# 511: BOOK OF THE WEEK — “Introducing Body Theology.”
Story behind the Book Choice
This book was not my choice. It was the choice of a theology professor who put it in the syllabus for an anthropology seminar. Well, and to be fair, I made the choice to read it! It was additional reading and I am glad I opened the book. It immediately attracted my attention. It is no secret that I stress the importance of the body when it comes to questions of holistic healing. And theology and spirituality are part of that.
I had never heard the term “body theology” before. And, given the fact that the book is from 1998, it cannot be stated that this concept is “new”! Still, when looking at the things that one learns in a theology study program, scholarly literature from the U.S., especially with a feminist focus, is not the rule but rather the exception. That in and of itself is a finding that says something about bodies and their role in theology. There still is male dominance but that is not what I want to focus on in my short reflection here.
I think, the most important reason why I got interested in the book is that it is not so “theological,” I would say. That might sound funny but what I mean is that it reminded me of the hundreds of cultural studies books I read in my academic career. And these included many on gender and feminism as well. I remember one of the early encounters with the professor who is now teaching this theological anthropology class. Back then in 2022, I was still very frustrated with the state of my own academic field and the fact that gender studies were dominating in a way that, to me at least, felt daunting.
Today, I am grateful for the education I got on gender and sexuality in American Studies. I do realize that other fields in the humanities are still catching up in one way or the other. That sounds judgmental and I mean it that way. But I think, this is merely a matter of internationalization that is still slowly progressing. Of course, Germany had feminist pioneers in academia and elsewhere many decades back. And they were inspired by international leaders of the movement. Still, as far as I can see, the international influences are just starting to be really taught. And this also means that the latest research on gender and sexuality in the U.S. is only about to be incorporated in the curricula here, even though this content might have been studied for a longer time among researchers.
- Process Theology
These passages about Whitehead were eye opening for me. This is not necessarily because of the connection to the body that the book has as its focus. It is because I never dealt with Whitehead before but what is written here immediately absorbed my attention and I ended up reading a long article in a philosophy encyclopedia about him. That was when I had a flashback to the times when I was a scholar myself (well, one never stops being a scholar, unless one disidentifies with the term, which I previously did… but that is a different story!). I felt all these thoughts about a new research project forming in my mind. And I could immediately see how Whitehed would bring in the ideal theoretical framework.
This was a really fulfilling moment, even though it had very little to do with the theological insights being share here about Whitehead in connection with (feminist) body theology. Still, even the short passage here reveals a lot about the gist of the approach. It is relational in nature. And thus, it naturally has the capacity to undo dualistic thinking. Even these two very simple insights made it clear to me that Whitehead was someone I need to look at. And what I then discovered about his background in mathematics and other fields he was involved in, made me thrilled. I can immediately see why especially feminists might also treat his approach critically but I am just happy that he found me in this book. All my major research works were characterized by a large share of theoretical and philosophical thinking. In fact, these were the things that kept my mind busy. This was, where “scholarship” happened for me.
The rest, the application to literary studies, was mostly a side issue for me. For the reviewers, however, the professors, it was different. Most of them focused on the literature part. This is natural because literary scholars are not philosophers and especially in American Studies, they are not that much into highly abstract thinking. Still, I was able to do my personal rocket science. Maybe nobody really understood what I wrote. And maybe, I myself for a long time devalued my own capacity for abstract thinking. But in this very moment when I dove into Whitehead, I knew that this part of me, the abstract thinker, had been dormant for a long time and was now about to wake up again.
2. Subordinating the Body
Even though this is a very blunt statement to say that Christianity is somewhat hostile to the body, I would agree. But the authors do a good job to go through history and explain the changes that happened in the long history of Christianity and waves that occurred when it came to valuing or devaluing the body in relation to the soul. Also, even nowadays, there are huge cultural differences, of course. In a country where people still mostly work with their bodies, the Bible and related teachings are naturally read differently than in Europe or the U.S., where the socio-economic situation, despite all difference, is still much more developed.
What I miss when I think of bodies in relation to the present-day church is a lived spirituality that works with the senses. I know, this sounds paradoxical. Yes, we hear music in church and we nourish our bodies in communion. But this deep working with the body that you find in Buddhism and Eastern traditions, especially in meditation and in the martial arts, is just not there, at least not anymore and especially not in the Protestant tradition. Yes, this is a blunt statement as well but what I am simply saying is that I generally agree with the fact that the mind is valued more than the body. And I think, it will take a long time till people realize this again but the physical condition of people in the Western world, despite the longer life spans, just yells out for this (obesity, orthopedic problems, lack of movement…). And, I think, if people realize this deep connection between spirituality and the body again, this might give the church another uplift — in whichever form “the church” will survive.
I hardly ever go there…
3. Transgendered
When I read the name “Leslie Feinberg” here, it opened up a journey to my academic and personal past. The two cannot be divided, I guess. People in the humanities usually study themselves — that is the trivial finding I have. And I do not want to judge here. I am one of them, even though it brings about many complications when it comes to the separation between the researcher’s identity as a subject and the subjects and objects being studied by this very subject. Anyhow, when I studied at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), an Ivy League University, I met some of the first openly gay and also transgendered scholars. These were moments of true revelation. I will never forget them. But it would take almost decades for me to integrate all these different identity aspects and even longer to write about them.
Leslie Feinberg is the author of Stonebutch Blues. If you google the book — you will see that it is a classic of queer or gay or even trans literature from the U.S. I never read the book in class. Neither did I read it while I was in the U.S. I read it many years later — actually, only a few years ago from now. The book is not easy to digest. There is much violence in it and the authors of Body Theology also pick up the topic of violence when it comes to the female body quite often. They also mention the Stonewall Riots that took place between the LGBT community and the police in NYC in 1969. This is something that many people in Germany do not know about, I think.
In any case, Feinberg lived the life of a trans person, to make it short. She looked like a man, dressed like a man, partly tried to biologically become a man. This is what “trans” commonly implies from the “outside.” A trans “woman” would now criticize my words because they are wrong from his perspective. And that is right. A trans “woman” does not try to biologically become a “man,” she IS one already, at least inside. Whatever the word plays may suggest: I do understand what is written here about the hatred of straight people or lesbians towards transgender “women.” It feels like betraying their cause. If you are born as a biological “woman” but then live the life of a “man“ — how can you be a feminist? At least, this is the implicit question I sometimes face, especially when straight women feel uncomfortable about gay “women.”
In truth, people like Feinberg showed that being trans and being a feminist does not form any contrast. To the contrary — Feinberg and many of the leading academics in gender and sexuality studies that I had the privilege to meet were and still are the most outspoken activists of the feminist cause (including men). So, just because you know that inside, you are a man, that does not mean that you try to become a member of the “male ruling class”, so to speak. That is BS. But, as I am saying, I understand it. It would just be nice for feminists to understand that being a man does not automatically mean that you are a pig, oppressing women all the time. No matter how smart and academic people can be, sometimes their own stereotypes about others end up being very much like the ones of the people that they are trying to deconstruct (of course, there are scientific terms for this…).
Well, things are complicated, as we see.
And the body is in the middle of all this.
I am glad that theology is discovering its potential for making a contribution in this discourse.
And I do think that German scholars in the field of theology have great impact on educating the future generation of spiritual leaders who help transform society.
Transforming society also means to create awareness for the fact that the heterosexual ideal of life is a historical fact but that history has a lot more to offer when it comes to these topics… (e.g., the Two Spirit People in Native American culture).
Reflection Questions
1) Do you agree that dualistic (black and white) thinking is reduced if we focus on relationships between things and people and even God instead of emphasizing and comparing these elements themselves?
2) Do you think that Christianity is somewhat hostile to the body or does not value physicality? What makes you think so?
3) Can you understand people who feel like they are caught in the “wrong” body? Why/not?