for human rights, equality, and a decent life.” This prophetic ministry, Johnson maintained, led to Jesus’ death on the cross. Hence, the crucifixion is seen “Not as a death required by God in repayment for sin, but as an event of divine love whereby the Creator of the world entered into intimate contact with human darkness, sin, and misery in order to heal, redeem, and liberate.” In the Incarnation, God enters into solidarity “with all those who suffer and are lost in this violent world, thereby opening up the promise of new life.”
This promise of new life opens out into the third affirmation of the Creed, “We believe in the Holy Spirit.” It is the Holy Spirit, in union with the other persons of the Trinity, who “gives life, inspires prophets, upholds the church, consecrates people through baptism and the forgiveness of sins, and ensures the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” Johnson emphasized that “We are in an age of great rediscovery of the importance of baptism for the spiritual dignity and empowerment of the laity, which includes women, in the church.” Furthermore, quoting the words of St. Augustine, “If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive,” Johnson reminded her listeners that, in the Eucharist, “you become the Body of Christ, a crumb of bread in the Bread and a drop of wine in the cup, meant to nourish the world.”
It is to these affirmations that Christians say “Amen” at the conclusion of the Creed – “Amen” to the great mystery of the Triune God who continuously creates, heals, redeems, and liberates a world of great suffering and yet with great promise. Inspired by this promise, Johnson concluded, we, like runners in a relay, pass the torch of faith from generation to generation, reminding those who come after that “To be a Christian means to feast at this banquet of the creed, to experience its strength and truth, to let its nourishment pervade one’s heart and soul, mind and will and emotions…to hear a call to adventure.” To those assembled for her Congar Award lecture, Elizabeth A. Johnson was herself the purveyor of the feast, the exemplar of its strength and truth, and the guide for a profound adventure. Further development of Johnson’s insights on the Creed may be found throughout her new book Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, published by Continuum. |
Barry President Sister Linda Bevilacqua, OP, PhD, and chair of the Department of Theology and Philosophy, Rev. Mark Wedig, OP, PhD, present Sister Elizabeth Johnson, PhD, CSJ, with the 2008 Yves Conger Award. |
