A Theology of Particularity

Unruly Bodies and the Stories They Carry

Mark A. Godin

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798216354352
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología cristiana

This book defines a Christian theology of the body, considering the unruliness of the flesh and the stories our bodies carry.

Within the Bible and religious practices, our bodies are often viewed as either one-dimensional, purely symbolic objects or the embodiment of sinful degradation. Mark A. Godin resists this turn, arguing that bodies carry stories and stories interpret bodies. This book asserts the need to recognize the body within theological inquiries. Across twelve chapters, Godin inquires: what does it mean to discern the body and what impact might this have on our relationships with ourselves, each other, and the divine? Part One consists of a critical examination of Christian theological traditions concerning bodies and stories as displayed in the work of four modern Christian thinkers. In Part Two, Godin turns to storytelling itself and investigates the portrayals of bodies in five novels. Ultimately, Godin uses fictional and real depictions of the body to define a Christian theology which attends to the concrete materiality of actual persons in the world.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Discerning the body?
• PART I The weight of theological tradition
• 1 Keeping the word flesh: Graham Ward and particularity of bodyh
• 2 Keeping the story open: Stanley Hauerwas and the plurality of stories
• 3 The indecent body: Marcella Althaus-Reid, the flesh and the theological mind
• 4 The story-making body: Paul Ricoeur, embodiment and re-imagining the world
• 5 A note about feminist epistemologies
• PART II Literary portrayals of embodied life
• 6 The bodies that remain: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and ‘This sweet touch from the world’
• 7 Tracing bodies: Jane Urquhart’s A Map of Glass and intimate geographies
• 8 Learning what to do with the body: Form and meaning in Anne Michaels’s Fugitive Pieces
• 9 Catching bodies against the current: The disjunctions of embodiment and H. F. M. Prescott’s The Man on a Donkey
• 10 The narrated body: The art of identity and sanctification in Frederick Buechner’s Godric
• Conclusion: Bodies and power, and the hope of the strange
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright