Marks of His Wounds: Gender Politics and Bodily Resurrection

by Beth Felker Jones

It is a central tenet of Christian theology that we will be resurrected in our bodies at the last day. But we have been conditioned, writes Beth Felker Jones, to think of salvation as being about anything but the body. We think that what God wants for us has to do with our thoughts, our hearts, or our interior relationships. In popular piety and academic theology alike, strong spiritualizing tendencies influence our perception of the body. Historically, some theologians have denigrated the body as an obstacle to sanctification. This notion is deeply problematic for feminist ethics, which centers on embodiment. Jones's purpose is to devise a theology of the body that is compatible with feminist politics. Human creatures must be understood as psychosomatic unities, she says, on analogy with the union of Christ's human and divine natures. She offers close readings of Augustine and Calvin to find a better way of speaking about body and soul that is consonant with the doctrine of
bodily resurrection. She addresses several important questions: What does human psychosomatic unity imply for the theological conceptualization of embodied difference, especially gendered difference? How does embodied hope transform our present bodily practices? How does God's momentous "yes" to the body, in the Incarnation, both judge and destroy the corrupt ways we have thought, produced, constructed, and even broken bodies in our culture, especially bodies marked by race and gender?

Jones's book articulates a theology of human embodiment in light of resurrection doctrine and feminist political concerns. Through reading Augustine and Calvin, she points to resources for understanding the body in a way that coheres with the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh. Jones proposes a grammar in which human psychosomatic unity becomes the conceptual basis for sanctification. Using gender as an illustration, she interrogates the difference resurrection doctrine makes for holiness. Because death has been overcome in Christ's resurrected body, human embodiment can bear witness to the Triune God. The bodily resurrection makes sense of our bodies, of what they are and what they are for.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Gender, Spirituality, Christianity, Bodies, Feminism

168 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

Beth Felker Jones teaches theology at Northern Seminary, near Chicago, and loves to write for the church.

Reviews

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid work on gender and the body in Christian theology. Jones looks specifically at Augustine and John Calvin, considering resurrection and holiness. I had more issues with this book than I expected (having read and greatly enjoyed Jones's work on the body elsewhere), but nothing was major, just a few quibbles. Marks of His Wounds is a dissertation revised for publication, and it really needed serious expansion (in my opinion) to be a landmark book on the topic. For example, Jones acknowledges that she didn't consider race and gender in relation to the body, because of "space," (115), but since the whole book, index and all, clocks in at 153 pages, this is a cheap out. While I can fully sympathize with a dissertation advisor limiting her project, the publication should have expanded it.

By centering Augustine and Calvin, Jones also overlooks women's writings on this topic, which limits her scope. While she engages a fair amount with contemporary scholars about Gregory of Nyssa, she doesn't engage him herself. Of all the church fathers, Gregory of Nyssa spoke wholesomely and beautifully about the body, especially when he envisioned the female body as a symbol of Christ nurturing the church (through breastfeeding) and the ideal Christian (as a perpetually pregnant woman constantly birthing new believers), yet Jones didn't dig into that.

I really enjoyed her final chapter, "The Body Sanctified," when she discussed martyrs and asceticism (a few choice quotations are included below). The concepts of orderedness (so Augustinian!) and Christoformity stuck out to me: how can I display the divine order in my body? What does this mean for my eating and drinking, discipline and pleasure? While I'm really glad that I finally read Marks of His Wounds and got some great food for thought from it, I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. Yet, being acquainted with Jones's later work, I know it's all uphill from here! (And "here" isn't bad at all--just not at the level I was expecting.)

"The bodies of the martyrs witness to the victory over death brought about decisively in Christ's resurrection. Their very flesh displays the work of Christ for them." (109)

"It is in Christoformity that we become holy. It is in Christoformity that our bodies become witnesses of orderedness to God." (110)

[Zach Hollifield · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best works I’ve read on theology of the body. Jones turns to Augustine and Calvin as resources to ground a theology of the body which 1) acknowled the inherit goodness of bodies, 2) is honest about the utter brokenness of bodies, and 3) points to the hope of bodily resurrection.

Although I was less interested in this aspect of the book, she also successfully demonstrates how such a theology of the body answers and critiques feminist concerns about embodied female existence. Jones is a self-avowed feminist herself which makes her response all the more interesting. However, had she not declared so in the introduction I’m not sure I would have known she was from the rest of the book (which is meant as a compliment).

All around, really, really good and highly recommended. Those who refuse to read because of the whole feminist thing do so at their own loss. This is an entirely orthodox treatment of the body and one that is deeply hopefully for those of us well aquatinted with the goodness and brokenness of our bodies.

[Jeffrey Faux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jones develops a theology of the body that begins with understanding Jesus’ resurrected body rather than being framed by the creation narrative. Jones argues against a dualist conception that separates body and soul at the resurrection in favor of a unified view of the resurrected body. Referencing Christ’s resurrected body with visible, physical wounds frames human bodies in a new way. A body is not something to be escaped, is not subordinate or in opposition to the soul, nor is it the locus of a human identity. People are bodies and souls, and both are resurrected.

A somatic view of the body, combined with sin, leads to a negative perception of the human body that is not aligned with God’s plan for humanity at the resurrection. The nature of Jesus’ body at the resurrection is part of an overall theology of the Incarnation. Jesus’ wounded resurrected body challenges our idea of bodily perfection and gives worshipers a window through which they may be more open to considering their own imperfect bodies as suitable for worship.

[David Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This quote sums up a necessary look at gender politics centered around the resurrection:
“because of the reality of sin, the solution of simply embracing all bodies as healthy and desirable is a misguided no solution. If we are to venture any normative political vision, normative bodies will emerge, and, in the realm of Christian theology, one body will have to norm other bodies, the crucified and risen body of Christ.”
Thus, her argument centers not on gender unification, but common bodily form in Christ. This allows for particular differences that make us make and female. Highly recommended read for anyone interested in gender discussions.

[Zach Waldis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't have a great experience reading Rosemary Reuther and the like at my liberal Protestant seminary, but this volume has shown me the value of "feminism". Gender politics are a tough topic but I found this book very helpful and easy to read.

[Luke Mohnasky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This definitive theological account of bodies is invigorating and confrontational for me. Jones isn't afraid to call bullshit on those myths that degrade the body, something I feel is incredibly missing from the Protestant church. If we are to love christologically, we must embrace feminist understandings of our bodies and dare to let them inform our politics.

“To hope, as in the Eastern option, for the dissolution of gender is to bend life away from the body. It is a kind of gnostic escape from diapers, dishes, and the dying. It is an escape from those aspects of psychosomatic life together that train us to care for the weak and broken” (103).

“God’s momentous ‘yes’ to the body, in the incarnation, both judges and destroys the corrupt ways we have thought, produced, constructed, and even broken bodies in our culture” (113).

[Shawna Songer-Gaines · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book assigned my husband in his Ph.D. course work. Upon finishing he told me that I had to read it immediately. He was so right! This is an incredible work of theology that takes seriously the Christian Tradition, Scripture, and flesh in all it's bodily realities. There are few thinkers out there like Beth Felker Jones. This is a must read. I read this book before having the privilege of meeting the author. Her life and her theology walk hand in hand under the lordship of Christ!