Body Of Christ Research Articles

Knowledge bloats, love builds: Paul on how we are (not) to know things

Abstract Paul's epistemology was famously mapped onto his eschatology by J. Louis Martyn, but it must be mapped also onto his ecclesiology. For Paul, knowing is bound always and indissolubly to living with others. To understand how Paul would have us know things, then, we must focus not on knowledge as such, but on epistemic practices in ecclesial communities. Whereas the Corinthians’ use of wisdom and knowledge made for fragmentation and dissolution in the body of Christ (1 Cor 1–4; 8–10), Paul would have practices with knowledge instantiate communion and care for one another, as is proper for Christ's body. Integral to theological knowing is a sense of what and whom theology is for, a sense being critically explored in recent evaluations of theological education.

Barokowe „wojny” (z) ciałem

The article presents the topic of the allegorical war against the body, which in the post-Tridentine culture was perceived in an ambivalent way: as sinful and evil and as good because it was the work of God. Allegorical battles were also presented, in which the body is a tool in battle. Attention was paid to the sources of this ambivalence – the dualistic nature of man. The different needs of the soul and body have the nature of a conflict. The fight for man is fought by: Amor Divinus and Amor profanus. The bodies of people who lived piously and wanted to achieve mystical union with Christ are shown in the laudatory theme – similarly to. The bodies of sinners who succumbed to sensual temptations during their lives are depreciated, despised, presented in turpistic aesthetics, and ultimately condemned to the torments of hell. The ancient sources of this type of imagery were indicated – the ideas of Plato, the thought of Seneca and Horace – and the affiliations between ancient culture and post-Tridentine poetry. It has been established that the Body of Christ has a unique status. Descriptions of the tormented Jesus, permeated with brutal naturalism, were intended to provoke reflection and influence the conversion of sinners. The Judeo-Christian tradition and the heritage of Greco-Roman antiquity were transformed and adapted to the post-Tridentine culture in the 17th century.

Biblical reconciliation: Preaching unity in the face of Christian nationalism and political schism

The post-Obama era in the United States has been marked by a deepening political divide, particularly within the Christian community, influenced by Christian nationalism and its entanglement with evangelical theology. This article examines the roots of this divide, tracing its origins to the fusion of White evangelical identity with national identity and the politicization of evangelical beliefs. Drawing on 2 Cor 5:10-20, the article explores the apostle Paul’s emphasis on Christ’s reconciling love and the believer’s role as ambassador of reconciliation. Analyzing the impact of divisive identity politics and ideological polarization on the unity of the Christian community, the article proposes a return to preaching the transformative power of Christ’s love to disentangle believers from political schisms while nurturing unity. The ministry of reconciliation is not merely a theoretical concept but a practical imperative for actively bridging divides and sharing the message of unity in Christ. Through a radical shift in perspective, focusing on Christ’s love rather than ideological positions, a Gospel-centered approach enables navigating political tensions and fosters unity within the body of Christ. Ultimately, preaching unity amid political schisms is not only a theological mandate but essential for embodying the transformative message of the Gospel in a divided world.

«O tempo de falar chegou!» Significado e importância teológico-política do Apelo à Nobreza Cristã da Nação Alemã (12 de agosto de 1520)

The text Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, written in August 1520, is one of Martin Luther’s most significant reforming writings (alongside On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, from October 1520, and On the Freedom of a Christian, from November 1520, among others). This pamphlet-like text, despite addressing the pressing issues of its time, also represents a culmination in the debates about the relationship between temporal and spiritual powers (De potestate), which had fueled theological-political discourse during the Late Middle Ages. This includes, notably, discussions regarding the primacy of the council over the Pope (conciliarism), an ancient recognition that, at least since John of Paris (1273-1306) to John of Gerson (1362-1429), opposed the papal claim to the fullness of power (plenitudo potestatis papalis), not only in temporal matters but also in the internal organization and administration of the Church. The papalist interpretation transgressed an idea from Pope Gelasius in the late 5th century about the separation of the two powers or two swords: temporal and spiritual. This concept was continuously betrayed over the centuries by so-called political Augustinianism, which significantly sought support in book XIX of The City of God by Saint Augustine. However, Luther, also a (partial) reader of Saint Augustine and Saint Paul, sought to think of the Church not from the separation, opposition, or subordination of powers, but from grace and charisms (among which is the temporal dominium of a dominus in a kingdom). These are indispensable for the edification of the one Body of Christ, which is both temporal and eternal. Through this lens, all ministries, including the most humble ones, gain great spiritual value (or secularize, from another perspective). Regardless, in the wake of the indulgence controversy, Luther’s appeal urging German princes to assert their autonomy from Rome’s secular power eventually paved the way (at the cost of much dreaming and much bloodshed, it must be said) for the affirmation of the nation-states within the Holy Roman Empire. Simultaneously, through the primacy of the «common priesthood of believers» over the magisterial power of the “ordained priesthood” (potestas ordinis), this pamphlet carries a potentially very virulent, explosive, and even apocalyptic interpretation and preaching of the Scriptures (we are at the end of times, the Antichrist is at the door, etc.). Politically, this erupted soon after (1524-1525) in the fields of Germany. From a broader hermeneutical perspective, it recovers some processes of subjectivation and appropriation of «speaking places» as well as nominalist conceptions that had been gaining relevance in the 14th and 15th centuries. These processes would deepen both in rationalist modernity (from Descartes’ cogito to Kant’s Ich denken) and in fideist modernity (Jansenism, Pascal, etc.). Nevertheless, the urgent call in 1520 is to reform the Church, for «the time for silence has ended, and the time to speak has come!» («Die Zeit zu reden ist kommen»). And it is this decision of Luther to speak out that is most important to us.

The missiological character of deaf Catholic material culture

Too often, deaf Catholics are assumed and expected to be “passive recipients of mercy” rather than active participants in mission. This is far from the role that deaf Catholics have played in the body of Christ. This introduction to deaf Catholic material culture serves to highlight one often overlooked source that demonstrates how deaf Catholics are active participants in the church’s mission—through the creation, curation, and dissemination of objects. First, the essay contextualizes deaf Catholic material culture within the sociocultural model of disability, without which the meaning and value that the objects hold cannot be fully appreciated. Then it explains how these objects create culturally-deaf spaces and the significance these spaces hold for the deaf community. Second, an analysis of various objects in public and personal spaces, which range from liturgical art and liturgical furnishings to everyday items such as pens and mugs in deaf Catholic communities is presented. Characteristics of deaf Catholic material culture and an explanation of how and what theologies of mission are operationalized through these objects in various spaces are discussed. The essay concludes with a typology of deaf Catholic material culture and the missiological opportunities they present. In so doing, the author argues that attention to material culture in deaf Catholicism counters the misconception that deaf Catholics are incapable of mission and challenges ableist theological ideas of deafness which portray deaf Catholic experiences as deficient, spiritually inferior, and dependent on hearing people.

Whiteness, Innocence, and Childhood in the Prioress’s Tale and Its Devotional Milieu

ABSTRACT This article draws on recent scholarship in premodern critical race theory and the history of childhood to argue that in the Prioress’s Tale, whiteness signifies innocence and describes innocent bodies. In the tale, the color white gains its meaning from its contexts in devotional and antisemitic literature in which it evokes milk and breastfeeding, which in turn evokes a complex set of ideas about heredity and learned culture. By referencing this tangle of meanings around whiteness, the Prioress’s Tale resituates Christian anxieties about the nature and value of childish innocence into the genre of the antisemitic miracle, whose primary anxieties are focused on the coherence of the Christian body and the Christian community. When the “white metaphors” of devotional literature move into an explicitly racial and racializing genre, they become part of race-making discourses of white Christianity or Christian whiteness.

Understanding the Christian Sacrament of Baptism: Perspectives of Some New Testament Personalities

Baptism is a sacrament that Christ established before His ascension. It symbolizes His death and resurrection, representing the unity of the baptized person with Christ and their acceptance into the body of Christ. This paper explores baptism in the New Testament (NT) by focusing on some specific personalities. The study shows that water baptism, as an outward act, serves as a reminder and symbol of God’s redeeming work through Jesus Christ for the salvation of humanity. Consequently, baptism unites us with Christ and invites us to be part of the Christian community. The study concludes that baptism is not an optional extra, but a command from our Lord Jesus Christ to all generations of believers, regardless of denomination, tribe, race, culture, or ethnicity. The study uses published textbooks, electronic books, and journal articles as secondary sources to examine baptism in the NT.

Liberative Ingestion: Food Allergies, the Body of Christ, and Liturgical Differences

Liberative Ingestion: Food Allergies, the Body of Christ, and Liturgical Differences

Augustine’s Preached Theology: Living as the Body of Christ by J. Patout Burns, Jr (review)

Augustine’s Preached Theology: Living as the Body of Christ by J. Patout Burns, Jr (review)

Saved by Faith Not Your Body: Towards The Theology of Disability

This article describes that the perfection of God’s creation was guaranteed by faith, must be hold and lived in the life of the believers. Physical weakness (difable) is not a condition cause decreasing the perfection of God’s creation. Difable is not decreasing or weakening the existence and essence of human being as the body of Christ which was loved and saved by the blood of Christ. This article used the library research in theology, explored the love of God in the life of human being. The result showed that the church must develop the ministries of educating and empowering disable people (people with the special need). They are perfect as the body of Christ because the God itself is perfect. God is perfect so the creation is perfect too. Human being was perfected by the love of God.

How Can the Church Reclaim Backsliders? Analysis of Church Education to Reclaim Backsliders

Backsliding is a problem occurring among Christians in Myanmar. The author focuses this research on seeking several solutions to the issue of backsliding among Christians in Myanmar by comparing it with the Reformed worldview. The analytical focus is on the educational aspect in the church to address backsliding based on the Reformed worldview. This research was conducted in several stages, including problem identification and its causes, proposing problem-solving ideas. The researcher conducted interviews among Christians and elaborated with various other literary sources. The research findings reveal that the church needs to teach sound doctrines that can help its members grow in their faith and withstand difficult times. Political and religious issues are inseparable, but the fundamental problem is the need for contextual churches. The church needs to love and care for its flock. Additionally, the research finds that contextual churches require influence in every public area. Church leaders in urban areas need to be more educated and aware of the views and sensitivities of various ethnic, class, race, and religious groups. The church, as the body of Christ, should be able to communicate the Word of God honestly and accurately to its members and ensure that they are engaged in Bible classes or groups where they can learn and enjoy fellowship with fellow believers to strengthen their faith.

The Body of “the Body of Christ”: An Introduction to Hyperscanning Research and a Discussion of Its Possible Implications for Understanding Social Experiences During Religious Gatherings

Neuroscience has become a well-accepted methodological modality in the study of religion, especially of religious behavior, personal prayer, meditation, mysticism, spiritual experience, and personal religious experiences. However, such studies have been performed on individuals only; none have helped scholars understand the neuro-physiological correlates of religious communities, religious interactions, collective liturgical action, or the like. This article introduces the new field of social neuroscience, showing how its primary tool, hyperscanning, is revealing surprising levels of “brain-to-brain synchrony.” Though there are no hyperscanning studies of religious communities yet, the authors suggest that findings about shared attention, interpersonal coordination, and feelings of closeness all have clear parallels in and implications for religious communities. The authors then suggest both directions and cautions for future research.

A Trinitarian Ascent: How Augustine’s Sermons on the Psalms of Ascent Transform the Ascent Tradition

Augustine’s sermons on the Psalms of Ascent, part of the Enarrationes in Psalmos, are a unique entry in the venerable tradition of those writings that aim to help us ascend to a higher reality. These sermons transform the ascent genre by giving, in the place of the Platonic account of ascent, a Christian ascent narrative with a Trinitarian structure. Not just the individual ascends, but the community that is the church, the body of Christ, also ascends. The ascent is up to God, the Idipsum or the Selfsame, the ultimate reality, confessed by the church as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Through the grace of the Incarnation, God the Son enables us to ascend, making himself the way of ascent from the humility we must imitate at the beginning of the ascent all the way up to Heaven, where he retains his identity as Idipsum. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit works in the ascending church to convert our hearts to the love of God and neighbor. I review the Platonic ascent tradition in Plato’s Republic and Plotinus’ Enneads; overview ascent in some of Augustine’s earlier writings; introduce the narrative setting of the sermons on the Psalms of Ascent; and analyze the Trinitarian structure of their ascent narrative. I close with some reflections on the difference between a preached Trinitarianism that encourages ascent and a more academic effort to understand God such as we find in Augustine’s de Trinitate.

“An Open Wound in the Body…”

AbstractEcumenical organizations have long agreed that human trafficking and modern slavery are consequences of human sin that, in the words of Pope Francis, have left “an open wound in the body of Christ and in all humanity.” While the ecumenical consensus against human trafficking and other forms of modern slavery remains strong, the discourse lacks clear definitions and, thus, focused engagement. To enrich ecumenical reflection on these phenomena, the prevailing discourse could be reframed through the contextualized, case‐based, and comparative lens of asymmetrical dependency theory. Consequently, this article surveys recent ecumenical pronouncements, clarifies relevant legal and definitional considerations, and asks whether it is time to take a “dependency turn” in ecumenical discourse on human trafficking and other forms of modern slavery.

Rescuing Maritain from His Reception History: A Reappraisal of William T. Cavanaugh’s Critique in Torture and Eucharist

The influential writings on church and state of philosopher Jacques Maritain, who died in 1973, possessed a mid-twentieth century hopefulness about a new birth of freedom and a lay-led Christian humanism. In light of the next twenty-five years of experience—particularly that of the regime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile—William T. Cavanaugh, in his 1998 book Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ, argued that Maritain’s work facilitated the marginalization of the faith in the modern nation-state. Another quarter-century later, this essay reappraises Cavanaugh’s criticisms of Maritain’s views on the nature of the Church, the role of the laity, and the power of the state. It argues that while Cavanaugh’s concerns about sovereignty, subsidiarity, and formation have been vindicated, a careful reading of Maritain’s lesser-known and later works suffice to justify Maritain’s views of the laity and the church. Maritain remains a vital resource for theologians who seek to avoid both, on the right hand, a resurgent integralism and Christian nationalism and, on the left hand, a relativizing of the Gospel in what Maritain called “kneeling before the world.

Beyond the Camp High: The Contribution of Christian Summer Camps to the Development of Owned Personal Faith

This study sought to understand the contribution of repeat adolescent summer camp experiences within the larger landscape of adolescent faith formation. Using a qualitative approach with a sample of former, multi-year attendees of Christian camps in Wisconsin and Michigan, this study demonstrated that Christian summer camps may help facilitate the development of owned faith and foster affiliation with the body of Christ.

Mulatto Bodies and the Body of Christ

Ten years ago, in an article for The Christian Century, theologian Jonathan Tran heraldedthe work of three black theologians J. Kameron Carter, Willie J. Jennings, and Brian Bantumas inaugurating a “new black theology.” According to Tran, these three thinkers represented “ amajor theological shift that [would] if taken as seriously as it deserve[d] change the facenot only of black theol ogy but theology as a whole.” Now that ten years have passed, thispaper asks: Has it? And arguing that it has not, I offer reflections on why it has not. At thecenter of my argument will be a critique of the way Carter and Bantum offered their revisedun derstanding of racial identity and hybridity by reimagining the identity Jesus throughmulatto/a bodies and persons. This, I will claim, is a dead end. It is a project that fails todo the very thing it sets out to do, and ultimately, collapses in on itsel f. My aim in makingthis critique is less refutation and more redirection. More specifically, I will hope to resolvesome of the problematic impulses in their appeal to mulatto identity, and in so doing, clearthe way for a new direction in Black Theology.

Persons with Disabilities in the Christian Church: A Scoping Review on the Impact of Expressions of Compassion and Justice on their Inclusion and Participation

Despite the recognition of societal inclusion as a human right, persons with disabilities face many barriers preventing their participation in mainstream Christian denominations. A scoping review was conducted to map the relevant literature to explore the Christian Church’s expressions of compassion and/or justice toward persons with disabilities, and how this impacts their inclusion and participation. The findings confirm the paucity of literature addressing this phenomenon, as well as the under-representation of persons with disabilities in research concerning their own interests. Four nested themes reflect the harmful effects of misplaced pity and insufficient justice toward persons with disabilities, revealing evidence of oppression, expressed through stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination – all perceived to hinder their meaningful participation in the body of Christ. Knowledge gaps concerning the lived experiences of persons with disabilities in this setting were identified and recommended for future research.

The Body of the Artist, in the Body of Christ: Toward a Theology of the Embodied Arts

One insight at the heart of embodiment research is that the particular, material human body is the nexus of two loci: as an integration of sensory apparatuses, the body is the receptive locus of the world; at the same time, the body is the locus of responsive engagement with the world. Working from the framework of embodiment, this essay is a theological exploration of the arts, with particular attention given to the artist. The first half details two controlling ideas about the nature of embodiment and the arts: (i) the arts are necessarily embodied, and (ii) the Christian artist is in Christ’s body. Here I examine how the artwork and the artist are necessarily embodied—the body is the horizon on which the arts are possible. With these two controlling ideas in hand, the second half of the essay considers three implications: (i) the artist works in and for the church; (ii) the arts are a gift of the Holy Spirit; and (iii) the arts are a place where the church experiences the Spirit’s working. These implications yield, among other insights, the finding that Christ’s body is the horizon on which the Christian arts are possible.

Luther's interpretation of communicatio idiomatum in a new key

AbstractInto the debates about Christ's two natures, divine and human, and how they relate, Martin Luther threw his extended interpretation of the communicatio idiomatum, the communication of the person Christ's attributes. Luther's Christology is incarnational and it is fundamental to him that God can and will be known only as a human being (homo/Mensch), yet Christ's real presence is presented three dimensionally and in bodily intersectionality. Luther's complex understanding of Christ as really human and the Word incarnate is reflected in his intense work with the sacraments as well as with semantics and the art of translation. Luther aims at an inclusive Christology, sacramentology, and language. Hence Christ is human, not male; sacraments are seen as direct exchange between God and humans in the body of Christ; and ministry is reconfigured as a human function of preaching the Word (ministerium verbi), not a substitute representing divine sacredness.