What If the Church Really is the Body of Christ?

Abstract : What does it mean to claim that the church is the body of Christ? Following the lead of the New Testament, Bonhoeffer, Jenson, and Hauerwas, this article articulates how the church becomes the body of Christ through the narrative of Scripture and the practices of worship. As Jesus Christ has a distinctive character, so also the body of Christ has a distinctive character. This character is described through the four classical marks of the church—one, holy, catholic, apostolic. These notae ecclesiae are to be interpreted not only in relation to the inner constitution of the church but ethically in relation to the church's calling to be “shalom church” for the life of the world in peacemaking, doing justice, caring for creation, and defending human dignity. Particular communal practices that embody this character are proposed for the life of the church.     

From body to body: A post‐gender politics for the cosmic homo1

This article engages in establishing some common ground, some human and humane politics for the global Luther, in contradistinction to the focus in much recent scholarship on difference/s as an almost hegemonic way of understanding human life. The aim is to move beyond feminist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial theories to a post‐gender politics by employing Judith Butler's concepts of performativity and “abject” bodies. Homo, the human being, will be the hermeneutical key for examining Luther's understanding of God's creation and incarnation as well as of baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the church. The aim is that of searching out Luther's differing performances of body, from the carnal body of the incarnate Christ and the human body to the spiritual body of church and community, and how these matter, materialize and intersect in the body of Christ as one body/homo.     

Christ, Spirit and Atonement

The Christian doctrine of the atonement is complex, not least in part because it must hold together the integrity of both divine and human being. Too often attempts to expound theologies of atonement have foundered because they have pitted divine and human action in competition one with the other. This article addresses itself to this problematic by suggesting three minimum conditions which must be met if this doctrine is to a give a theologically plausible account of salvation: first, that divine and human activity not be identified; second, that divine and human activity not be co-ordinated so as to complete or complement each other; and third, that neither divine nor human activity be rendered superfluous. The article elaborates upon these conditions by taking as its test case the Christian claim: God was in Christ.     

Toward the Fullness of Christ: A Catholic Vision of Ecumenism

This article locates the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's recent document Dominus Iesus against the background of great ecumenical advance in North America and elsewhere and a series of highly encouraging ecumenical statements published by John Paul II. Its most contentious statement is a reiteration and clarification of the Vatican II teaching in Lumen Gentium that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. It distinguishes among churches in the proper sense, with valid episcopate and eucharist, and defective ecclesial communities. The church of Christ cannot subsist in them but only in the Catholic Church. The article points out, nevertheless, that since all these bodies are recognized as having elements of the church, the operation of grace is still ecclesial and not individual and secondly that a pneumatologically orientated Christology sees ecumenism as a response in grace to the divine economy.     

Aquinas and the unity of Christ: a defence of compositionalism

Thomas Aquinas is often thought to present a compositionalist model of the incarnation, according to which Christ is a composite of a divine nature and a human nature, understood as concrete particulars. But he sometimes seems to hedge away from this model when insisting on the unity of Christ. I argue that if we interpret some of his texts on the assumption of straightforward compositionalism, we can construct a defence of Christ’s unity within that context. This defence involves the claim that the divine unity is so great, and the relation between Christ’s two natures so unusual, that the divine unity can be transferred to the composite Christ as a “borrowed property”.     

THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS: RETHINKING THE ROLE OF SEXUAL DIFFERENCE IN THE THEOLOGY OF HANS URS VON BALTHASAR

Sexual difference plays a pivotal role in Balthasar's thought, as an analogy for the Trinity and as an analogy for the relation between Christ and the church. This essay examines the influence of the analogy of being on his interpretations of these analogies, his understanding of created masculinity, and his use of the language of sexual difference for the Holy Spirit. Ultimately many of Balthasar's best insights about human love as an analogy for divine love can be retained without connecting femininity uniquely with creation, and his trinitarian theology provides the best interpretive key for doing so.     

A Search for the Body: Is there Space for Christ's Body in Pannenberg's Eschatology?

Pannenberg's thought makes a constant appeal to ‘anticipation’, and this concept depends on a metaphysical proposal, temporalized essentialism, which includes an account of eternity as simultaneity of all history in God. This view of eternity has been both applauded and criticized. This article considers Pannenberg's account of the body of the exalted Christ who is in eternity. Pannenberg affirms the resurrection of Jesus, but has no account of the nature of Jesus’ resurrected body. He emphasizes the church as the body of the exalted Christ, but describes this body as lacking particularity. His account of the Eucharist does not have any place for Christ's corporeal presence or for participation in Christ's exalted body. His account of the return of Christ is oriented to the revelation of the glorified unity of all reality in Christ. The reason that Pannenberg has no account of the body of Christ is due to his conception of eternity, a conception which differs markedly from that of Paul. The Pauline heavenly realm is part of the creation, and thus has a spatio‐temporal relationship to the earthly realm as well as having a spatio‐temporal dimension in itself. Pannenberg's conception of eternity is that it is outside of the created realm and has no spatial dimension. Douglas Farrow argues that a theology that lacks an account of the exalted body of Christ fails to have a proper account of the redemption of humanity and creation, and it seems Pannenberg's view is open to this criticism.     

Reconciliation and Mission

This article discusses the message and ministry of reconciliation with a view to both its biblical content and its contemporary missional application. Within a salvation historical framework of missio Dei, the article outlines the biblical narrative about human beings created in the image of God for personal relationships with God, self, other people, and nature; the fall in sin and the human predicament that necessitate reconciliation; the historical reconciliation provided by God through the incarnation, atoning death, and victorious resurrection of Christ (the first stage); the message of reconciliation in the mission of the church; the present reception of reconciliation through faith in that message (the second stage); and the results of reconciliation both in relation to God (“vertical reconciliation”) and among human beings in the church and in the world (“horizontal reconciliation”), with an emphasis on peace, unity, love, forgiveness, righteousness, and freedom. Christ’s victory over and subjugation of all evil spirit powers are described as “cosmic reconciliation.” Because reconciliation may be partial in this world where sin still exists and evil powers are active, the eschatological hope is for a final reconciliation where the relationships to God, to other human beings, and to a recreated world are renewed and consummated.     

Voices and Visions from the Margins on Mission and Unity: A disability‐informed reading of the Pauline metaphor of the church as the body of Christ

Disability studies from a missional perspective in the Indian context are rare. Mission and unity cannot be “talked” about without the active inclusion of those in the margins; rather, they are the subject of mission and unity of the church which, in Pauline language, is the body of Christ. With the help of a disability‐informed reading of the Pauline metaphor of church as the body of Christ, an attempt is made to understand the integral constituent of this “body” and its mission and unity. Our deliberations on the metaphor of body make it amply clear that “weaker” members are indispensable for the mission and unity of the church. They are the paradigm for the manifestation of God. Mission and unity of the church depend on the inclusion and equal participation of the margins—the disabled.     

Becoming No-Thing: Eckhart and Hegel on Identity and Difference

Abstract: My goal in this paper is to draw productively on Meister Eckhart's concept of the ‘no-thing’ in order to illuminate Hegel's ontotheological account of both human and divine kenosis. I advance the view that just as divine kenosis is understood as the outpouring of the divine which includes the death of Christ in its economic activity, human kenosis also requires an engagement with death, namely, a spiritual death to the finite. It is via this species of death which is a becoming ‘no-thing’ that the reconciliation between the human and the divine is disclosed as a unity that relies on the shared identity of the divine and the human while simultaneously respecting the integrity of both. Indeed, it is in and through their parallel activity of kenosis that finite and infinite being achieve their respective transcendence by necessarily engaging with the being of the other. Hence, Hegel's ontotheological work is not reducible to sheer immanentism as some scholars suggest, but instead upholds the genuine transcendence of the divine.     

Body Without End: Biological Mutualism and the Body of Christ

This article argues that the ecological turn towards biological mutualism enlivens our understanding of the eschatological promise contained in Christ’s resurrected and ascended body. I examine the implications of proposing that Christ’s body was not only incarnate as microbiome, but also rose and ascended as microbiome. First, I analyse contemporary approaches to Christology’s relation to creation and Andrew Davison’s theological exploration of mutualism. I then respond via Irenaeus’ defence of Christ’s bodily resurrection and ascension as promise for all flesh. By reading Irenaeus in light of the mutualistic body, we enrich our understanding of this promise: of fruitfulness for all creation, of fullness for human nature, and that fleshly life is no ultimate barrier to union with God. Finally, I propose that this reading also offers renewed insight into the Eucharist: this promise and its implications are also made manifest at the heart of the church, Christ’s body on earth.     

BEMBA MYSTICO-RELATIONALITY AND THE POSSIBILITY OF ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE (AGI) PARTICIPATION IN IMAGO DEI

This article interrogates the challenge artificial general intelligence (AGI) poses to religion and human societies, in general. More specifically, it seeks to respond to “Singularity”—when machines reach a level of intelligence that would put into question the privileged position humanity enjoys as imago Dei. Employing the Bemba notion of mystico-relationality in dialogue with the concepts of the “created co-creator” and Christ the Key, it argues for the possibility of AI participating in imago Dei. The findings show that imaging is a fluid, participatory activity that aims at likeness, but also social harmony. It also argues that God is the only original creator, humans are created creators, and that every aspect of visible existence, including AI, is inherently divine imaging. However, strong imaging is only attainable based on the only One and True Image—Christ, whose union of the material and the divine means that all creation can image, excluding nothing, even AI.     

Law and Gospel,or the Law of the Gospel? Karl Barth’s Political Theology Compared with Luther and Calvin

This essay is an attempt to understand the significance of Barth's redefinition of the "law/gospel" rubric for political theology. Barth's thought is exposited at length, and illumined by comparison with Luther and Calvin. Luther emphasizes the distance between gospel and the law, distinguishing between serving God in the secular regiment, and serving Christ in the spiritual regiment. He thereby challenges the improper relation of state and church, but does so in a manner that can lead to a passive dualism. Calvin holds that preaching the law to the state includes preaching the gospel; thus, the church has a positive vision against which it can evaluate the state's service to God in Christ. This leads, however, to the danger of a 'clerical guardianship' of the state.
Barth finds a positive connection between the two governments in the fact that both communities are based in Christ, in whom the gospel is their law. This grounds his high view of the state as predecessor to the heavenly kingdom, as well as a prophetic mission of the church to the state. This does not lead to a new Christendom, however, first, because Barth hopes not for a kingdom wrought by human hands, but for the Theocracy of God, and second, because Barth sees the fallen reality of both church and state, the state pagan and violent, and the church a poor witness. In the end, though Barth makes a strong case for supporting theological critique of the state, while avoiding Constantinianism, he is unable to solve the problem of how to connect the gospel and the law in the civil community.     

Logos and Logoi Ensarkos: Christology and a Problem of Perception

Abstract:  The question of how we perceive objects remains a highly mysterious issue. One particular problem is how the primary perceivable properties of objects relate to their secondary properties, in particular how secondary properties can equally be true of objects. John Locke offered two possibilities: dispositionalism and divine action. Unfortunately, both fail to relate primary and secondary properties in the object. In this article I argue that the means to overcome this disjunction is christological – by interpreting objects in their primary and secondary properties as existing in ontological derivation from the Christ who eternally will become incarnate.     

Stoic and Epicurean? Calvin's Dialectical Account of Providence in the Institute

Abstract: Calvin's account of providence demonstrates an awareness of the widely differing views of classical philosophers, particularly Stoics and Epicureans, on the subject. His own presentation stresses divine transcendence even more than Epicurean teaching had, whilst simultaneously asserting a more intimate involvement of God in the created order than any Stoic managed. The hypostatic union of the divine and the human natures in Christ offers Calvin a way of holding together the two sides of this dialectical teaching.     

Baptism and the Soteriology of Forgiveness

This article examines the relation of Christian baptism to the saving work of God in Christ. In critical conversation with the later work of Barth, the article argues that baptism, as visible word, both attests and mediates divine forgiveness. Consequently, baptism with water and baptism with the Holy Spirit are not to be bifurcated from each other. Believer's baptism is the norm, although infant baptism is not excluded. Baptism exemplifies the koinonia of divine and human action without falling into synergism, and without appealing to inappropriate notions of causality.     

The Mediation of Redemption in Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre

Abstract:  In §24 of the Glaubenslehre , Friedrich Schleiermacher conceives of a 'provisional antithesis' between Protestantism – which 'makes the individual's relation to the Church dependent on his relation to Christ'– and Catholicism – which 'makes the individual's relation to Christ dependent on his relation to the Church'. This antithesis has been criticized for defining a Protestantism that is inconsistent with the (Protestant) theology of redemption presented elsewhere in the Glaubenslehre . This article seeks to refute this criticism, arguing that while Schleiermacher acknowledges the roles of both Christ and the church in redemption, he ultimately gives theological priority to the former.