The Body Politics of Christ presented by Dr. Pat McCormick, professor, Gonzaga University.

What if we read Scripture not just as “the Word of God,” listening to what Jesus’ sermons, sayings, and parables teach us about bringing about the Reign of God, but also saw the revolutionary ways “the Body of Christ,” was being placed and interacting with persons, communities, and the natural world? What if we asked how the Christ born in a stable, seated with sinners and hung on a cross is teaching us a new set of transformative bodily practices? We might soon discover that the Body of Christ is itself a mustard seed or leaven that upends and dismantles unjust structures and communities and helps birth the reign of God.

In two sessions on February 16 and 23 we will explore how the transgressive (defiant) Body of Christ teaches us to work for the Reign of God. First, we explore how, in his infancy and youth, the Body of Christ is placed in ways breaking boundaries and borders and upending hierarchies. Second, we examine how Christ teaches his disciples to upend unjust structures by practicing a new bodily politics. And third, we will see how the condemned and crucified Christ places his own Body in ways that dismantle unjust structures and offer us a path to the Reign of God.