Joshua Paul Smith. Review of Beth Felker Jones, Marks
of His Wounds: Gender Politics and Bodily Resurrection (New York City: Oxford University Press, 2007).
The problem of a normative dualism
has for centuries—millennia, even—plagued not only the most brilliant
theological minds of the Church, but has been a driving force behind popular
culture, as well. A Neo-Gnostic separation of soul from body is alive and well
in many churches today, and continues to inform popular conceptions of what
constitutes a “normal” human body. The harm that this dualism visits upon the
body—particularly female bodies—is ironically both physical and spiritual.
Bodies are fashioned and broken by the 10-billion-dollar-a-year cosmetic
surgery industry, by eating disorders, and by dangerous normative expectations
glimpsed in tabloids and on swimsuit models. Few attempts have been made by
theologians to reconcile a Christian understanding of a bodily resurrection
with feminist conceptions of the body. Such is the basis for Beth Felker
Jones’s Marks of His Wounds. In five
short chapters, Jones attempts to argue that not only do gendered bodies matter in the future physical resurrection of the dead,
they are indeed integral to
understanding the grace of God’s redemptive plan for humanity.
Jones’s thesis is twofold: 1) A
new, holistic feminist anthropology is needed to replace those feminist theories
of the last several decades that have slipped into a body/soul dualism that
considers only the female body or only the female essence, and 2) this holistic feminist
theory of the body is reconcilable to the orthodox Christian tradition of the
physical resurrection of the dead. This twofold thesis is punctuated by the
necessity of bodily sanctification reaching from the eschaton into the present.
In the first chapter, entitled,
“The Body Broken,” the author establishes the problem that she hopes to
address—namely, that current feminist and theological anthropologies have
proven insufficient for developing a theology of the body as a psychosomatic
(body/soul) unity. To take on a feminist theology of bodily resurrection, it is
first necessary to determine what constitutes embodiment, and furthermore,
feminine embodiment. A difficulty with any such undertaking is that even
feminists are predominantly dualistic when it comes to theories of the body:
either a woman is a woman because of her physical composition (essentialism),
or gender itself is transcendent and performative, based upon roles dictated by
a one’s dominant culture (constructivism). Rejecting this dangerously
dichotomous approach, Jones suggests that there is a third option which allows
for both the respect of our physical forms as well as the recognition that
humans are more than the sum of our parts: the body is good, says Jones, but
the body is also broken.
The second and third chapters (“The
Body Ordered” and “The Body Dying,” respectively) expand upon this idea with
perspectives on the general resurrection of the dead from Augustine and Calvin.
Utilizing Augustine’s theology of the body and his understanding of bodies that
are “ordered toward God,” Jones argues that physical resurrection of the gendered
body must occur if the redeeming work of the Creator is to be complete. The
physical body is not inherently evil—quite the opposite, in fact. The physical
body, as a creation of God, is good. Through sin, however, holistic body/soul
unities become disordered in our love of “things of the flesh” over the “things
of God.” Jones insists, along with Augustine, that the future resurrection of
the dead necessarily rests on the re-ordering of psychosomatic entities toward
the City of God through the transformation of psychikon bodies into pneumatikon bodies.
Jones’s treatment of John Calvin,
however, is not as clear. Calvin’s theology of the body, she points out,
differs significantly from that of Augustine. While Augustine understood the
body to be inherently good yet disordered under sin, Calvin understands the
body as that which prevents the soul from fully comprehending God. Where
Augustine viewed the corruptibility of the flesh as the ultimate enemy of
embodied creatures, Calvin reserves this claim for death itself. In fact, while
the future bodily resurrection of the dead is a theological reality for Calvin,
he nevertheless maintains an intrinsic dualism that distinguishes body from
soul. However, Jones argues that for Calvin, the concept of the noetic—that is,
the intellectual knowing of God—is ultimately inextricable from the optic, or
the seeing of God at the eschaton, and that these are in turn connected to
God’s sanctification of the physical individual. This implied physical act is
vital to an embodied feminist theology that embraces the gendered physicality
of the resurrection.
In the fourth chapter, “The Body
Raised,” the author further argues the necessity to conceptualize human beings
as psychosomatic wholes. Jones makes a case for the non-reductive physicalism
of the body/soul unity. Regardless of what a soul is, is should be understood as completely inseparable
from the physical body. In essence, one’s identity is bound by both body and
soul. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the hypostatic unity of
Christ himself—though the analogy ultimately breaks down, the psychosomatic
unity for which Jones argues is nevertheless very similar to the contention
that the physical body of Jesus and the divine nature of Christ were one and
the same.
The final chapter, “The Body
Sanctified,” establishes an ethics of living the eschaton in the present as
proleptic of the future resurrection of the dead. Jones here examines two
traditions of resurrection embodiment: the eradication of gender in the resurrection
according to Eastern tradition, and the retention of gendered resurrection
bodies in the Augustinian tradition. For feminist theologies, the Eastern
tradition is particularly problematic, since it rests on the presumption that
gender will not be carried over into the resurrection due to the inclination of
gendered physical bodies toward lust. This perspective, Jones maintains, is
inherently gender-biased. One might here recall the promise of Jesus in The
Gospel of Thomas to make Mary the Magdalene
male in order that she might participate in the Reign of God. Instead, Jones
maintains the full continuity of (albeit redeemed and transformed) gendered
bodies in the resurrection. Augustine’s concept of bodies reordered at the
eschaton toward the love of God eliminates any concern of lust from those who
might claim gender retention unholy. Furthermore, Jones concludes that an
embodied resurrection must have implications in the present—the Church much
take its cue from Jesus, who remains for us the example of one truly ordered
toward God, not in his maleness, but in his cruciformity.
There are, of course, occasional shortcomings in Jones's argument. For instance, the concept of humans as psychosomatic wholes—the very premise upon which this study rests—leaves a few questions unanswered when explored more thoroughly. If, like Jones, we are to reject both essentialism, which claims that gender is determined by physical anatomy, and constructivism, which holds that gender is the sum of one's environment and social upbringing, then what of those who are subject to the very real dualism lived out every day in the transgender community? If one's gender is integral to his or her identity in the redeemed New Creation, how then are we to approach those for whom sexual identity is an unclear struggle, or otherwise completely dichotomous? If the physical, gendered body is important in the resurrection to mark someone as a fully integrated person, then what of those with androgynous or intersex bodies? Jones's claim has very serious implications for a great number of people whom she fails to acknowledge in her assessment.
There are, of course, occasional shortcomings in Jones's argument. For instance, the concept of humans as psychosomatic wholes—the very premise upon which this study rests—leaves a few questions unanswered when explored more thoroughly. If, like Jones, we are to reject both essentialism, which claims that gender is determined by physical anatomy, and constructivism, which holds that gender is the sum of one's environment and social upbringing, then what of those who are subject to the very real dualism lived out every day in the transgender community? If one's gender is integral to his or her identity in the redeemed New Creation, how then are we to approach those for whom sexual identity is an unclear struggle, or otherwise completely dichotomous? If the physical, gendered body is important in the resurrection to mark someone as a fully integrated person, then what of those with androgynous or intersex bodies? Jones's claim has very serious implications for a great number of people whom she fails to acknowledge in her assessment.
Despite all this, Marks of His Wounds remains a well-argued and thoughtful examination of both the dangers of Neo-Gnostic
body/soul dualism and the necessity of an adequate theology of the body that
respects what God created as good—human, gendered, psychosomatic wholes. Though
at times Jones’s primary thesis may appear lost among dense language and
layered thoughts, the book ultimately converges on the very heart of what it
means to confess belief in resurrection of the dead: that God created human
bodies as good, and God will restore them to that goodness once again in the
New Creation.
