Body of Christ

Although the quest for God’s Wisdom is something very personal for Augustine, the paper sets the ecclesiological context of his doctrine. Augustine’s way to the wisdom is not a way accessible to intellectuals only: it is open to anybody who does not remain closed to other man and is willing to love with charity, laid to his heart by God to whose image and likeness he was created. The paper lays the ecclesiological background of Augustine’s search for wisdom and his spirituality. The Bishop of Hippo Regius teaches that it is only through the mediation of the Church, where man can find God’s Wisdom: and the way is Christ himself that allows his believers, parts of his Body, to accept God’s Wisdom as a gift and grow in it through charity. This anti-individualistic way of charity remains a credible way for today where “only love remains credible”.

This dissertation explores the Trinitarian concept of perichoresis as a means of demonstrating the relational life of God to be characterised by inclusion and integrity, before examining the Pauline Corinthian epistles, especially the image of the Body of Christ, as providing an ecclesiological model of participation in God. Finally this dissertation asks in what ways the shared life of the Church community can express the inclusion and integrity of God in the ways in which it relates to those who are vulnerable and marginalised, with particular attention paid to those people who are very young, i.e. children, those people who are disabled, and those people who are vulnerably sheltered, e.g. the homeless. In conclusion, this study claims that the perichoretic relationships of the Trinity subsist in self-giving love, which at once unites the Father, Son, and Spirit, and embraces diversity. At the heart of this inclusion and integrity is the paradox of the Cross, where the Spirit not only unites the Trinity in the face of separation and rejection, but also opens up relational spaces for humanity to enter in. The church starts to participate in and celebrate this cruciform embrace through the sharing of the Lord‟s Supper, where the members of the Body receive each other as gift in friendship through enabling participation for all, sharing in each other‟s stories, and celebrating their joy at sharing life together in Christ.

Abstract: T. F. Torrance, in the midst of early modern ecumenical dialogue, presented an ecclesial ontology robustly informed and determined by Christological categories. This is nowhere more evident than in his interpretation of the biblical image of the church as the “body of Christ.” In contrast to mystical interpretations of the image, Torrance argues that the “body of Christ” should be understood as an incarnational analogy. Christ’s humanity, resurrected and ascended, is the “essence” of the church. The church becomes what it already is in Christ by conforming to the newness of his humanity. In this way, Torrance constructs a powerful Protestant and ecumenical account of the church’s being-in-becoming. The uniqueness and ecumenical purchase of Torrance’s proposal are here demonstrated.

A Personal reflection addressing the increase in number of church splits taking place in Fiji amongst Pentecostal denominations. It is not a historical reflection but rather a biblical view of the Church and why church splits and church divisions should not be encouraged, especially if it is a result of power hunger and unresolved personal issues. The church is the embodiment of Christ on earth, called and purposed to preach the gospel to the lost world. The fragmentations of the church in many ways lessens our testimony.

Here is a modest reflection on the Church in the thought of Joseph Ratzinger (1927–). My aim is to examine Ratzinger’s claim that a proper understanding of the Church is obtained from the standpoint of her liturgy. While Ratzinger presents a eucharistic ecclesiology, not only must one pay attention to complement a sociological interpretation of the Church with Revelation as a dogmatic truth, but also to identify and distinguish among the various levels that are at play in speaking of a eucharistic ecclesiology. What is examined here is the relation of the Eucharist to the Church in the light of Christ, the sacraments and the Christian life. The primary level, then, is Christological. This means that in Christ, particularly shedding his life on the cross, the Church has its foundation and life in the world. The second level is a sacramental one, where the believing Christian community gathers around one altar to celebrate the breaking of the bread and to live in communion with each other. The third level is the existential one where belonging to the Church implies bearing witness, leading a Christian life, and being of service to others in the community and in the world. Our aim here is to elucidate the importance and complementarity of each dimension of Ratzinger’s eucharistic ecclesiology after having presented his understanding that ecclesial communion has its centre in the Eucharist.

The 'One New Man'/ 'Corporate Body of Christ' is the fulfilled hope of resurrection. The common 'Evangelical' position is the hope for“... the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation”.  In this 'sermon series' I sought to put forth the proper contextual explanation and demonstration of how that hope fulfilled is the Christian Gospel.

In Gardens of Love and the Limits of Morality in Early Netherlandish Art, Andrea Pearson charts the moralization of human bodies in late medieval and early modern visual culture, through paintings by Jan van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch, devotional prints and illustrated books, and the celebrated enclosed gardens of Mechelen among other works. Drawing on new archival evidence and innovative visual analysis to reframe familiar religious discourses, she demonstrates that depicted topographies advanced and sometimes resisted bodily critiques expressed in scripture, conduct literature, and even legislation. Governing many of these redemptive greenscapes were the figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary, archetypes of purity whose spiritual authority was impossible to ignore, yet whose mysteries posed innumerable moral challenges. The study reveals that bodily status was *the* fundamental problem of human salvation, in which artists, patrons, and viewers alike had an interpretive stake.

Das bequeme Leben vieler Christen im Westen ist von der Realität verfolgter Kirchen und Christen oft weit entfernt. Weil aber die Bibel deutlich macht, dass Ablehnung und Leiden zum Normalfall des christlichen Daseins gehören, verändert das auch unsere Theologie. Wir sind nicht nur leidensscheu, sondern die Schwerpunkte verschieben sich auch zu Konsumorientierung und Diesseitigkeit. Wenn wir auch das Leiden nicht suchen müssen, müssen wir zum einen darauf vorbereitet sein, um keine falschen Kompromisse mit der Welt zu machen. Zweitens können wir in der Verbindung mit verfolgten Geschwistern mitleiden und drittens lernen wir auch für unser Missionsverständnis, unsere Abhängigkeit vom Evangelium der Gnade und die Ausrichtung auf die Ewigkeit.

If Virgil's damnation motivates Dante in the heaven of Jupiter to interrogate the inner workings of divine justice, the ultimate theological point in contention is the nature of predestination. This article offers Augustine as an unconsidered textual anchor and hermeneutic lens for illuminating predestination in the Commedia: a doctrine concerning not so much humanity's attempt at impossible comprehension of God's salvific will, as an invitation to creative participation in it, realized in and through ongoing, historical practices of caritas conforming the self to the body of Christ.

¿Quién es Jesús? Si todo hombre es más que sí mismo en virtud de las relaciones que lo constituyen, Jesús lo es de manera eminente pues recapitula en su carne las principales figuras que en el AT expresan al pueblo elegido y, en él, a toda la humanidad. Jesús aparece como aquel que lleva a su plenitud la “persona corporativa” del pueblo santo y lo conduce a la salvación, a su máxima realización según el plan de Dios: “Él es la cabeza del cuerpo de la Iglesia” (Col 1,18).

Autobiographical, embodied and sexual storytelling is of great political and theological significance. Taking up Marcella Althaus-Reid’s suggestion that queer theologies are by definition first person theologies, in this essay I engage in storytelling, specifically the telling of autobiographical sexual stories, as a key queer theological method that enables a dialectical reflection on queer lives. Sharing my experiences, as a white European gay man, with sexuality and race in South Africa, I perform an act of disclosure of my HIV status while claiming the body of Christ as an intimate space of vulnerability that enables solidarity and publicity.

All human communities and relationships exist, in part, through a remembered past. The Church is a community radically constituted by memory, particularly the historic and spiritual memory recorded in Scripture. This paper will investigate the ways in which memory constitutes the Church and therefore the life of God's people. It will first examine the general significance of memory within human social and political relations. The paper will then explore the exemplary role of memory within the Christian Church. This will reveal how memory helps to incorporate the whole person into Christ, making membership in the Church both personal and corporate. Part I: Memory & Personal Existence While this inquiry will not directly focus on the nature of personhood, we can state at the outset that to be a person is to be a relational being. 1 It follows that the individual cannot be sufficiently understood when wholly abstracted from a social framework. 2 Human relations potentially include God, our neighbor, our self, and the world. The first two, God and neighbor, are of primary interest, insofar as this paper explores the nature of a social community formed by and oriented toward God. Yet, our relations with God and neighbor depend in part on how we understand ourselves and the world. Part I of this paper will explore how the faculty of memory serves as a foundation for these relations and therefore our social existence.

Pablo usó la metáfora del cuerpo para referirse a la unidad doctrinal de la iglesia por los dones. Aunque los miembros sean muchos, la cabeza es una sola, es decir, un único centro de coordinación y control. Si la iglesia se comporta como el cuerpo de Cristo, permitiendo que éste sea su cabeza, habrá coordinación en el funcionamiento de los miembros del cuerpo y un correcto empleo de los dones. Sólo si se da esa condición, la unidad doctrinal de la iglesia por los dones será posible. La finalidad de este artículo es presentar una serie de aspectos fundamentales que atañen a Cristo como la cabeza de la iglesia y a ésta como el cuerpo de Cristo.

Central to the Pauline teaching on the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 10–11 are the two food elements, bread and wine (the “cup”), signifying the body and blood of the Lord. Two interpretive stances are dominant among exegetes. In respect of the referent “body,” adherents to the ecclesiological view interpret it as the group of assembled eaters, whereas those who hold the christological view relate it to the physical or sacramental body of the Lord Christ. This study compares these two perspectives, paying special attention to matters of Vorverständnis and theoretical positioning. The litmus test for interpreters is 1 Corinthians 11:27 where the apostle Paul speaks about guilt concerning “the body and blood of the Lord.” It is investigated whether this phrase has multiple referents, whether it harks back to the event of Jesus’s death on the cross, or whether it should refer to the Lord’s sacramental body in the context of a sacrificial meal. The overarching aim of this article is to take away misconceptions about sacrifice in general and partaking of the sacramental body of Christ in particular. It does so through (1) presenting sacrificial rituals as structured and purposive forms of shared behaviour within the dynamics of mimesis and replacement; and (2) presenting the ritual elements of bread and wine as functionally real and organically intricate parts of the sacrificial act as a whole. This study’s conclusion is that Corinth’s meal crisis involved both failure of sacrifice and collapse of social ethics.

La rencontre entre l'apôtre incrédule Thomas et le Christ ressuscité, relatée dans l'évangile de Jean, est un épisode rarement mis en images durant l'époque médiévale, mais pourtant crucial pour tenter de comprendre la difficulté à percevoir le Christ. Dieu incarné, Ressuscité puis disparu, il ne laisse aux fidèles du Moyen Âge que le récit des Évangiles et l'Eucharistie comme traces perceptibles par les organes sensoriels. L'exemple de Thomas, qui touche le corps christique, s'inscrit au sein d'un « sensorium saturé » visant à éveiller tous les sens afin de pouvoir appréhender le divin, intangible par essence. A travers l'exemple d'images façonnées sur des supports sensoriels, voire sensuels, eux aussi, nous tenterons de montrer comment s'éveille cette mise en action des sens, dont l'acmé se produit lors du rituel liturgique avec la manducation eucharistique.

One of the challenges to the philosophical consideration of ecclesiology is that as a domain of theology, it is underdeveloped. One can, however, attend directly to the biblical source material and discover opportunities to bring philosophical tools to bear. Romans 12:5 makes two claims that have ecclesiological implications: the “many” constitute “one body” and, the constituent “many” are interrelated. These claims retain entailments that provide substance for the philosophical consideration of ecclesiological topics. After an exegetical clarification of the text, this essay offers brief assessments of possible explanatory mechanisms before applying a mereological construct to this passage as the most robust mechanism to describe just how it can be the case that the many can be one and especially how the many remain interrelated.

Why a God we can eat? Corpus Christi is a minor feast day suggested by Thomas Aquinas to popularize the church's teaching on the meaning of the words "This is my body." Controversy has raged sine the ninth century and split the Reformation in the sixteenth.

Paul’s imagery of the Body of Christ as a description of the Church differs from its plausible hellenistic parallels, among other things, in bringing into prominence the “weaker”, shameful members of the Body (1 Cor 12:22-24). They are considered necessary for the Body not primarily because of the importance of their function for the whole, but because of their particular role in revealing the paradox of Christ’s “weakness” leading to glory (cf. 1 Cor 1-4). The Church can be, therefore, considered not only the place of Christ’s salvific presence and activity, but also an icon of the Body of Christ: crucified and glorified. This christomorphic image should be recognized and enacted by the Church herself particularly in celebrating the liturgy of the Eucharist.

In recent decades, the use of metaphor in ecclesiology has been broadly critiqued on the ground that metaphors are too abstract and idealized to advance our understanding of the concrete church in history; consequently, ecclesiology has embraced an “empirical turn,” incorporating fields like ethnography and social sciences. In this article, the author argues for a positive function of metaphor in ecclesiology drawing from the work of Janet Martin Soskice. Metaphors link various associative networks of meaning and in doing so open up new imaginative horizons. This theory allows ecclesial metaphors to be examined for their adequacy in light of other empirical or nontheological fields of knowledge. In turn, this invites the theologian to explore other associative networks of meaning such that a metaphor leads to new insights into the nature and mission of the church. The metaphor of the church as the body of Christ serves as a test case.

Journal Article Published in One In Christ, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Summer 2008), p20-28. (http://www.oneinchrist.org.uk/2014/01/02/vol-42-no-1-2008/)

Summary: Colossians 1:24 and Ephesians 1:22-23 assert that the church (ἐκκλησία) is the body of Christ. If Christ is divine and God is infinite, then how are we to circumscribe this body? Can there exist anything at all that is extra ecclesiam? Is the church bounded within a pluralistic global village or, rather, must we reconceive the ἐκκλησία, recognizing that the body of Christ is already religiously plural? This article offers an investigation of the notion of ἐκκλησία through the lens of the Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedānta, suggesting that the church has no substantial existence at all, but rather indicates pluralistic relationality and dialogue. Christ is the in-finite Word (λόγός) which cannot be de-fined and whose body only becomes manifest by our calling one another out (ἐκ καλέω), coming together (συν ἀγω), and piercing the Logos in dia-logue.

The Church is also referred to as “body of Christ”, especially in Pauline epistles. It is almost analogous to a living organism. Therefore, its growth should naturally result from its health. But the Church in the West is facing a numerical stagnation and even a demographic decrease. What is fundamentally at issue is the ecclesial vitality and the ability to keep followers, but also to attract new members. The question of ecclesial ministry, which was very popular in the domains of exegesis and history of the Christianity in the 1970s and 1980s, was abandoned for 20 years. This question deserves to be retaken for reasons that are not only cyclical, but theological and ecclesiological. Nowadays the widely present ministerial plurality in the early Church is reduced to a pastoral monolithic. This thesis intends to put the question of ecclesial ministry foreground with a new perspective inspired from the hermeneutic approach and the method of rhetorical analysis. In order to provide av...

The paper contributes to the theology of inspiration. The author draws conclusions regarding the biblical inspiration from contemporary ecclesiological thought presenting the Church as the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit acted upon both the hagiographers included in the "we" of the Church (the New Testament) and those preparing the way for the future Body of Christ (the Old Testament). Inspiration was given to individuals, but for the sake of the community and through the influence of other members of the Body of Christ on the inspired authors. All biblical writers serve each other diachronically, too: the New Testament is not possible without the Old Testament hagiographers, while the Old Testament reveals its deepest meaning only within the New Testament fulfillment. The influence of the Holy Spirit on inspired authors should be seen in the framework of the communio sanctorum (the union of the earthly Church with the heavenly Church).
Niniejszy tekst stanowi przyczynek do teologii natchnienia. Autor wyprowadza wnioski dotyczące natchnienia biblijnego ze współczesnej myśli eklezjologicznej ukazującej Kościół jako Ciało Chrystusa. Duch Święty działał na hagiografów włączonych w „my” Kościoła (Nowy Testament) lub przygotowujących drogę dla przyszłego Ciała Chrystusa (Stary Testament). Natchnienie zostało udzielone jednostkom, ale ze względu na wspólnotę i za pośrednictwem oddziaływania pozostałych członków Ciała Chrystusa na autorów natchnionych. Wszyscy biblijni pisarze służą sobie nawzajem także diachronicznie: Nowy Testament nie jest możliwy bez hagiografów Starego Testamentu, z kolei Stary Testament odkrywa swój najgłębszy sens dopiero wraz z nowotestamentalnym wypełnieniem. Oddziaływanie Ducha Świętego na autorów natchnionych należy postrzegać w ramach communio sanctorum oraz łączności Kościoła ziemskiego z niebieskim.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the connection between Paul’s characteristic use of the ”Body of Christ”-motif in 1 Cor 12, and the common use of the body-motif in antiquity. In the Greco-Roman world, the body-motif was frequently employed as an analogy or metaphor for human relationships, from the universal down to the local. Frequently, it comes close to being a matter of ontology; that the cosmos and all that it contains is a body in every sense of the term. Therefore, in regards to the ”Body of Christ”-motif, it is my ambition both to demonstrate how it corresponds to the common use, and to identify the ways in which it differs. The second part is elaborated partly through an examination of the literary context of 1 Cor 12, from the opening call to unity in 1:10 to some additional observations, that aim to show how God, Christ and the Spirit function as the unifying agents that bring about a new reality: the Body of Christ.

Catholic Theological Society of America Annual Convention (Church/Ecumenism session). Pittsburgh, PA, June 2019.

I use Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body to interpret the ecclesial “body of Christ” image such that it highlights the church’s necessary and mutually beneficial relationship with the world as articulated by Gaudium et Spes. For Merleau-Ponty, the body is ‘intercorporeal,’ always in relation with other bodies and the world. Moreover, because the body is particular and finite, the other’s perception of me is necessary for a fuller understanding of my own subjectivity. Imaging the church as an ‘intercorporeal body of Christ’ resists ecclesial self-enclosure and triumphalism, and encourages the church to learn from the world, even as it is in mission to the world.

В статті автор намагається пояснити співдію між «єдиним хрещенням» і «одним Тілом Христовим». Він це робить увівши термін «хрещення богосинівства», аргументуючи, що Церква як Тіло Христове покликана стати новим Народом Божим. Цей новий народ, через Хрещення кожного, стає «духовним домом і святим священством». Хрещення як «подія», незалежно від його виду й канонічності, вводить людину у вимір Тіла Христового задля необмеженого конфесійними бар`єрами «богосинівства» Церкви, і це має бути однією з основ єднання роз’єднаних частин Церкви. Автор теж подає Революцію Гідності як приклад пережиття, наближений до християнського хрещення. Осягаючи на Майдані свої глибини, людина, через виняткові форми хрещальної купелі, зустрічала самого Бога. Стаття вглиблюється в розуміння впливу хрещення на Церкву та радше залежності Церкви-організації від події хрещення, яка - коли переживається у своїй цілості - повинна допроваджувати до інтегральності пережиття Тіла Христового.

In the article the author tries to explain the interaction between «one baptism» and «one body of Christ». He is doing it by leading in the text the term «the baptism of a child of God» and arguing that Church like as the body of Christ should be the new People of God. This new people through the baptism of everyone must become «a spiritual home and holy priesthood». Baptism as the «event» despite its type and canonity leads a person in a dimension of Body of Christ for unlimited confessional barriers «the child of God» of the Church, and it should be the one of basics for the union of separate parts of the Church. The author also represents the Revolution of Dignity as the instance of experience that is close to the Christian baptism. People on the Maidan were meeting with God through self-recognizing and unique forms of baptism. The article deepens in the understanding of the baptism influence on the Church and rather the depending of the Church-organization on baptism event, which should lead to the integrity of experiences of the Body of Christ.