"Body of Christ" - A Gender-Sensitive Reconstruction of a Theological Metaphor

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Saskia Wendel
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: from 2013 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 236859045

The project is a follow-up of the project "Body of Christ. A Gender-Sensitive Deconstruction of a Central Theological Concept" which has been supported by the DFG. This former project focused on gendertheoretical analyses of how the metaphor of the body of Christ has been used in selected theologies of the 20th century. Regarding the results of these analyses, the preliminary hypotheses for our reconstruction turned out to be rather instable. Therefore, the follow-up project will emphasize the christological reconstruction of the metaphor of the body of Christ, while at the same time adjusting the theoretical assumptions and basic ideas behind that reconstruction. There are two central questions which guide the reconstruction task concerning both the individual and the universal body of Christ:1. How can the individual body of Christ be understood as divine incarnation and as socially constructed body of a single human being at the same time? And how can this be grasped in a gender-sensitive way? (How) Can incarnation resp. incorporation be understood as performative in this context without reducing the christological creed?2. Which perspectives are offered by references to cosmological theologies of the body of Christ, regarding both the relationship of the individual and the universal body of Christ as well as of the relationship of the universal and the social body of Christ? Do these theologies succeed in avoiding the problems of a metaphysics of participation or the problem of inclusion and exclusion, or do they get tangled up in the same complex of problems due to their panentheistic grounding? Do they offer any important considerations for a gender-sensitive version of the body of Christ? And can these theories be at least partially fruitful for a theistic reconstruction of an understanding of the body of Christ?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants