A book about understanding God contains “misrepresentations, ambiguities, and errors that bear upon the faith of the Catholic Church,” according to a statement released March 30 by the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. The 21-page document stated that Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (Continuum, 2007) by Sister Elizabeth Johnson “does not take the faith of the Church as its starting point.”
Johnson is a distinguished professor of theology at Fordham University in New York and a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph in Brentwood, N.Y. Quest has served as a popular text at the undergraduate level, but the bishops recommended against its further use in the classroom.
Frank Oveis, Johnson’s former editor at Continuum, said he did not anticipate the book would generate controversy because Johnson had shown “the same breadth of approach” in her earlier books by “surveying a wide variety of theologians.”
David Barker, Continuum’s U.S. publishing director, also expressed “surprise”at the bishops’ statement, especially since it was made four years after the book’s publication. The controversy received significant coverage in both Catholic and general media outlets, including The New York Times and The L.A. Times . This increased attention has contributed to “a noticeable spike in interest in the book,” Barker said. It has gone back to press twice since the story broke, and the number of copies of Quest sold thus far in April is greater than the number sold in the previous 18 months combined.
“Our philosophy is to let the book stand and to let the debate happen,” Barker said. “I think it is part of a larger discussion between Catholic bishops and Catholic theologians. Sister Johnson issued one calm, dignified statement [in response to the bishops] and other than that she doesn’t really want to discuss it, and that’s fine.”
In her statement, issued March 30, Johnson wrote, “My hope is that any conversation that may be triggered by [the bishops’] statement will but enrich [the Catholic] faith, encouraging robust relationship to the Holy Mystery of the living God as the church moves into the future.” She said that the bishops’ statement “radically misinterprets what I think, and what I in fact wrote.”
Plans for a July 2011 paperback release of Quest will continue as scheduled. Barker said that the release date was scheduled prior to the controversy, and there are no plans to make any changes or additions to the book’s content.
