| Popis: |
Paul reconfigures the ancient political metaphor of the body in significant ways. An image that is typically used to justify hierarchy is adjusted at strategic points by Paul, for both social and theological ends. The emphasis is not just on diversity (in unity) but also on need: no part of the body is self-sufficient, and no part is in the (superior) position of being only the giver. Paul pays particular attention to the parts of the body that are usually regarded as inferior, and insists that they be given greater honour. This recognizes asymmetrical relations of power and honour but suggests a reciprocal or oscillating asymmetry, whereby inequality in one dimension is offset by inequality in another. The purpose of this structure is to recognize the presence of ‘wounds’ in the body, and through reciprocal support, Paul advocates not denial of trauma but mutual support. For Paul the church is more than a mutually supportive social organization: it lives from its source in Christ, whose death has so confounded the normal understandings of power as to require this reconfiguration of community. Here love suffers with the other, and each member (and ecumenically, each church) will flourish when it gives itself into a mutual relation of Christ-dependence with others. |
