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

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.

Aurica Jax, Doctor of Divinity, is director of the "Arbeitsstelle Frauenseelsorge", German Bishops’ Conference. From 2013 to 2019, she was Research Assistant to the Chair for Systematic Theology, Institute for Catholic Theology, University of Cologne, Germany

Saskia Wendel is Professor for Systematic Theology, Institute of Catholic Theology, University of Cologne, and vice-director of the a.r.t.e.s.-Graduate School of the Humanities, Cologne, Germany.