Calvin and the Two Bodies of Christ: Fiction and Power in Dogmatic Theology
This article re-examines the slow rhetorical quality of Jean Calvin's political theology by drawing attention to the literary dimensions of Calvin's theological writing. In conversation with recent work on political theology and Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies (Princeto...
| Published in: | Political theology |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
[2018]
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| In: |
Political theology
Year: 2018, Volume: 19, Issue: 5, Pages: 439-456 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Calvin, Jean 1509-1564
/ Theology
/ Language
/ Body of Christ
/ Political theology
|
| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism CD Christianity and Culture CG Christianity and Politics KAG Church history 1500-1648; Reformation; humanism; Renaissance KDD Protestant Church |
| Further subjects: | B
Sovereignty
B Calvin B Dogmatics B Kantorowicz B Fiction |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This article re-examines the slow rhetorical quality of Jean Calvin's political theology by drawing attention to the literary dimensions of Calvin's theological writing. In conversation with recent work on political theology and Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), I show how Calvin relies on a participatory grammar and a fictive rendering of the incarnation to theorize the relationship between the concrete body of Christ and the corporate body of the church. I argue that this recovers theological resources for maintaining a critical distance between words and things that resists absolutist incarnations of political theology. Foregrounding the role of fiction in constituting dogmatic theological arguments aids in distinguishing the role of theological analogies from mythical foundations. By better attending to the literary dimensions of dogmatic theological writings, it may be possible to further complicate and recast the relationship between theological categories and modern political thought. |
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| Item Description: | Das gedruckte Heft ist als Doppelheft erschienen: "Volume 19 Numbers 5-6 August-September 2018" |
| ISSN: | 1743-1719 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Political theology
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2018.1440157 |