Envisioning the Cosmic Body of Christ: Embodiment, Plurality and Incarnation [Hardcover]

The metaphor of the cosmos as the Body of Christ offers an opportunity to escape the aporias of standard Body of Christ imagery, which has often proved anthropocentric, exclusivist, triumphalist and/or sexist in the analyses of classical theologies. The body motif in particular contains starting points for current body discourses of gender-sensitive and ecological theologies, especially in their mutual overlaps. This book offers a critical evaluation of the prospects and boundaries of an updated metaphor of the Body of Christ, especially in its cosmic dimension.

The first part of the book addresses the complex tradition in which the universal dimension of cosmological Christologies is located, including the thinking of the Apostles Paul and John, Origen, Cusanus, Teilhard de Chardin, McFague, and Panikkar. In the second part of the book, representatives of various innovative concepts will contribute to the anthology.

This is a wide-ranging study of the implications of a new cosmic Body of Christ. As such, it will be of interest to academics working in Religion and Gender, Religion and the Environment, Theology and Christology.

Introduction Aurica Jax and Saskia Wendel; Part I Re-Constructions; And Wisdom Became Matter : Materialist Explorations of the Cosmic Body of Christ Aurica Jax; The Son as the Paradigm and Soul of the World: The Cosmic Christ in Origen Christian Hengstermann; Christ and the Cosmos in Nicholas of Cusas Universe Inigo Bocken; Teilhard de Chardin, Apostle of the Cosmic Christ Ursula King; Following Raimon Panikkar towards an Understanding of Creation as Incarnatio Continua Bernhard Nitsche; The World as the Body of God (Sallie McFague): The Cosmic Christ as the Measure of the Body of God Margit Eckholt;